Mom climbs a fir tree

Another time that I don't think I've told you about was one day when we

were going home from school. I don't remember why Nisse Palm was with us; he was older that the rest of us. Henrik i Herrefall and Sara were the biggest kids who usually walked home with us that year. Well, Nisse Palm, he took Kalle i Herrefall's cap and threw it up into an old fir tree; then he just went on. Well, Kalle cried and cried. We tried to figure out a way to get it down. Neither Henrik nor Sara could reach the lowest branches on that tree, so we couldn't just climb up that way. Someone suggested we wait until tomorrow and ask a grown-up to come help us. "Nooo!" Kalle cried even more yet. "I can't come home to Mama without my cap!"

So then Sara and Henrik came up with an idea. Together they could lift me up until I could grab the bottom branches and I could climb up into the fir tree and get the cap. They crossed their arms out in front of them and then they held hands and made a little platform. I stepped up there and then they hoisted me up to the lowest branches.

Once I was up in the tree, it wasn't too hard for me because we always climbed the cherry trees at home. We would climb up in those cherry trees as high as we could go without breaking the branches. Then when the wind blew, we would pretend we were birds and chirp like mad.

Well anyway, this fir tree wasn't quite as easy as a cherry tree because it had about a million dry needles and a couple of dead branches up in the middle, but I made it up to where the cap was and threw it down. Then I climbed back down and hung from the low branch and dropped to the ground. The other kids tried to brush me off then because my clothes and hair were just full of those dry needles. Even so, when we got home Mama said, "Child, what have you done?!" Sara stepped in for me and told her the story. Then Mama said, "I'm glad that you looked after Kalle when he needed somebody to help him and Nisse Palm is a naughty boy." She loosed my hair and combed in and combed it until all the needles were gone.