Gerda, with a dainty cap on her hair, and a big apron covering her red dress from top to toe, was dusting the pleasant living-room; and Karen, perched on a high stool at the dining-room table, was polishing the silver.  The maids were flying from room to room with brooms and brushes; and in the kitchen Fru Ekman and the cook were preparing the lut-fisk and making the rice pudding.

The lut-fisk is a kind of smoked fish—­salmon, ling, or cod—­prepared in a delicious way which only a Swedish housewife understands.  It is always the very finest fish to be had in the market, and before it reaches the market it is the very finest fish that swims in the sea.  Every fisherman who sails from the west coast of Sweden—­and there are hundreds of them—­gives to his priest the two largest fish which he catches during the season.  It is these fish which are salted and smoked for lut-fisk, and sold in the markets for Christmas and Easter.

When Gerda ran out into the kitchen to get some water for her plants, she stopped to taste the white gravy which her mother was making for the lut-fisk.

Then as she danced back through the dining-room to tell Karen about the pudding she sang:—­

“Away, away to the fishers’ pier,
Many fishes we’ll find there,—­Big salmon,
Good salmon: 
Seize them by the neck,
Stuff them in a sack,
And keep them till Christmas and Easter.”

“Hurry and finish the silver,” she added, “and then we will help Mother set the smoergasbord for our dinner.  We never had half such delicious things for it before.  There is the pickled herring your father sent us, and the smoked reindeer from Erik’s father in Lapland; and Grandmother Ekman sent us strawberry jam, and raspberry preserve, and cheese, and oh, so many goodies!” Gerda clapped her hands so hard that some of the water she was carrying to her plants was spilled on the floor.  “Oh, dear me!” she sighed, “there is something more for me to do.  We’d never be ready for Yule if it wasn’t for the Tomtar.”

The Tomtar are little old men with long gray beards and tall pointed red caps, who live under the boards and in the darkest corners of the chests.  They come creeping out to do their work in the middle of the night, when the house is still, and they are especially helpful at Christmas time.

The two little girls had been talking about the Tomtar for weeks.  Whenever Karen found a mysterious package lying forgotten on the table, Gerda would hurry it away out of sight, saying, “Sh!  Little Yule Tomten must have left it.”

And one day when Gerda found a dainty bit of embroidery under a cushion, it was Karen’s turn to say, “Let me have it quick!  Yule Tomten left it for me.”  Then both little girls shrieked with laughter.

Birger said little about the Tomtar and pretended that he did not believe in them at all; but when Gerda set out a dish of sweets for the little old men, he moved it down to a low stool where they would have no trouble in finding it.