Shields High School - Patriot Yearbook (Seymour, IN)

Page 21 text:

In Scandinavia HENRY WAJENBERG OR many years it has been the beautiful custom of Scandinavian children to spend a few golden harvest days in gleaning grain from the fields to feed to the sparrows on Christmas day. [ach little harvester provides a feast for his songsters, and the birds never fail to be present on that particular day, when a tall pole, crowned with clustering grain, is set up before them. On this festal day it is really difficult to decide which are happier, the birds who share in the Christmas feast or the children. Little Elsie had also a large sheaf put away for the birds. Elsie was not a fair-haired little maiden of the North. The soft locks that fell freely over her shoulders were of a deep, lustrous black; her eyes, too, were dark and soft and expressed such a depth of feeling that they always appeared humid as with a tear either of joy or sorrow. On seeing her one felt impelled to place a hand upon her head and kiss the plump little cheek that seemed aflame with health. She was the only child of loving par- ents who had drifted here a year since from some more southern clime. She was living a happy, care-free life in this sheltered nook on the wild coast of Scandinavia. The winter, thus far, had been unusually mild, for there had been no frost severe enough to close the harbors. It was well towards noon of the day before Christmas that the father an- nounced his intention of going to the village, no great distance off, to purchase a few things for the morrow. On hearing this, Elsie ran up to him with the request that he first set up the bird poles, as he had before promised. This the father gladly did according to her direction. A hole of the right size had been chiseled into a flat stone, and in this the pole was easily lowered or raised, as Elsie might wish. Having completed his work, the father stepped into his boat and rowed away, as Elsie ran up to the house. Here the fond mother was working with a view to the morrow. The room was filled with an odor of good things, which seemed to exert magical influence over Elsie, for she began im- mediately to help her mother. However, seeing that her efforts were not seriously appreciated, she decided to turn her attention elsewhere. For a while she was quiet. Suddenly she startled her mother by the cry, “Oh, mother! look! It’s snowing. The soft, white flakes were, indeed, beginning to drift down and settle in sheltered places. After a hasty glance, the mother continued her work. But Elsie, perched on a chair, remained gazing out of the window, apparently fascinated by the tiny, whirling, drifting, never-resting flakes. Suddenly her eye caught sight of a little dark speck far out on the sea, battling with the waves that were ever growing larger and more threatening. She turned to her mother: ‘‘I think I see father coming back. My! but he’s having a time out there on those waves.”” The mother left her work. Busy as she had been, no thought of a storm had entered her mind.