CHAPTER I

IN LEUK

THE June sun shone on the green slope above the village of Leuk and the grass carpeting the heights far beyond with cool green filled the air with fragrance. In front of an isolated house on the road to the baths of Leuk two women engaged in earnest conversation.

"I tell you, Marianne," said the more talkative one, "if you could furnish a couple of rooms as I did, you would find it very profitable. You would soon get boarders, for many of the people coming to the baths do not wish to live there, or they should not, like the three I have. Of course you live rather far down and most people prefer the higher localities. If only you lived over there where those people do! They have the best location on the slope, and own the best meadow land too. But I do not like them," glancing at the house with an unfriendly look. "They are eaten up with pride. The man is not so bad, but you should see the woman!"

"How do they show their pride?" asked Marianne.

"Better ask how they do not show it," quickly replied Magdalen. "They show it in everything—the way they walk, the way they stand, and they dress as though every day were Sunday. The boy's black hair is always curled as though he were going to a church festival, and the little girl sticks her nose up in the air as much as to say, 'Here I come!'"

"The little girl can't help it if her nose turns up, and the boy isn't really to blame for his curly hair," Marianne replied. "Doesn't the woman speak pleasantly when you meet her?"

"Oh, yes, she does that, and I wouldn't advise her to carry her pride that far," said Magdalen in a threatening tone. "But if you think she stops a moment to speak a few words, as our other neighbors do, you are mistaken."

Marianne looked at the house and said in quick surprise, "What has happened? As long as I can remember that house looked old and gray and all the windows were grimy with dust. Now it looks like a different house, so snow white and the windows shine in the sun."

"It is the same house, and the change shows how proud they are," answered Magdalen warmly. "Farmer Lesa lived there more than fifty years with his old housekeeper, and in all those years never drove so much as a nail in the house. What was good enough for father and grandfather before him was good enough for him. When his heir came from over the Gemmi, there started such a tearing down and rebuilding and such a cleaning up one might suppose a count was moving in. Of course the wife was the cause of it all."

[Illustration]

"But I should think it would be necessary to clean up and renew things if nothing had been done for fifty years," said Marianne. "The old house was no pretty sight, I must say! But why do you say the heir came from across the Gemmi? Don't the Lesas belong to our section of the country?"

"Yes, you can find Lesas scattered over the valley," answered Magdalen, "but one of them was married the other side of the Gemmi and remained near Berne or Freiburg. I know this only from hearsay, for it happened a hundred or more years ago. When old Lesa died, it was found his nearest relatives were those living over there. So Vinzenz Lesa moved here, bringing his wife and two children; that was a couple of years ago now. It is said they had a fine house and many cattle on the other side, and a capital cattle range. I've heard his brother runs that estate."

"Good gracious, I must be off!" exclaimed Marianne, startled at the striking of the village clock. "What became of Lesa's housekeeper?"

"She died shortly after he did. She was his cousin and had lived with him fully fifty years. She was over seventy, so she could not undertake anything new. Look, look!" continued Magdalen eagerly. "There they come across the meadow! Now you can see the Lesa woman and her dressed-up children too."

Marianne did not need much persuasion to tarry, for she was very curious to see the people they had been talking about. The three came nearer, and the children must have had a great deal to tell their mother for they were so engrossed in conversation they had neither eyes nor ears for anything else.

However, as they approached the house, the mother pleasantly greeted the two women, the lad pulled off his cap and the little girl called out in a clear voice, "Good day to you!" but continued on their way.

"They look nice," remarked Marianne with an approving glance. "I see no pride whatever, Magdalen, but neatness in children as well as in mother. Her clothes fit so well I am wondering how she does it. The boy's cap didn't conceal his handsome black curls and the little girl with her tiptilted little nose and brown braids about her head looks as merry as a little bird."

"Have you anything else to say?" asked Magdalen, plainly annoyed.

"You are right; I would do better to be on my way than to be talking so idly," replied Marianne, and moved on.

In the meanwhile Mrs. Lesa with her two children mounted the hill, the conversation continuing without interruption.

"Can you believe it, mother?" the lad said. "The child isn't much taller than Stefeli. When we passed Mrs. Troll's house last evening, she stood at the front door, and she went inside and suddenly we heard lovely music through the open window. Her brother still sat outside reading a book, so I asked what it was and he said, 'Alida is playing the piano.' Think of it, such a little girl! I would have liked to have listened, but Stefeli said we must go on home for it was getting late."

"And so it was," asserted Stefeli. "I would have been glad to stay too, but we had to get back home. Even then father was already at the table when we arrived. I heard that the boy's name is Hugo, and a crooked lady lives with them, for I heard Alida say to her brother, 'Now I must go in; otherwise the Fraulein will fetch me in herself and everything will be all crooked.'"

"No, no, Stefeli," said her mother. "She meant that everything might go crooked with her if she did not obey. Aren't the children's parents with them?"

"I'm not sure. What do you think, Vinzi?" asked Stefeli, turning toward her brother.

"What are you staring at? And why don't you answer your sister?" asked his mother.

"Listen, mother, listen!" he said softly. "Don't you hear that lovely sound?"

His mother paused. The wind wafted the sound of the evening bell from the valley below and as the echoes died away over the hills new notes rose louder and clearer. The mother's eyes rested on him in mingled anxiety and surprise, as he listened intently in an effort to catch just one more note.

"Vinzi, will you listen now to what I say?" asked Stefeli, who showed no surprise at all at her brother's manner.

"Yes," he answered as though waking out of a dream.

"Is the lady who lives with Alida and Hugo really crooked?" asked Stefeli, anxious to have that question settled.

"Yes, perhaps," said her brother a little absent-mindedly.

