How pleased grandmother was when Harold went over to her after a meal, kissed her on the cheek, and said, “Tak for maten.” He was saying, “Thank you for the food,” as his father had taught him to say it. All polite girls and boys in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark say, “Thank you for the food,” to their mothers after a meal.
One day Harold and his father left Bergen to visit Harold’s cousin Albert who lived in Stockholm, the capital city of Sweden. They traveled for a day and a night on a train.
The train crossed Norway on Norway’s longest railway which passed through the high mountains. The electric train climbed the mountains easily and Harold saw that part of Norway which his storybooks call “the home of the giants.”
Then the train left Norway and crossed Sweden. Harold thought the farms in Sweden looked much like the farms around his home in Minnesota. The fields were large. The houses were far apart. Sometimes the train went for miles before Harold saw a farmhouse.
When Harold reached Stockholm he saw a city which to him looked much like any other city. But his cousin Albert said, “You will get your best view of Stockholm from high above the city.” So he took them to the top of a tall tower and they looked down on the city. “What a queer city it is!” said Harold. “It is spread out over many islands.”
Then Albert told Harold how Stockholm came to be built where it is. Albert had learned about the building of the city at school.
The city was built nearly seven hundred years ago. A rich nobleman planned the city in the days when many pirates sailed on the Baltic Sea, the sea which Stockholm faces. The nobleman wanted to build a fortress for protection from the pirates. All along the sea coast were islands—hundreds of islands. The nobleman chose three small islands back from the sea with many other islands in front of them and built a wall around them. He thought that behind the wall his people would be safe from the pirates.
A town grew up behind the wall. The days of the pirates passed. Stockholm became a city of trade. It grew and grew. Buildings spread over other islands until today the city covers a dozen islands in a large lake which opens into a channel of water which flows to the sea.