imagine herself an elephant."

CHAPTER VII

HOME FROM THE SAETER

Summer, with its light nights and brilliant days, comes rapidly to full
power on the mountains in Norway. The season is brief but intense.

It begins with a creeping of light green over the gentle slopes and
unending marshes, and a trickling of light green down around each
_tue_, or little mound of earth covered with moss and tiny berry
plants. Ptarmigans roam about in solitary pairs, murmuring when any one
comes too near their nests; gnats and horseflies buzz through the air;
and cows, with tails set straight up, scamper friskily about, trying to
escape the irritating stings.

Over everything lies a thick, warm, dark-blue haze, hindering a free
outlook.

But soon come the blueberries, the marsh wool or cotton grass, and
later the cloudberries; and on some fine day when the mother ptarmigans
go out to walk, peeping sounds are heard around them, here, there, and
everywhere. The mother birds scold more than ever, now that their young
ones are whirling like so many feathery balls a yard or more upward,
and two or three yards forward, and then tumbling down into the heather
again, head foremost. By this time the cows roam about quietly and
meditatively over the mountain, seeking the juiciest, best-flavored
herbage to nibble; the warm haze melts away and the air becomes so
sparklingly clear that mountain peaks miles distant are as delicately
and sharply outlined as the nearest little mound. Then the cloudberry
blossoms fall, and soon the marshes grow yellow and red, the tiny
blossoms of the heather color all the knolls and rocky places, the
greenness vanishes, and over the patches of white reindeer moss, which
shine out like snow here and there on the mountain, comes a blush of
red and a tinge of brown. Autumn is now drawing near.

Much of the time the sun shines brightly, and when it does, how
glorious to be the herder of a flock!

But there come days also when the fog spreads itself like a close gray
blanket, under which the ground, with its mounds and bushes and
heather, creeps stealthily, disappearing a few yards away. And out of
the fog comes a fine, mist-like rain, which deposits itself in tiny
gray beads on every blade and every pine needle, so that wherever any
one goes there is a little sprinkling of water.

In such weather it is far from pleasant to be in charge of a flock. If
the animals move forward quietly, the herder must seek