One Year Abroad

by Blanche Willis Howard

We came here from Reutte in an open carriage, passed through a wonderfully beautiful ravine, saw the lovely dark-green lakes that delight the soul in this part of the world, little hamlets scattered about picturesquely among pine-clad hills, bold peaks towering to the clouds in the distance, and drove slowly through soft, broad meadows, where the whole population was out making hay. We saw many Tyrolean Maud Müllers in bright gowns that looked pretty in the sunshine. A German friend told us a certain small object was “an American hay-cart, and very practical, like all American inventions.” He was so positive in his convictions, and, at the same time, so gracious towards the inventive genius of America, that we saw it would be useless and unwise to pretend to know anything about the hay-cart of our native heath. But if an American hay-cart should see its Tyrolean prototype, it would shatter itself into atoms with laughter.

So in the serene, perfect midsummer weather, through this charming country, we came to Schattwald, the highest village in the Thanheimer Thal.

I feel now that it is my duty to give a friendly caution to people whose nerves are easily shocked, and to advise them to drop this letter at this very point, for it is shortly going to treat of exceedingly realistic and inelegant things.

We drove to the village inn. There were hens and children on the broken stone doorstep, and men drinking beer in a little pavilion close by. A broad and jocund landlady told us there was absolutely no place for us. We are, therefore, ensconced in a veritable peasant's cottage over the way, going across to the inn when we are hungry, which is tolerably often in this mountain air.

Our rooms are broad and very low, with wide casements having tiny panes. A stout wooden bench against the wall serves as sofa and chairs. A bare wooden table in front of it is graced by a great dish filled with Alpine roses, Edelweiss, and Wildemänner, which is an appropriate name for the little flower with its brown unkempt head and shaggy elf-locks blowing in the wind. A six-inch looking-glass is hung exactly where the wall joins the ceiling, and exactly where we cannot possibly see ourselves in it without standing on something, when we invariably bump our heads. This pointedly tells us that vanity is a plant that does not flourish in these lofty altitudes. There are crucifixes on the walls, and extraordinary religious pictures; and in the corner of the front door there is a saint somebody made of wood, life-size, with a reddish gown, and tinsel stars on a wire encircling her head. I think she must be Mary, though it did not occur to me at first, she is such a corpulent young woman, with a thick, short waist, and solid feet, which, nevertheless, by their position, express the idea that she is floating. An old woman often sits by her, knitting, as we go in and out.

“Is it clean?” I know some one is asking. That depends upon what you call clean; and when travelling one must modify one's opinion about cleanliness and order. For a dressing-room it would be shockingly unclean; for peasant life up in the Alps it is—if the expression is permissible—clean enough.

The floors are clean, and the bedding and towels. The water is pure and fresh, the dishes and food perfectly clean. And these, after all, are the essentials. But things are very much mixed, to say the least; and the animal kingdom lives in close proximity to its superiors. In fact, up here it seems to have no superiors.

You sit in the open air eating a roast chicken, with a bit of salad; and the brother and sister chickens, that will some day be sacrificed to the appetite of another traveller, are running about unconscious of their doom at your feet. A little colt walks up to you and insists upon putting his nose in your plate,—insists, too, upon being petted,—and hasn't the least delicacy or comprehension when you tell him you are busy and wish he would go away. He stays calmly, and presently a goat or two and a big dog join the group. Such imperturbable good-nature and complacency, such naïveté, I have never before known animals to possess. They have been treated since their birth with so much consideration, they never imagine that their society may not always be desired. In fact, the animals and the people have innocent, friendly ways; and as it never occurs to them you can be displeased with anything they may do, the result is you never are. And as to the question of cleanliness, perhaps the simplest way to settle it is to say that there is indeed dirt enough here, but it is all, as the children say, “clean dirt,” and at all events, with glorious air and lovely mountain views, brightness and goodness and kindness meeting you on every side from the peasants, one must be very sickly either in body or mind, or in both, to be too critical about trifles.

One whole morning we spent in a Sennhütte,—a cowherd's hut,—high above the village. (Did I not warn you that ungenteel things were coming?) And it was one of the most interesting and amusing half-days we have ever known. There were fifty cows there, as carefully tended as if they were Arabian horses, and noble specimens of their kind of beauty. The prettiest ones were cream-colored, with great soft eyes. They expected to be talked to and petted like all the other animals in Schattwald. There were different rooms, the mountain breezes blowing straight through them all, where five or six workmen were making butter and enormous cheeses. If we do not know how to make superior cheese and butter, it is not the fault of our hosts in the Sennhütte, for they left nothing unexplained.

Dare I, or dare I not, tell what should now come in a faithful chronicle of that morning? I dare. Towards twelve, the chief workman—a man who had been devoting himself to our entertainment, even sending his little son far out on the hills for Alpine flowers for us—prepared the simple soup which serves as dinner for these hard-working men, who eat no meat during the entire summer, and work nearly eighteen hours a day. We were interested in that soup, as in everything that was made, done, or said in that novel place. It was only cream, and salt, and butter, and flour, but it was made by a dark-eyed man with his sleeves rolled up and a white cap on his head, and it simmered in a kettle large enough to be a witch's caldron.