“What is it the juniper’s up to today?” the fir wondered, taking longer steps in the heat of the sun. Before long it rose on its toes and peered over. “Oh dear, oh dear!” Its branches and needles rose straight up on end. “What is it all the others see and I don’t?” the birch asked, as it carefully lifted its skirts, and tripped after them. “Oh—oh—! If there isn’t a huge forest of fir and heather and juniper and birch already on the other side of the mountain waiting for us!” it exclaimed. The glittering dew rolled off its leaves as it quivered in the sunshine. “Ah, that’s what it means to reach our goal!” said the juniper. (Adapted.) “Björnstjerne Björnson,” from Norway’s Best Stories, published by American-Scandinavian Foundation, New York. Reindeer Land Reindeer land! Surely the land of the far, far north in Norway and Sweden may be called reindeer land. One man who traveled in that land tells of a strange sight he saw there. On snow ahead of him one day he saw something moving. It looked as if thousands of hares were playing in the snow. They seemed to jump, or leap, into the air and to come down in the same spot. But why should so many hares be there? And why did they move so strangely? The man went closer, and found that his _hares_ were reindeer tails! Yes, just tails! And thousands of them! The bodies of the reindeer were buried in the snow and just the stubby tails stuck out. The reindeer had dug into the snow, throwing up a bank which hid their bodies from sight. They were eating the moss which they found under the snow and happily wagging their tails as they ate. The reindeer are about the only animals that can get a living in those mountains where little grows except moss. And the people, called Lapps, who roam about with them get their living from the reindeer. The Lapps are small people. The men and women are not much taller than most ten-year-old boys and girls. They have yellow skin, blue or gray eyes, and brown hair. They dress in the skins of the animals or in coarse cloth. They look very much like the Eskimos. The word _Lapps_ means _people at land’s end_. And that part of Norway and Sweden which lies at their very tops is called Lapland. Most of the Lapps wander about, following the reindeer. Wherever the reindeer find plenty of moss, the Lapps pitch their skin tents, or build themselves a hut of sod covered with brush. In those huts they and their wolf-like dogs live until the reindeer begin to wander farther away.