The Minneapolis journal., 1901-09-07

Travellers do not see much of the native
costume in Norway outside of the hotels
and the shops, where curiosities and
| photographs are sold. Some of the hotel
keepers require mattresses In their din
| ing-rooms and the other maids to wear it,
| for 1t gives an air to the house and pleases
the patrons. For the same reason it ad-
vertises the shops, but among the people
| generally ordinary clothes are worn except
on Sunday, when everybody dresses up and
| goes to church in the morning and spends
the afternoon in recreation, visiting and
other forms of pleasure. The Norwegian
Sunday is day of recreation after din
ner. The hours of the morning are de-
voted to religious instruction and worship,
but as soon as dinner is served 1t is a
holiday for everybody, servants included.
The women in the fields wear any old
thing, although If they could be induced to
put on the native costume they would add
considerably to the picturesqueness of the
country. | have hitherto spoken of the in
dustry of the Norwegian women. The lat
est census shows that 627,23S women,
amounting to % per cent of the total
population Of Norway, are engaged in
manual labor, domestic and factory work.
Fourteen per cent of the working women
of the country, S8,544 in number, are ac-
tually engaged in manual labor upon the
farms, where they do everything from
plowing to harvesting. have seen them
following the plow. swinging scythe and
hoeing potatoes alongside of the men.
Only $40 per cent of the working women
OF the country are employed in the fac
tories.
| Most Of the haying is done by women.
and, as We are here in the hayipg season.
We have an opportunity to see them ac-
tually at work. They NOW with scythes.
The blades are, however, considerably
| shorter than those used in the United
States, and when the grass is down they
dry 1t on lines, as they do their laundry
work, either wires or ropes, or narrow
strips of scantling which are erected in
| every meadow, and are known as has
| jers." The meadows are manured both
spring and fall, just like the ordinary
plowed ground, and the hay grows thick
and heavy. Every little spot upon the
mountain side that will produce a crop of
grass Is cleared and cultivated for that
purpose and, although the mountains seem
| to be too Irecipitous to climb, the natives
have trails leading to the top and send
! down loaGs of wood and hay by wire.
| At frequent intervals along the highway
| passengers are puzzled by seeing wires
running to the tops of neighboring cliffs,
i and wonder what they are for. Occasion
ally they are gratified by seeing this
novel kind Of elevator in operation. Men
go to the tor of the mountains and re-
main htere for days and sometimes weeks
at a time, cutting hay from the little
meadows, plucking the tender fresh leaves
! from the beech. birch, juniper and other
| trees, tying them up in bundles and hitch
| ing them to the wire. They go down very
swiftly at first, but by Stacking the wire
! the man at the top can moderate the
speed. The fresh green leaves are fed to
the horses and COWS at once. The hay is
spread over the "hes1ers" to dry.
lxy q 9z ant
| down in the same manner, the result OF
| the days work being tied up in ropes and
transferred every evening to the valley,
| where the boys and girls pile it up along
| the roadside with open spaces between so
that it will dry before the men come
down. when it is hauled to the Woodshed
| behind the house.
| have read stories about women cutting
| hay upon the sides of mountains so steep
! that they (the women I mean) have to be
anchored with ropes around their waists
/ to prevent them from falling over preci-
pices, and such things may happen, al
| though l have not seen them. l have,
however seen potato patches way up in
i perilous situations at angles of 45 degrees,
| when one must wonder how they can be
cultivated on such steep incline, and it
| is common here for the farmers to have q
perpendicular back yard, often a sheer
precipice from 1900 to 1000 feet high.
1t is also true that every farmer, or al
most everyone, has a waterfall. That is
/ no exaggeration. During a. drive of thirty
1 miles yesterday we counted forty-two.
Many Of them were picturesque. Some
| were impressive, and nearly all Of them
would be considered prize attractions II
| they stood alone. But familiarity breeds
contempt, or at least indifference, with
waterfalls as we'll as with women. At
first We thought it necessary to photo
/ graph every waterfall we saw; now ex
/ perience has taught us that it doesn't pay
| and the kodak is not produced unless we
see something very fine.
There are drawbacks, however, to the
sublimest scenery. 1t must be confessed
with a proper degree of disappointment
and even evaporation that there is fly
| in the Norway ointment. They call it a
| ''myg," and to pronounce it correctly you
have to screw up the right side of the
mouth and make a peculiar sound-merg
is as near as l can spell it, They tell you
that you must give the ~" the sound of
"oe'' in Goethe. Ordinary mortals would
find it very difficult to say exactly what
that ought to be.
The "myg'' is a very enterprising and
persistent mosquito, of large dimensions
and an Indifference to danger that is
worthy of a more useful creature. The
! New Jersey mosquito was always re-
! garded as the champion of his kind until
| the gold hunters in Alaska found breed
! that surpassed his; but 1 will venture to
| say that the Norwegian mosquito is as
! bold, as determined and has as sharp a
| pair of nippers as any that can be found
| When one of them gets hold of you in the
night you dream that you are being eaten
| by a crocodile. 1t should be said, how
ever, that mosquitoes are not found every
where in Norway, any more than in Amer
! huf "a of or
| places uninhabitable.
And the fly plague is almost as bad. I
see American tanglefoot fly paper adver-
tised by all the "landhandlers,' as the
little shopkeepers are called.
The weather is surprisingly hot We
| see in the papers that hot wave is
crossing the earth, that you have had it
in Chicago and in New York with terrible
fatalities, and the kilograms have told US
of the suffering in London, Paris, Ber-
! lin and elsewhere on the continent; but
although there has been no suffering here
SO far as l can judge, the weather has
| been remarkably warm for this altitude
| and latitude. People tell me, however
that in some parts of Norway it is always
| very warm in the summer. 1t is often a.
faflacy to go northward to escape the
heat. l have travelled pretty much all
| over the world and have visited nearly all
| Of &he tropics, and the hottest place Y
have ever been in is Miles City, Mont,
where the thermometer stood at ia de-
| grees in the shade about this time last
year.
/ We saw an interesting sight yesterday.
the funeral Of farmer. His house was
! trimmed with green boughs and festooned
with ropes of ground pine. The word
farveP (farewelD was worked in green
over the front door. The coffin, which was
4 carried on a bier was coverad With do1r