"Oh, Gretel, when your brothers see you coming they will think you have run away because you are so lonesome without them," said Joe, laughing.
"Well, they must keep me a week before they take me home, or I shall run away again," said Gretel. "I am lonesome without them."
And so they talked, as they tramped along together up the mountain trail. Once they met a man with a large milk can on his back. The man greeted the party with a friendly, "Guten Tag! Glückliche Reise!" This was his way of saying, "Good day! A happy journey!" So the boys quickly answered, "Danke schön!" which means, "Thank you kindly!"
Once they met a man with a large milk can on his back
Every day this man carried his can full of milk down the mountain to sell to the people who had no cows. He always greeted the strangers whom he passed on the way, and wished them a happy journey.
On and on, and up and up the little party tramped. At last they began to see snowbanks, in shaded places near the trail. Sometimes, just below a large snowbank, they found a sunny spot covered with a carpet of lovely summer flowers. There were violets and buttercups and daisies and forget-me-nots, and low bushes of small red alpine roses.
These little wild gardens were watered all summer by the melting snows. The gay flowers seemed to like the icy water at their roots.
The Overall Boys often stopped for a snowball battle with each other and with Gretel. Then from some mountain garden, they picked fresh flowers for their hats, and on they tramped.
Their trail led them below a large glacier, which lay between two high mountain peaks not far away. The boys could hear the great ice river twisting and turning in its bed, for the hot summer sun made it very uncomfortable.