"The reindeer
are never housed and seem to like cold weather. They prefer to dig up the
moss for themselves, and will not eat it after it has been gathered and
dried."

Just then the Lapp mother came to speak to her husband, and in a few
minutes all the rest of the family arrived.

"They are going to milk the reindeer," Erik explained to Gerda.

"How often do you milk them?" she asked.

"Twice a week," was the answer. "They give only a little milk, but it is
very thick and rich."

Erik and his brother Pers went carefully into the herd and threw a lasso
gently over the horns of the deer, to hold them still while the mother
did the milking. The twins looked on with interest; but to their great
astonishment not one of the reindeer gave more than a mug of milk. They
had been used to seeing brimming pails of cow's milk at the Ekman farm in
Dalarne.

"How do they ever get enough cream to make butter?" questioned Gerda.

"We never make butter, but we make good cheese," Erik's mother explained,
as she brought a cup of milk for them to taste.

"What do these people eat?" Gerda asked her father, when the woman went
back to her milking.

"The reindeer furnish them with milk, cream, cheese and meat; and when
they sell an animal they buy coffee, sugar, meal, tobacco, and whatever
else they need. Then they catch a few fish and kill a bear once in a
great while."

"I have killed two bears in my life," Erik's father said with pride.
"Look," and he showed his belt, from which hung a fringe of bears' teeth.

"Do all the Lapps know how to speak Swedish?" Birger questioned.

"And do they all know how to read and write?" added Gerda.

Lieutenant Ekman nodded. "Most of them do," he replied. "Our government
provides teachers and ministers for the largest settlements, so that the
Laplanders may become good Swedish subjects."

"My brother and I went to school in Jockmock last winter," said Erik, who
had overheard the conversation. "It is a Lapp village near Gellivare, and
my father goes there sometimes to sell toys that we carve from the
antlers of the reindeer."

A little five-year-old girl, who had hardly taken her eyes from Gerda's
face, suddenly put up her hand and took off a leather pouch which hung
around her neck. Opening the pouch, she took from it a tiny bag made of
deerskin.

Gerda had noticed that each one of the family wore just such a pouch, and
she had seen the mother open hers, when she was making the coffee,