COWS COMING DOWN THE HILLSIDE BY A MOUNTAIN STREAM.
And the butcher, who had grown quite pathetic over the gentians, rose to return to his occupation. It was curious to observe the honorable position which he held with landlord, landlady and Moidel. What a surgeon or soldier would be in a higher class, that the butcher was to them. In this case, too, we joined in respect—a feeling we might entertain for many more of his trade, perhaps, had we the opportunity of judging. But we must onward.
Ere long a young woman wearing a pointed black felt hat, ornamented with yellow everlastings, overtook us and joined company with Moidel, giving us, however, equally the benefit of her conversation, whilst she insisted upon carrying a bag. She lived in Rein, she told us, and had now to consult the doctor in Taufers a second time about perpetual stitching pains in her throat. The doctor said it was quinsy, and arose from cold. Perhaps, she said, if she could bring herself to smoke a meerschaum, like other women in Rein, she might keep the mischief out; but it struck her as a disgrace to a female, and it made a great hole in the pocket. Those who were born in such a village as Rein were in an evil plight. The cottages were badly built, the kitchens reeked with smoke, and were so bitterly cold in winter, though the fowls had to roost there, that water froze in them. In fact, no one could stay in the kitchen in winter. Then all the family must crowd into the stube, living and sleeping there. When Nanni Muckhaus had the typhus she and her children and grandchildren must lie down together; and then all the neighbors had to visit her, unless they chose to pass as brutes; and so that was how the typhus spread. Fortunately, her husband and she were alone: they had no burdens. Still, life was hard—a vale of tears or a vale of snow. If the gentry could see the Reinthal in the winter, choked up with avalanches, they would say so. Her man had, however, enough to keep them. He had a license for the shooting of gemsen and other game, which he might use from holy Jakobi's Day to Candlemas. He had this year killed only five gemsen so far. The Post at Taufers was greedy for gemsen now, and bought up every ounce of the flesh at nineteen kreuzers the pound—bought snow-hens, too, at forty kreuzers each, and would never let her husband's gun be idle. When Candlemas came, and he could no longer shoot, then he worked in their fields; for we might not think it, but he, being a thrifty soul, had saved fifty gulden and bought some land. But oh the labors, the toils to which a Reinthaler was subjected! If his land lay on the mountain-side, he and his woman must slave and toil like beasts of burden, for what would be the help of horse or cow for riding, driving or ploughing on such steep, upright land? "The holy watch-angels help us!" she said. "Look up there and you will see, ladies, the truth of what I tell you."
Pointing with her finger, she drew our attention to the small figure of a man working upon a dizzy height some three thousand feet above us, his legs, like a pair of compasses, comically revealing a triangle of blue sky between them, whilst we with difficulty made out the figures of two women helping him.
"That's Seppl Mahlgruben and his daughters cutting down their green oats, too tardy to ripen. Some years since Moidel, the eldest girl, working on that precise point, knelt one inch too far over the precipice and was hurled into eternity, where a better fortune, I pray God, awaited her than the cruel trials of Reinthal."
Moidel told us afterward that she thought our informant took too gloomy a view, probably occasioned by "her stitching pains." Still, she owned to its being a toilsome, perilous life in every season of the year save summer.
In a broad sylvan meadow at the end of the narrow defile, within sound of the chief waterfall, we had the joy of seeing again the rest of our party, who had made an afternoon excursion thither to meet us. At a quiet, rural little inn just below, with an outside gallery possessing a view of the still, deep gorge in front and softer meadows beyond, kind hearts had already ordered coffee and rolls for nine. All were unanimous, however, that the ample supply was sufficient for ten, and the good woman of Rein was pressed to enter and partake. This she gratefully declined, adding, however, that it would be friendly and helpful of us to allow her to drink a cup of coffee there at six in morning on her return journey to Rein. Not that she had expected the least attention to be offered her, and hoped that it was not intended as a different mode of payment for her carrying a lady's handbag. Although we had felt that one good turn deserved another, we made her mind easy on that score, and she went tripping forward.
For us there was still no hurry. The evening sky was brilliantly clear, the mountain-summits and dark fir woods shone forth a burnished gold, so that it seemed almost a sin to dive into the deep shadows of the valley below. Besides, the inn possessed some beehive sheds, and a view beyond which must not escape the pencil of the artists, who busily sketched whilst the others rested, enjoying the great crimson bars of sunset drawn across the dewy valley to the rippling sound of a mad, merry little mill-brook.
How much sympathy and respect has been afforded in all ages and climes to those serviceable creatures, bees!
The little citizens create,