An Oberland Châlet

by Edith Elmer Wood

Just before sunrise it was Antonio who was awake and ready to accompany me to the summit. The others were sleeping the sleep of the just and declined to be aroused. It was wonderfully beautiful again—the rebirth of the hidden world, the mountains thrusting up their mighty shoulders above the foamy cloud-sea that filled the valleys into the faint pink glow which was gone almost as soon as seen. As soon as the glamour of the sunrise had faded we knew that we were ravenously hungry, and shaking the sleepers into a similar conviction, we started for the Männlichen Inn and hot coffee and rolls and honey.

I do not know where the people at the Inn supposed we had dropped from at that hour. No questions were asked and no information volunteered. The breakfast was excellent and we set out for home much refreshed. Little by little, as we walked, our cramped muscles limbered and our chilled blood warmed—warmed too much, in fact, before we reached the Châlet at midday with those ton-a-piece steamer rugs over our shoulders.

Mönch and Jungfrau from the Männlichen

The moon had not done all we had expected of it. But we felt it was proved that the quartette was of the “right stuff” and could safely venture on a fortnight’s pedestrian trip.

VII

The morning we started out on our first memorable pedestrian tour, the Mother and the Elder Babe accompanied us to where the Grosse Scheidegg path turns off from the highroad, Suzanne, Anna and the Younger Babe having previously waved us out of sight from the balcony of the Châlet.

I felt some qualms of prospective homesickness as I left them and a twinge of conscience lest one of the Babes might get sick or the Mother have trouble with the housekeeping, but by the time we had dropped over on the other side of the Scheidegg ridge and could no longer see the red roof of our Châlet, I had lost my misgivings and began to enjoy my vacation. I had not felt so completely free from the harness for Heaven knows how long, and as I walked along I could feel the years sliding off of me and hear them thud as they struck the ground. I think I must have halted somewhere about the sixteen-year-old point. That’s the way I felt, at least. And it is an interesting fact that I was addressed uniformly as Fräulein or Mademoiselle by strangers all the rest of the season. The short skirt may have had something to do with it, but the Swiss are entirely used to even elderly ladies in short dresses.

Perhaps our outfit may be of some interest. My own skirt and jacket were of corduroy, and I don’t think the material could be improved upon. Nothing else will stand so much sun and rain and dust and mud and still look decent. With this, downward, gaiters of the same and heavy-soled hob-nailed boots. Upward, a dark linen shirt waist and a feather-weight Swiss straw hat, with a brim broad enough to protect from the sun. One should have the trimmings of one’s hat of a warranted-fast color. I did not and suffered accordingly. The hat I started out with was trimmed with a garland of red poppies, and the effect of the first heavy rain was fearful and wonderful to behold. The next was trimmed with ribbon and suffered almost as badly. The third was adorned with a Scotch plaid that really rose superior to weather.