From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Today Miss Cashen asked us if we would like to go back to Europe and we all raised our hands and yelled yes. So she said fine, where were we? Margaret remembered that we were in Norway, so then Miss Cashen said well, let’s go to Sweden next. Sweden is famous for very clean people. Also for fine carpenters and weavers and for a Mr. Nobel who invented dynamite. He said that when he invented it, he thought people would blow up ugly things, like the statue that we have at the top of our stairs, or maybe Tante Esther’s ugly parlor. He didn’t think that they would use it for wicked things like blowing up each other in a war. And then when they did, he was very sad and tried to think of what he could do to make up for it. So now, every single year he gives wonderful prizes to the people who write the best books or invent the best medicines or discover some new germs and the top prize is a prize for the person who did most to make peace in the world. Then we went on to Denmark. She said that the Danes are the gentlest people in the whole world. I asked if Great Danes came from Denmark and she said yes, and that a friend of hers who lives in Denmark has two of them and they are called Hamlet and Horatio after two good friends who are characters in a famous play. She said that the play was written by England’s most famous poet and that we would talk about it when we got to England. She said that we still had lots to talk about all the things that Denmark is noted for and that there is still a tiny country near Denmark called Finland that we should visit and talk about too. Then she said that Denmark has beautiful dishes called Royal Copenhagen after their city and beautiful silver. And Denmark is the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen who wrote such wonderful fairy tales like the “Ugly Duckling.” Robert asked if Denmark is also famous for Danish pastry and Miss Cashen said that she supposed so.