Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Judith Wirawan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+----------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Notes: | | | | Words surrounded by _ are italicized. | | | | A number of obvious errors have been corrected in this text. | | For a complete list, please see the bottom of this document. | | | +----------------------------------------------------------------+
[Illustration: STOCKHOLM _Swedish Travel Information Bureau, Inc._]
GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS - NEW YORK _by arrangement with the A. Flanagan Company_
Those who posed for the pictures in LITTLE ERIK OF SWEDEN:
Carsten Grande, Jr.: who not only looks like Erik but who as Erik plays the piano and sings just like the hero of this tale.
Grant Christianson: who is a true Swede, proud of his as Nils Viking ancestry.
Helen Anderson: A charming and beautiful newcomer as Greta to America--she left Sweden just a year ago!
Curtis Grande: A Norwegian, and very proud of it! as Johan But Curtis was happy to be little Swedish Johan for the book.
Hearty thanks go to all of you. And many thanks, too, to the photographer, Carsten Grande, Sr., who directed the posing, made the pictures, and added a large share to the attractiveness of this book.
"_As a child I sang with every step I took, and with every jump my feet made._"
Erik sang as he skated across the lake. The lake glistened with chill, bluish crispness like steel.
It was as natural for Erik to sing as it was for most little boys to breathe. Sometimes it seemed that he had the throat of a bird.
"Down the mountainside came thundering, Fierce and wild, a giant tall."
It was Greta who had taught Erik these fairy-tale songs. Greta made them up. She was the eighteen-year-old daughter of Fru Hansson, who owned Hanssonborg, the large estate where Erik lived. Erik was the son of a poor tenant farmer, but Greta had always treated him like her own little brother. They were often together, and Erik thought her as beautiful as any fairy-tale princess.
"Carried off the lovely princess, To his gloomy dungeon--"
[Illustration: HANSSONBORG, WHERE ERIK LIVES _Paul's Photos_]
Suddenly Erik stopped singing and stood still to listen. He had heard the music of sleigh bells on the other side of the snowy pine forest. Now came the thud of horses' hoofs and the crunch of a sleigh's runners, as it stopped before the Hansson home.