"They are bad children. We must beat them very hard," one wrinkled old woman explained to Anders. She had carried her pile of dripping clothes from the water's edge to a big stone, where she pounded them with a flat wooden beater. "But they will be as white as a lily when I am done." Later all the garden bushes were spread with garments. You needed only to half-close your eyes to fancy a summer snow-squall had whitened the green grass over a large area. "Everything in the house will be fresh and sweet for Midsummer's Day," sighed Mrs. Lund, when the last washerwoman had returned to the country district where she lived. CHAPTER V. MIDSUMMER'S EVE "IT looks more like the mast of one of the big ships in the harbour than anything else," said Erik. He and his father were standing beside the huge May-pole which lay flat on the green grass in grandmother's front lawn. Near by several men were hammering away on a large wooden platform, in the centre of which the pole was to be hoisted. "Yes, my son, I have often thought so. This pole is not more than fifty feet high. I have seen them twice as tall. But if we are going to cover all these cross-bars with birch boughs and wreaths, we must hitch up old Maja and drive into the woods soon." "Indeed, you must," said Mrs. Lund, as she hurried across the lawn with a huge wreath of daisies over her arm and a basket of nodding bluebells. "You will find us under that clump of beeches, making our wreaths, when you return. Oh! there is plenty for every one to do before the pole is trimmed for to-night." "Mother, you do make wreaths so fast," said Sigrid. She was sitting in the midst of a group of friends and relatives, who had gathered at grandmother's to celebrate Midsummer's Eve and the day following. As she talked, she sorted daisies, or "priests'-ruffs," as she called them, into bunches for her mother. "Just hand me a clump of those white daisies, so I can tie their long stems to this rope, and you will soon see how I do it," said Mrs. Lund. "To-night will be the longest of the whole year," said Miss Eklund, while her fingers plaited birch leaves. "How I love these long days of sunshine! Why, last night I read in my room without a lamp till almost eleven o'clock!" "Please tell Karin and me about how you made pancakes on Midsummer's Eve when you were a little girl, Miss Eklund," begged Sigrid, who, with her cousin, was sitting near the governess.