Happy Times in Norway

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THE BOYS REPORT CARDS COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE. They could have been much better too, of course. But both of them passed, and that was almost more than Mother had dared hope for. The little town where Hans and Anders had their home lies directly on one of the main routes of summer vacation travel. And all who passed through the little town had to stop off and see Maihaugen, the big outdoor museum for which it is renowned. The story of Maihaugen is a story in itself. Anders Sandvig was the name of a young Norwegian dentist who had won a reputation as a scientist in his field. He had just accepted a creditable appointment abroad in Europe when it was discovered he had tuberculosis, and the doctors said that if he wanted to live he had to go back home to Norway and settle down up there someplace where the altitude was high and the air dry and clean. Sandvig felt this was like being sentenced 133 2 H A P P Y TIMES IN N O R W A Y to a living death. Should he give up his work in a university abroad for a dental practice in a little country town—where he had to keep office hours one day a week or so in hotels and at farmhouses along the valley , for farmers certainlycould not make a trip to town every time they had toothache. . . .Little did Sandvig suspect at the time that Fate had assigned him a life's task that would make him one of Norway's most deserving sons. At that time—fifty years ago—a new era was reaching into the quiet Norwegian valleys, where the life of the people for a thousand years had progressed so smoothly and so slowly that the peasants themselves fully believed they lived as their forefathers before them had always lived. For even though each new generation added its experiences and discoveries and improvements to the value of their heritage, the peasants always claimed that the poor little improvements they had contributed, or had seen come, were nothing in comparison with what their forefathers, in their wisdom, had contributed. Then came the railroad , the telephone, better roadways, the water power in the cataracts was harnessed, new ideas and new people streamed in on the oldsocialorder. The peasants became bewildered, uncertain of the worth of the values they held and had depended upon before. Soon 134 S U M M E R VACATION they began to imitate the new. That wasgood in many ways. They learned much that was sound and true. But they lost their confidencein their own inheritance. Blindly, and with uncritical eyes, they abolished the "old-fashioned." Much was not worth preserving, of course, but much, much more was good and tried— the fruits of a people's experiences through a thousand years in how to best manage life in a harsh and difficult land. The old dwelling houses on the farms were builtof logs and thatched with turf—snug and warm in winter, and airy and cool in summer when the heat of the imprisoned sun between the mountainsides turned the air in the valleys suffocatingly hot. Now the peasants began letting these old houses fall into ruin or tearing them down to build houses of clapboard instead, with verandas and tiled roofs—flimsy, ugly, cold in winter, and all toowarm in summer. They bought cheap furniture of town style and moved their fine old things into the attic or sold them to antique dealers from town or from outside. They began wearing clothing from the stores and discarded their homespun things—the strong, practical working clothes and the gloriously colorful garments they had for festive occasions. Worst of all, they gave up their old food and their plain cooking . Instead ofhard, coarse bread and arich abundance 135 H A P P Y TIMES IN N O R W A Y of milk and butter and cheese, and meat and fish from their own brine barrels, they began drinking coffee many times a day and eating soft white bread and margarine, and bought canned goods when things were to be particularly fine. It was not strange there was work enough for a dentist in the valley. Anders Sandvig realized that something was wrong. He looked at the old farmhouses rotting away. How skillful the carpenter's work had been...