“No; they enjoy it. The doctor says all they need is quiet and rest to restore their eyesight, and they will have it when this cruel war is over and they get home. One of them is my own girl,” sez she, in a burst of confidence, “and I’m out here unknown to the rest; so my girl has outdone them, so to speak, for of course it is just the same as if she stood here where her Ma stands, in this be-a-u-ti-ful place, looking at this magnificent scenery.”
And she turned her wropped-up face towards the tarvern door, and faced round towards Josiah.
But truly she wuzn’t to blame, she couldn’t see through that envelopin’ drapery. The tarvern might have been a waterfall, and my Josiah a Alp for all she knew.
I felt quite curous, but consoled myself a-thinkin’ they wuz a-follerin’ their own goles, and would all set on ’em when they got home.
Wall, it wuz that very afternoon that I heard my first yodellin’—the melogious cry of the Alpine shepherds to one another. Clear and sweet it rung through the still air—Ye-o-lo-leo-leo-leo—
Ye-o-lo-leo-leo-leo—the melogious cry of the Alpine shepherds.
Melogious as any music you ever hearn, only sort o’ bell-like, and pecular. And while you stand spellbound and wantin’ to hear it agin the answer comes, sweet, fur away, clear—
Ye-a-oo-ye-ho-oo—
It wuz like nothin’ I ever hearn in my life, and yet seemed sort o’ familar to me, after all, as all true beauty in sight and sound duz seem to its devotees, he or she.