But Stefeli could not tolerate such uncertainty and retorted a little angrily, "If she is not crooked, she is straight, and there is no perhaps about it. We will go down to Mrs. Troll's house and see for ourselves what the lady looks like; can't we, mother?"

"No, we cannot go down to the house on that account," replied the mother. "But it is time to turn around or father will be home before we are, and that must not be."

"Perhaps they will be sitting out in front," said Stefeli, holding fast to her purpose, and now as her mother turned back, she ran ahead, to discover as quickly as possible if anyone was in front of the Troll house.

Vinzi wandered along quietly with his mother. He was not talkative now as when they had climbed the hill, but his mother was used to these changes in her boy.

"Tell me, Vinzi," she said, "why did you keep on listening after the sound of the evening bells had died away?"

"Oh, I could still hear them," he replied. "And then suddenly I heard a wonderful song coming down from the hills. The black firs Joined in with a deep bass and through it all the bell sang a wonderful song. Oh, if only I could repeat it!"

"Wasn't it a song you have heard somewhere?" his mother asked sympathetically, seeking to understand. "If you could sing a little of it to me, perhaps I might know what it was and tell you the words."

"No, no," declared Vinzi. "It is no song I ever heard and it has no words."

The mother meditated in silence; she could not understand Vinzi's meaning. She also had always delighted in music and had taught her children to sing as soon as they could talk; her greatest joy had been their daily evening song.

"Come, Vinzi," she now said, "let us sing together. What shall it be?"

"I do not know. If only I could sing the tune that still rings in my ears!"

"You only think you hear something. Now sing out briskly and you will enjoy it," advised his mother and started a song Vinzi knew well.

He hesitated but the familiar melody soon attracted him and he joined with his mother in a way she loved. The song was ended before they reached Mrs. Troll's house, and Stefeli darted out to them from behind a tree. From this hiding-place she had been watching the two children who sat in front of the house, each with a book. Stefeli would have liked very much to have run up to the little girl and start a friendship, but the governess came out, and she was not crooked at all, but so straight and stiff that timid Stefeli hid more carefully behind the tree. She now told all this and was very happy to have mother and brother with her as she passed the house, for the governess was still sitting there.

The children gave one another searching glances for all four of them were much interested, and Alida said half aloud, "They are the children we saw yesterday. I think I will go and make their acquaintance."

"No, you must not do that, Alida. We do not know who they are," said the governess quickly.

"She will not let Alida talk with us; did you hear that, mother?" said Stefeli.

"Yes," replied Mrs. Lesa. "I am glad you did not run in to see them, and you must not do so, Stefeli, do you hear?"

"Yes, but then we will never meet, and Alida wanted to so much," said Stefeli rather rebelliously.

"You see, Stefeli, the governess probably has entire charge of the children and is responsible for everything they do and for the friends they make," explained her mother.

"There goes father!" exclaimed Vinzi. "If we wish to get home at the same time he does we must walk faster."

As this was the mother's wish, they hastened their steps and met him a short distance from their home, and soon the little family was seated around the supper table.

Everything was quiet during the meal for the children knew they had to be silent and their parents spoke but little.

As soon as the children had finished, Vinzi asked, "May we go out doors?"

And when permission was granted, they hurried off to the barn where there were plenty of nooks and corners for a grand game of hide-and-seek.

The June evening was bright and warm, and Vinzenz Lesa rose cheerfully from the table, went outside and seated himself on the bench in front of the house to enjoy his pipe. Soon afterward his wife came out and sat beside him. Now he grew talkative and told of his visit that day to an acquaintance down in the valley: how he had looked over his meadows, fields and cattle and when he had silently compared them with his own property he had to say to himself:

"Vinzenz Lesa, that is a fine property you have inherited."

"Yes, we ought to be thankful, and we will be, Vinzenz," said his wife.

"That is quite true," he continued, "but when I rejoice and plan how to improve the farm and increase the stock, it seems I am hobbled so I cannot take another step. It is the boy Vinzi I mean. For whom should I do all this if not for him? And what kind of a boy is he? He has no eyes in his head! He shows no pleasure, not a bit of interest in leading out to pasture the finest cows to be found anywhere around. If I say to him, 'Just look at the fine fodder in this meadow!' he says, 'Yes,' and looks absently into the distance. There is something wrong with him."

"No, no, Vinzenz, that is saying too much," interrupted his wife eagerly. "If Vinzi does not always listen and sometimes lets his thoughts wander and does not show any real pleasure in farming, at least he has done no harm."

"I do not say he has," replied Mr. Lesa. "But what I do say is that there is something wrong when a boy has no feeling for such meadows and fields as we own and for such cows as are in my stalls, and for everything that belongs to a choice farm. But how to help it I do not know."

"Something may happen to bring about a change. He is young yet, you know," replied his wife in an effort to soothe him, although her own anxiety about the lad had been increased by the afternoon's experience. Thinking it best to change the subject she told him how, in passing Mrs. Troll's house that day, she had seen the people who had taken the upper rooms for the summer; the two children had looked so nice she would like to have them in her own house.

"A man can never tell what his wife will think of next!" he exclaimed with rising anger. "But I know what you are aiming at, and I say, let it alone. I want to live by myself, and as to these strange gentlefolk, our children are not to have anything to do with them, or our girl will be as spoilt as our boy. I am glad to say she is quite different from him. The young heifer runs after her and eats out of her hand. When she is told something, she pays attention, but the boy—he knows nothing."

"To hear you, one might suppose being well brought up was some sort of a disease, Vinzenz," replied the wife calmly. "But you have no need to worry. The governess takes good care her charges do not come near ours. But now it is time to go indoors," and she called the children to their evening hymn.