ymaid, "it appears as if the tiny folk
were listening to us. You should not have left it to another to set out
that blue bowl!"

IN MEDELPAD

_Friday, June seventeenth_.

The boy and the eagle were out bright and early the next morning. Gorgo
hoped that he would get far up into West Bothnia that day. As luck would
have it, he heard the boy remark to himself that in a country like the
one through which they were now travelling it must be impossible for
people to live.

The land which spread below them was Southern Medelpad. When the eagle
heard the boy's remark, he replied:

"Up here they have forests for fields."

The boy thought of the contrast between the light, golden-rye fields
with their delicate blades that spring up in one summer, and the dark
spruce forest with its solid trees which took many years to ripen for
harvest.

"One who has to get his livelihood from such a field must have a deal of
patience!" he observed.

Nothing more was said until they came to a place where the forest had
been cleared, and the ground was covered with stumps and lopped-off
branches. As they flew over this ground, the eagle heard the boy mutter
to himself that it was a mighty ugly and poverty-stricken place.

"This field was cleared last winter," said the eagle.

The boy thought of the harvesters at home, who rode on their reaping
machines on fine summer mornings, and in a short time mowed a large
field. But the forest field was harvested in winter. The lumbermen went
out in the wilderness when the snow was deep, and the cold most severe.
It was tedious work to fell even one tree, and to hew down a forest such
as this they must have been out in the open many weeks.

"They have to be hardy men to mow a field of this kind," he said.

When the eagle had taken two more wing strokes, they sighted a log cabin
at the edge of the clearing. It had no windows and only two loose boards
for a door. The roof had been covered with bark and twigs, but now it
was gaping, and the boy could see that inside the cabin there were only
a few big stones to serve as a fireplace, and two board benches. When
they were above the cabin the eagle suspected that the boy was wondering
who could have lived in such a wretched hut as that.

"The reapers who mowed the forest field lived there," the eagle said.

The boy remembered how the reapers in his home had returned from their
day's work, cheerful and happy, and how the best his mother had in