"I wonder if any one out in this wilderness counts his stacks, and
compares them with his neighbour's?" he said.
A little later they came to Ljungen, a river which glides through a
broad valley. Immediately everything was so changed that they might well
think they had come to another country. The dark spruce forest had
stopped on the inclines above the valley, and the slopes were clad in
light-stemmed birches and aspens. The valley was so broad that in many
places the river widened into lakes. Along the shores lay a large
flourishing town.
As they soared above the valley the eagle realized that the boy was
wondering if the fields and meadows here could provide a livelihood for
so many people.
"Here live the reapers who mow the forest fields," the eagle said.
The boy was thinking of the lowly cabins and the hedged-in farms down in
Skane when he exclaimed:
"Why, here the peasants live in real manors. It looks as if it might be
worth one's while to work in the forest!"
The eagle had intended to travel straight north, but when he had flown
out over the river he understood that the boy wondered who handled the
timber after it was stacked on the river bank.
The boy recollected how careful they had been at home never to let a
grain be wasted, while here were great rafts of logs floating down the
river, uncared for.
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