Squib and His Friends

by Evelyn Everett-Green

Then they began their walk, and a most beautiful walk it was. Having started early, and having the whole day before them, they were in no hurry to get to their destination, but could afford time to look at everything as they went along, and even to turn aside to hunt for some specimen of flower or moss in promising-looking places. Sometimes they sat down and talked, and made Peter tell them some of the legends of the mountains, and what the people used to believe about the ice-maidens and the little Bergmännlein in the hills. Herr Adler knew fairy stories too, and told them better than Peter could; and Squib listened with both his ears, and only wished he could remember everything, to repeat it to the children at home.

It was such a beautiful walk! The path led through a great pine wood, and along the side of a roaring stream, which grew narrower and narrower as they pursued its course. And Peter told Squib that it had its rise in the ice-grotto whither they were bound, so that it was always full of water, however dry the summer, being fed by the great glacier itself.

Again and again the path dipped down, and they had to cross the stream by a little crazy-looking bridge, which seemed hardly strong enough to bear them. Peter told them that in the winter floods these bridges were often swept away, and had to be thrown across afresh in the spring; so it was not wonderful that they were rather rickety affairs, and that Czar felt rather nervous at crossing them, and expressed his displeasure by the very gingerly way in which he stepped over them. Herr Adler and Squib found much fun in watching him; for he would generally turn round again with something between a bay and a growl of displeasure, as much as to say,—

“You’ve no business to call yourself a bridge—a few miserable poles strapped together and thrown across; not fit for any respectable dog to go over, let alone a man!”

It grew hot as the sun rose high in the sky; but in the wood it was pleasant and cool. The smell of the hot pine trunks was delicious; and when they wanted to sit down, the beds of pine needles made a soft and springy seat. Sometimes they came upon little clearings, where a few huts or chalets were clustered together, and brown-legged, bare-headed children would come out to stare, and to grin at Peter, and exchange greetings with him in their rude patois, which Squib could hardly understand in their mouths, though he could talk to Seppi and Peter well enough.

There were little herds of goats to be seen browsing on the scanty herbage, and now and then a cow with a bell round her neck. Sometimes they heard the sound of the cow-bells up on the heights above, where the cattle had been taken for the summer months; but more often the valley was very silent: there did not seem to be many birds, and only squirrels darted about and whisked up the trees—sometimes faster than the eye could follow them.

Once Herr Adler made Squib come and sit close beside him, and keep perfectly still—Peter having gone on ahead to make sure of the right path—and presently a squirrel whisked down from a neighbouring tree and sat up on its hind-legs gazing fixedly at them. And then, as they did not move, it came nearer and nearer, and presently it was trying to investigate the contents of Squib’s satchel, which he had taken off his shoulders and laid beside him. There was a bit of paper sticking out at the top, and the squirrel got hold of it and nibbled at it; and then he gave it a pull, and dislodged a biscuit—to his great satisfaction—and he got a fragment of it nibbled off, and sat up with it in his two hands, eating it with such relish that Squib could not help himself, but burst out into a laugh; when, whisk! the little creature was gone in a moment—where, they could not see.

Then Herr Adler told him that almost all wild things would come quite close to human beings if only they remained perfectly still. It was movement that frightened them; but curiosity would draw them to come to anything which looked unusual; and so long as perfect stillness was maintained, they appeared quite fearless.

“If you had kept quite still, the squirrel might in time have come and sat on your knee,” said Herr Adler; but Squib was not good at sitting still very long, and when Peter came back he was quite ready to go on again.

They were getting near to the glacier now, and left the wood behind them. There was some rather rough walking to do, and the sun beat down and made them very hot; but it was so interesting to see how strangely the rocks were jumbled up together, and to hear Herr Adler explain how the glacier moved and ground down through the rocks with irresistible force, that he did not mind the heat a bit: it was only Czar that disliked the rough walking amongst the great boulders.