"Here's a Christmas dinner for your friends, the birds," Birget told
Karen, showing her the oats.

For a moment Karen's chin quivered and her eyes filled with tears, as she
thought of the pole on the barn at home where she had always fastened her
own bundle of grain; but she smiled through her tears and said
cheerfully, "The birds of Stockholm will have plenty to eat for one day
at least, if all the bundles of grain in the markets are sold."

"That they will," replied Birger. "No one in Sweden forgets the birds on
Christmas day. You should see the big bundles of grain that they hang
up in Raettvik."

"Come, Birger," called his father from the living-room, "we must set up
the tree so that it can be trimmed; and then we will see about the
dinner for the birds."

Gerda and Karen helped decorate the tree, and such fun as it was! They
brought out great boxes of ornaments, and twined long ropes of gold and
gleaming threads of silver tinsel in and out among the stiff green
branches. They hung glittering baubles upon every sprig, and at the tip
of each and every branch of evergreen they set a tiny wax candle, so that
when the tree was lighted it would look as if it grew in fairyland.

But not a single Christmas gift appeared in the room until after all
three children had had their luncheon and gone to their rooms to dress
for the afternoon festivities. Even then, none of the packages were hung
upon the tree. Lieutenant Ekman and his wife sorted them out and placed
them in neat piles on the table in the center of the room, stopping now
and then to laugh softly at the verses which they had written for the
gifts.

"Will the daylight never end!" sighed Gerda, looking out at the red and
yellow sky which told that sunset was near. Then she tied a new blue
ribbon on her hair and ran to help Karen.

"The postman has just left two big packages," she whispered to her
friend. "I looked over the stairs and saw him give them to the maid."

"Perhaps one is for me," replied Karen. "Mother wrote that she was
sending me a box."

"Come, girls," called Birger at last; "Father says it is dark enough now
to light the tree." And so it was, although it was only three o'clock,
for it begins to grow dark early in Stockholm, and the winter days are
very short.

All the family gathered in the hall, the doors were thrown open, and a
blaze of light and color met their eyes from the sparkling, shining tree.
With a shout of joy the children sk