Erik shook his head.  “They could not move the forest, with the rivers and mountains and wild birds,” he said.  “Without them it is not a real Lapland home.”

His whole face said so plainly, “It is only an imitation,” that Birger could not help laughing.

“There is no museum in all Europe like Skansen,” he said at last, quite proudly; “and there are many people who come here to see it, because they cannot travel, as Gerda and I did, and see the real homes in the country.”

“I am one of them,” said Karen.  “This is the only way I shall ever see a Laplander’s tent and reindeer.”

“I will show you a house that is just like my grandmother’s home in Raettvik,” suggested Gerda, and they walked slowly through the woodland paths, so that Karen would not get tired with her crutch.

In a few minutes they came upon a place where some peasants, dressed in their native costumes, were dancing folk-dances; for that is one of the pleasant Skansen ways of saving the old customs.

“Oh, let us stop and look at the dancers!” cried Karen in delight.  “I wonder what they are doing,” she added, watching their graceful movements forward and back and in and out.

“They are ‘reaping the flax,’” said Gerda, who knew all the different dances because she often went to Skansen with her mother and father on sunny summer evenings.

After the flax dance was finished, a company of boys took the platform, and made everyone laugh with a queer, half-comical, half-serious dance which Gerda called the “ox-dance.”

“I should like to dance with them,” said Erik suddenly.

“Yes, it is a great deal more fun to dance than to watch others,” said Gerda kindly; but she moved away from the sight at once, lest Erik should push in among the dancers.

“This is just the time to go over to the Bellman oak,” she suggested.  “It is the poet’s day, and there will be wreaths and garlands hanging on his tree, and a band of music playing some of his songs.”

Erik walked along slowly, his eyes looking back longingly toward the dancing, and finally Gerda looked back, too.

“See, Erik,” she said, “the boys have finished, and now the girls are going to dance alone.  You would not like to dance with the girls;” and then he followed her willingly to the other side of the island.

Crowds of people were gathering under the Bellman oak, and the four children found a seat near-by, where they could see and hear everything that went on around them.

“We must keep Erik here, or else he will insist on going to blow in the band,” Gerda whispered to her brother, as she saw the Lapp boy watching the man with the trombone.  Then she began to talk about Karl Bellman, the songs and poems he wrote, and how much the people loved him.

“He is one of our most famous poets,” she said earnestly, and Erik looked at her and repeated solemnly:—­

“Cattle die,
Kinsmen die,
One’s self dies, too;
But the fame never dies,
Of him who gets a good name.”