n twins, and were bringing clothing and gifts to fill a surprise
box?" asked Gerda, holding up her apron for the packages.

"Yes," replied a jolly, round-faced boy whom the others called Oscar,
"and we had to explain that we didn't know who was to have the box, nor
why you telephoned to us to bring the gifts to-night, when you said only
last week that you wouldn't want them until the first of June."

"There has been a hard storm on the northern coast, and Father is
going by train as far as Lulea, to see if it did much damage to the
lighthouses," Gerda explained. "He thinks that the storm may have caused
great suffering among the poor people, so we are going to send our box
with him, instead of waiting to send it by boat in June. He has to start
on his trip very early in the morning, so the box must be ready
to-night."

Everyone began talking at once, and a tall girl with pretty curly hair,
who had something important to say, had to raise her voice above the din
before she could be heard. "Let us write a letter and put it into the box
with the gifts," she suggested.

"Ja sa! Yes, of course! That is good!" they all cried; and while Gerda
ran to get pen and ink, the boys and girls gathered around a table that
stood in the center of the room.

"Dear Yunker Unknown:--" began a mischievous-looking boy, pretending to
write with a great flourish.

"Nonsense!" cried Sigrid Lundgren. "The box is filled with skirts and
aprons and caps and embroidered belts, and all sorts of things for a
girl. Don't call her Yunker. Yunker means farmer."

"Well, then, 'Dear Jungfru Unknown:--'" the boy corrected, with more
flourishes.

"I wish we knew who would get the box, then we should know just what to
say," said little Hilma Berling.

"She is probably just your age, and is named Selma," said Birger; and
everyone laughed over his choice of a name.

"Yes," agreed Oscar, "and she lives in the depths of the white northern
forests, with only a white polar bear and a white snowy owl for company."

"I don't believe we shall ever be able to write a letter," said Birger,
shaking his head. "How can we write to some one we have never seen?" and
he sat himself down on a red painted cricket beside the tall stove and
began carving the cover of the work-box.

"We have made all the little gifts in that box for some one we have never
seen," said Sigrid. "It ought to be just as easy to write her a letter."

"No, Sigrid," Birger told her; "it is t