near frightening the life out of me," she confessed.
"Thank God he can be young for once!" When she had got over her fit
of laughing, she said: "You're not to say a word about this to
anybody, do you hear!"

***

Saturday evening the four young people stood on the steps of the
schoolhouse, ready to start. Mother Stina looked them over
approvingly. The boys had on yellow buckskin breeches and green
homespun waistcoats, with bright red sleeves. Gunhild and Gertrude
wore stripe skirts bordered with red cloth, and white blouses, with
big puffed sleeves; flowered kerchiefs were crossed over their
bodices, and they had on aprons that were as flowered as their
kerchiefs.

As the four of them walked along in the twilight of a perfect
spring evening, nothing was said for quite a long time. Now and
then Gertrude would cast a side glance at Ingmar thinking of how
he had worked to learn to dance. Whatever the reason--whether it
was the memory of Ingmar's weird dancing, or the anticipation of
attending a regular dance--her thoughts became light and airy. She
managed to keep just a little behind the others, that she might
muse undisturbed. She had made up quite little story about how the
trees had come by their new leaves.

It happened in this way, she thought: the trees, after sleeping
peacefully and quietly the whole winter, suddenly began to dream.
They dreamt that summer had come. They seemed to see the fields
dressed in green grass and waving corn; the hawthorn shimmered with
new-blown roses; brooks and ponds were spread with the leaves of
the water-lily; the stones were hidden under the creeping tendrils
of the twin flower, and the forest carpet was thick with star
flowers. And amid all this that was clothed and decked out, the
trees saw themselves standing gaunt and naked. They began to feel
ashamed of their nakedness, as often happens in dreams.

In their confusion and embarrassment, the trees fancied that all
the rest were making fun of them. The bumblebees came buzzingly up
to mock at them, the magpies laughed them to scorn, while the other
birds sang taunting ditties.

"Where shall we find something to put on?" asked the trees in
despair; but they had not a leaf to their names on either twig or
branch, and their distress was so terrible that it awakened them.

And glancing about, drowsy like, their first thought was: "Thank
God it was only a dream! There is certainly no summer hereabout.
It's lucky for us that w