laves. To these men from the frozen
north, the new world was an earthly paradise. A long clear day under a
warm sun was alone a gift to be thankful for. To plunge unstinted hands
into the hoarded wealth of ages, to be the first to hunt in a
game-stocked forest and the first to cast hook in a fish-teeming
river,--to have the first skimming of nature's cream-pans, as it
were,--was a delight so keen that, saving war and love, they could
imagine nothing to equal it. Like children upon honey, they fell upon
the gift that had tumbled latest out of nature's horn of plenty, and
swept through the vineyard in a devastating army. Snuffing the sweet
scent of the sun-heated grapes, they ate and sang and jested as they
gathered, in the most innocent carousal of their lives. Shouting and
singing, they brought in their burdens at night,--litters of purple
slain that bent even their stout backs. The roofs were covered with the
drying fruit, which was to be doctored into raisins, and cask after cask
of sour tangy wine was rolled into the provision shed beside the
garnered grain.

"The King of Norway does not live better than this," they congratulated
each other. "We have found the way into the provision house of the
world."

Their delight knew no bounds when they found that the arrival of winter
would not interfere with sport. Winter at Brattahlid meant icebergs and
blizzards, weeks of unbroken twilight and days of idling within doors.
Winter in this new land,--why, it was not winter at all!

"It is nothing worse than a second autumn," Helga said, wonderingly.
"They have patched on a second autumn to reach till spring."

The woods continued to be full of game, and the grass on the plains
remained almost unwithered. There was only enough frost in the air to
make breathing it a tonic, a tingling delight. Not even a crust formed
over the placid bay; and the waters of the river went leaping and
dancing through the sunshine in airy defiance of the ice-king's fetters.

On the last day of December, autumn employments were still in full
swing. The last rays that the setting sun sent to the bay through the
leafless branches, fell upon a group of fishermen returning with a load
of shining fish hanging from their spears. From the grove came the
ringing music of axes, the rending shriek of a doomed tree, the
crackling, crashing thunder of its fall. Down at the foot of the bluff a
boat was thrusting its snout into the soft bank, that an explorin