by Jane Andrews
THE LITTLE MOUNTAIN MAIDEN.
I want you to look at the picture on this page. It is a little deer:its name is the chamois. Do you see what delicate horns it has, andwhat slender legs, and how it seems to stand on that bit of rock andlift its head to watch for the hunters.
Last summer I saw a little chamois like that, and just as small: itwas not alive, but cut or carved of wood,--such a graceful prettylittle plaything as one does not meet every day.
Would you like to know who made it, and where it came from?
It was made in the mountain country, by the brother of my goodJeannette, the little Swiss maiden.
Here among the high mountains she lives with her father, mother, andbrothers; and far up among those high snowy peaks, which are seenbehind the house, the chamois live, many of them together, eatingthe tender grass and little pink-colored flowers, and leaping andspringing away over the ice and snow when they see the men coming upto hunt them.
I will tell you by and by how it happened that Jeannette's tallbrother Joseph carved this tiny chamois from wood. But first you mustknow about this small house upon the great hills, and how they live upthere so near the blue sky.
One would think it might be easier for a child to be good and pure sofar up among the quiet hills, and that there God would seem to comeclose to the spirit, even of a little girl or boy.
On the sides of the mountains tall trees are growing,--pine and firtrees, which are green in winter as well as in summer. If you go intothe woods in winter, you will find that almost all the trees havedropped their pretty green leaves upon the ground, and are standingcold and naked in the winter wind; but the pines and the firs keep ontheir warm green clothes all the year round.
It was many years ago, before Jeannette was born, that her fathercame to the mountains with his sharp axe and cut down some of thefir-trees. Other men helped him, and they cut the great trees intostrong logs and boards, and built of them the house of which I havetold you. Now he will have a good home of his own for as long as helikes to live there, and to it will come his wife and children as Godshall send them, to nestle among the hills.
Then he went down to the little town at the foot of the mountain, andwhen he came back, he was leading a brown, long-eared donkey, and uponthat donkey sat a rosy-cheeked young woman, with smiling brown eyes,and long braids of brown hair hanging below a little green hat set onone side of her head, while beautiful rose-colored carnations peepedfrom beneath it on the other side. Who was this? It wasn't Jeannette:you know I told you this was before she was born. Can you guess, ormust I tell you that it was the little girl's mother? She had come upthe mountain for the first time to her new home,--the house built ofthe fir and the pine,--where after awhile were born Jeannette's twotall brothers, and at last Jeannette herself.
It was a good place to be born in. When she was a baby she used to lieon the short, sweet grass before the doorstep, and watch the cowsand the goats feeding, and clap her little hands to see how rosy thesunset made the snow that shone on the tops of those high peaks. Andthe next summer, when she could run alone, she picked the blue-eyedgentians, thrusting her small fingers between their fringed eyelids,and begging them to open and look at little Jean; and she stained herwee hands among the strawberries, and pricked them with the thornsof the long raspberry-vines, when she went with her mother in theafternoon to pick the sweet fruit for supper. Ah, she was a happylittle thing! Many a fall she got over the stones or among the brownmoss, and many a time the clean frock that she wore was dyed red withthe crushed berries; but, oh, how pleasant it was to find them ingreat patches on the mountain-side, where the kind sun had warmed theminto such delicious life! I have seen the children run out of schoolto pick such sweet wild strawberries, all the recess-time, up in thefields of Maine; and how happy they were with their little stainedfingers as they came back at the call of the bell!
In the black bog-mud grew the Alpen roses, and her mother said, "Donot go there, my little daughter, it is too muddy for you." But atnight, when her brother came home from the chamois hunt, he took offhis tall, pointed hat, and showed his little sister the long spray ofroses twisted round it, which he had brought for her. He could go inthe mud with his thick boots, you know, and never mind it.
Here they live alone upon the mountain; there are no near neighbors.At evening they can see the blue smoke curling from the chimney of onehouse that stands behind that sunny green slope, a hundred yards fromtheir door, and they can always look down upon the many houses of thetown below, where the mother lived when she was young.
Many times has Jeannette wondered how the people lived down there,--somany together; and where their cows could feed, and whether there wereany little girls like herself, and if they picked berries, and hadsuch a dear old black nanny-goat as hers, that gave milk for hersupper, and now had two little black kids, its babies. She didn't knowabout those little children in Maine, and that they have littlekids and goats, as well as sweet red berries, to make the days passhappily.
She wanted to go down and see, some day, and her father promised that,when she was a great girl, she should go down with him on market-days,to sell the goats'-milk cheeses and the sweet butter that her mothermade.
When the cows and goats have eaten all the grass near the house, herfather drives them before him up farther among the mountains, wheremore grass is growing, and there he stays with them many weeks: hedoes not even come home at night, but sleeps in a small hut among therocks, where, too, he keeps the large clean milk-pails, and the littleone-legged stool upon which he sits at morning and night to milk thecows and goats.
When the pails are full, the butter is to be made, and the cheese; andhe works while the animals feed. The cows have little bells tied totheir necks, that he may hear and find them should they stray too far.
Many times, when he is away, does his little daughter at home listen,listen, while she sits before the door, to hear the distant tinklingof the cow-bells. She is a loving little daughter, and she thinks ofher father so far away alone, and wishes he was coming home to eatsome of the sweet strawberries and cream for supper.
