DOGS.
THE DOGS OF ST. BERNARD.
Suggestion:—If a real live dog is too diverting, an earthen or bisque dog, or the accompanying picture of the dogs of St. Bernard, may be sufficient.
MY DEAR BOYS AND GIRLS: I want to talk to you to-day about dogs. The dog is what is called a domestic animal, and wherever you find civilized men and women, you will find dogs of some kind. Dogs are not only loved because they are companionable, but because they are also, oftentimes, very serviceable.
In Switzerland there are some very high mountains, and some years ago, when there were no tunnels yet dug under the mountains, as there are to-day, travelers during the winter, when going from Germany to Italy, or returning from Italy to Germany, had to cross over the tops of these mountains. The snow was always deep and the journey was always dangerous, particularly in the winter.
Copyrighted 1911 by Sylvanus Stall
The Dogs of St. Bernard
There are several places where the mountains can be crossed, and these places are called "passes," such as the Simplon, St. Bernard and St. Gothard passes. Some years ago, in company with a friend, I crossed the St. Gothard pass on the 20th of June. That year the season was very late, and after we got well up the mountain, we found the snow from five to ten feet deep on the level, and when we arrived on the top of the mountain, the snow was even with the roof of a two-story building which stood there, and the people living in it had tunneled under the snow, around the outside of the building. If this was the way it was on the 20th of June, you can easily imagine what an awfully cold and stormy place it must be to live during the entire winter. It took our horses a long time to take us up the mountain, but when we went down on the Italian side they went quite rapidly, and in one hour and forty minutes from the time we left the Hotel de la Prosa, where the snow was so very deep, we were down in the village of Airolo, where little girls were selling ripe cherries. It seemed as though we had jumped right out of the heart of winter, into the pleasant and fruitful days of summer.