"At noon or at night?" questioned Gerda.

"Look at the sun, and don't ask such foolish questions," Birger told her.
"When the sun is high up in the heavens it is noon; but when it is down
on the horizon it is night."

Gerda looked off at the sun which hung like a huge red moon on the
northern horizon. "Then I suppose it is almost midnight," she said, "and
time to go to bed. I was wishing it was nearer noon and dinner-time."

"You'll have to wait for dinner-time and bedtime, too, until we get back
to Gellivare," her father told her.

"When you have travelled so far just to see the sun shining at midnight,
you should spend all your time looking at it," said Birger, opening his
camera to take some pictures.

Gerda looked down into the valleys below, where a thick mist hung over
the lakes and rivers; then turned her eyes toward the sun, which was
becoming paler and paler, its golden glow shedding a drowsy light over
the hills.

"How still it is!" she said softly. "All the world seems to have gone to
sleep in the midst of sunshine."

"It is exactly midnight," said her father, looking at the watch which he
had been holding in his hand.

Birger closed his camera and slipped it into his pocket. "There," he
said, "I have a picture of the sun shining at midnight, to prove to Oscar