Last summer some travellers came to the house. They stopped at thedoor and asked for milk; the mother brought them brimming bowlsful,and the shy little girl crept up behind her mother with her birch-barkbaskets of berries. The gentlemen took them and thanked her, and onetold of his own little Mary at home, far away over the great sea.Jeannette often thinks of her, and wonders whether her papa has gonehome to her.
While the gentlemen talked, Jeannette's brother Joseph sat upon thebroad stone doorstep and listened. Presently one gentleman, turningto him, asked if he would come with them over the mountain to lead theway, for there are many wild places and high, steep rocks, and theyfeared to get lost.
Joseph sprang up from his low seat and said he would go, brought histall hat and his mountain-staff, like a long, strong cane, with asharp iron at the end, which he can stick into the snow or ice ifthere is danger of slipping; and they went merrily on their way, overthe green grass, over the rocks, far up among the snow and ice, andthe frozen streams and rivers that pour down the mountain-sides.
Joseph was brave and gay; he led the way, singing aloud until theechoes answered from every hillside. It makes one happy to sing, andwhen we are busy and happy we sing without thinking of it, as thebirds do. When everything is bright and beautiful in nature aroundus, we feel like singing aloud and praising God, who made the earth sobeautiful; then the earth also seems to sing of God who made it,and the echo seems like its answer of praise. Did you ever hear theecho,--the voice that seems to come from a hill or a house far away,repeating whatever you may say? Among the mountains the echoes answereach other again and again. Jeannette has often heard them.
That night, while the mother and her little girl were eating theirsupper, the gentlemen came back again, bringing Joseph with them. Hecould not walk now, nor spring from rock to rock with his Alpen staff;he had fallen and broken his leg, and he must lie still for many days.
But he could keep a cheerful face, and still sing his merry songs; andas he grew better, and could sit out again on the broad bench besidethe door, he took his knife and pieces of fine wood, and carvedbeautiful things,--first a spoon for his little sister, with gentianson the handle; then a nice bowl, with a pretty strawberry-vine carvedall about the edge. And from this bowl, and with this spoon, she ateher supper every night,--sweet milk, with the dry cakes of rye breadbroken into it, and sometimes the red strawberries. I know his littlesister loved him dearly, and thanked him in her heart every time sheused the pretty things. How dearly a sister and brother can love eachother!
Then he made other things,--knives, forks, and plates; and at lastone day he sharpened his knife very sharp, chose a very nice, delicatepiece of wood, and carved this beautiful chamois, just like a livingone, only so small. My cousin, who was travelling there, bought it andbrought it home.
When the summer had passed, the father came down from the highpastures; the butter and cheese making was over, and the autumn workwas now to be done. Do you want to know what the autumn work was, andhow Jeannette could help about it? I will tell you. You must know thata little way down the mountain-side is a grove of chestnut-trees. Didyou ever see the chestnut-trees? They grow in our woods, and onthe shores of some ponds. In the spring they are covered with long,yellowish blossoms, and all through the hot summer those blossoms areat work, turning into sweet chestnuts, wrapped safely in round, thornyballs, which will prick your fingers sadly if you don't take care. Butwhen the frost of the autumn nights comes, it cracks open the pricklyball and shows a shining brown nut inside; then, if we are careful,we may pull off the covering and take out the nut. Sometimes, indeed,there are two, three, or four nuts in one shell; I have found them somyself.
Now the autumn work, which I said I would tell you about, is to gatherthese chestnuts and store them away,--some to be eaten, boiled orroasted, by the bright fire in the cold winter days that are coming;and some to be nicely packed in great bags, and carried on the donkeydown to the town to be sold. The boys of New England, too, know whatgood fun it is to gather nuts in the fall, and spread them over thegarret floor to dry, and at last to crack and eat them by the winterhearth. So when the father says one night at supper-time, "It isgrowing cold; I think there will be a frost to-night," Jeannette knowsvery well what to do; and she dances away right early in the eveningto her little bed, which is made in a wooden box built up against theside of the wall, and falls asleep to dream about the chestnut woods,and the squirrels, and the little brook that leaps and springs fromrock to rock down under the tall, dark trees.
She has gone to bed early, that she may wake with the first daylight,and she is out of bed in a minute when she hears her father's cheerfulcall in the morning, "Come, children, it is time to be off."
Their dinner is packed in a large basket. The donkey stands readybefore the door, with great empty bags hanging at each side, and theygo merrily over the crisp white frost to the chestnut-trees. How thefrost has opened the burrs! He has done more than half their work forthem already. How they laugh and sing and shout to each other as theygather the smooth brown nuts, filling their baskets, and running topour them into the great bags! It is merry autumn work. The sun looksdown upon them through the yellow leaves, and the rocks give themmossy seats; while here and there comes a bird or a squirrel to seewhat these strange people are doing in their woods.
Jeannette declares that the chestnut days are the best in the year.Perhaps she is right. I am sure I should enjoy them, shouldn't you?She really helps, although she is but a little girl, and her fathersays at night that his little Jean is a dear, good child. It makesher very happy. She thinks of what he has said while she undresses atnight, unbraiding her hair and unlacing her little blue bodice withits great white sleeves, and she goes peacefully to sleep, to dreamagain of the merry autumn days. And while she dreams good angels mustbe near her, for she said her sweet and reverent prayer on her knees,with a full and thankful heart to the All-Father who gave her so manyblessings.
She is our little mountain sister. The mountain life is a fresh andhappy one. I should like to stay with this little sister a long, longtime.
