CHAPTER I

HE IS GOOD FOR NOTHING

The traveler who ascends Mt. Seelis from the rear will presently find himself coming out upon a spot where a green meadow, fresh and vivid, is spread out upon the mountain side. The place is so inviting that one feels tempted to join the peacefully grazing cows and fall to eating the soft green grass with them. The clean, well-fed cattle wander about with pleasant musical accompaniment; for each cow wears a bell, so that one may tell by the sound whether any of them are straying too far out toward the edge, where the precipice is hidden by bushes and where a single misstep would be fatal. There is a company of boys, to be sure, to watch the cows, but the bells are also necessary, and their tinkling is so pleasant to hear that it would be a pity not to have them.

Little wooden houses dot the mountain side, and here and there a turbulent stream comes tumbling down the slope. Not one of the cottages stands on level ground; it seems as though they had somehow been thrown against the mountain and had stuck there, for it would be hard to conceive of their being built on this steep slope. From the highway below you might think them all equally neat and cheery, with their open galleries and little wooden stairways, but when you came nearer to them you would notice that they differed very much in character.

The two first ones were not at all alike. The distance between them was not very great, yet they stood quite apart, for the largest stream of the neighborhood, Clear Brook, as it is called, rushed down between them. In the first cottage all the little windows were kept tightly closed even through the finest summer days, and no fresh air was ever let in except through the broken windowpanes, and that was little enough, for the holes had been pasted over with paper to keep out the winter's cold. The steps of the outside stairway were in many places broken away, and the gallery was in such a ruinous state that it seemed as though the many little children crawling and stumbling about on it must surely break their arms or legs. But they all were sound enough in body though very dirty; their faces were covered with grime and their hair had never been touched by a comb. Four of these little urchins scrambled about here through the day, and at evening they were joined by four older ones,--three sturdy boys and a girl,--who were at work during the day. These, too, were none too clean, but they looked a little better than the younger ones, for they could at least wash themselves.

The little house across the stream had quite a different air. Even before you reached the steps, everything looked so clean and tidy that you thought the very ground must be different from that across the stream. The steps always looked as though they had just been scrubbed, and on the gallery there were three pots of blooming pinks that wafted fragrance through the windows all summer long. One of the bright little windows stood open to let in the fresh mountain air, and within the room a woman might be seen, still strong and active in spite of the snowy white hair under her neat black cap. She was often at work mending a man's shirt, that was stout and coarse in material but was always washed with great care.

The woman herself looked so trim and neat in her simple dress that one fancied she had never in her life touched anything unclean. It was Frau Vincenze, mother of the young herdsman Franz Martin, he of the smiling face and strong arm. Franz Martin lived in his little hut on the mountain all summer making cheese, and returned to his mother's cottage only in the late fall, to spend the winter with her and make butter in the lower dairy hut near by.

As there was no bridge across the wild stream, the two cottages were quite separated, and there were other people much farther away whom Frau Vincenze knew better than these neighbors right across the brook; for she seldom looked over at them,--the sight was not agreeable to her. She would shake her head disapprovingly when she saw the black faces and dirty rags on the children, while the stream of fresh, clean water ran so near their door. She preferred, when the twilight rest hour came, to enjoy her red carnations on the gallery, or to look down over the green slope that stretched from her cottage to the valley below.

The neglected children across the stream belonged to "Poor Grass Joe," as he was called, who was usually employed away from home in haying, or chopping wood, or carrying burdens up the mountain. The wife had much to do at home, to be sure, but she seemed to take it for granted that so many children could not possibly be kept in order, and that in time, when the children grew older, things would mend of their own accord. So she let everything go as it would, and in the fresh, pure air the children remained healthy and were happy enough scrambling around on the steps and on the ground.

In the summer time the four older ones were out all day herding cows; for here in the lower pasture the whole herd of cows was not left to graze under one or two boys, as on the high Alps, but each farmer had to hire his own herd boy to look after his cows. This made jolly times for the boys and girls, who spent the long days together playing pranks and making merry in the broad green fields. Sometimes Joe's children were hired for potato weeding farther down the valley, or for other light field work. Thus they earned their living through the summer and brought home many a penny besides, which their mother could turn to good account; for there were always the four little mouths to be fed and clothes to be got for all the children. However simple these clothes might be, each child must have at least a little shirt, and the older ones one other garment besides. The family was too poor to possess even a cow, though there was scarcely a farmer in the neighborhood who did not own one, however small his piece of land might be.

Poor Grass Joe had got his name from the fact that the spears of grass on his land were so scarce that they would not support so much as a cow. He had only a goat and a potato field. With these small resources the wife had to struggle through the summer and provide for the four little ones, and sometimes, when work was scarce, for one or two of the older ones also. The father occasionally came home in the winter, but he brought very little to his family, for his house and land were so heavily mortgaged that he was never out of debt throughout the whole year. Whenever he had earned a little money, some one whom he owed would come and take it all away.

So the wife had a hard time to get along,--all the more so because she had no order in her house-keeping and was not skillful in any kind of work. She would often go out and stand on the tumbledown gallery, where the boards were lying loose and ready to drop off, and instead of taking a hammer and fastening them down would look across the stream at the neat little cottage with the bright windows, and would say fretfully, "Yes, it's all very well for her to clean and scrub,--she has nothing else to do; but with me it's quite different."

Then she would turn back angrily into the close, dingy room and vent her anger on the first person who crossed her path. This usually happened to be a boy of ten or eleven years, who was not her own child, but who had lived in her house ever since he was a baby. This little fellow, known only by the name of "Stupid Rudi," was so lean and gaunt looking that one would have taken him to be scarcely eight years old. His timid, shrinking manner made it difficult to tell what kind of a looking boy he really was, for he never took his eyes from the ground when any one spoke to him.

Rudi had never known a mother; she had died when he was hardly two years old, and shortly afterward his father had met with an accident when returning from the mountain one evening. He had been wild haying, and, seeking to reach home by a short cut, had lost his footing and fallen over a precipice. The fall lamed him, and after that he was not fit for any other work but braiding mats, which he sold in the big hotel on Mt. Seelis. Little Rudi never saw his father otherwise than sitting on a low stool with a straw mat on his knees. "Lame Rudolph" was the name the man went by. Now he had been dead six years. After his wife's death he had rented a little corner in Joe's house for himself and boy to sleep in, and the little fellow had remained there ever since. The few pennies paid by the community for Rudi's support were very acceptable to Joe's wife, and the extra space in his bedroom, after the father's death, was eagerly seized for two of her own boys, who had scarcely had sleeping room for some time.

Rudi had been by nature a shy, quiet little fellow. The father, after the loss of his wife and the added misfortune of being crippled, lost all spirit; little as he had been given to talking before his misfortune, he was even more silent afterward.

So little Rudi would sit beside his father for whole days without hearing a word spoken, and did not himself learn to speak for a long time. After his father died and he belonged altogether to Joe's household, he hardly ever spoke at all. He was scolded and pushed about by everybody, but he never thought of resisting; it was not in his nature to fight. The children did what they pleased to him, and besides their abuse he had to bear the woman's scoldings, especially when she was in a bad temper about the neat little house across the stream. But Rudi did not rebel, for he had the feeling that the whole world was against him, so what good would it do? With all this the boy in time grew so shy that it seemed as though he hardly noticed what was going on about him, and he usually gave no answer when any one spoke to him. He seemed, in fact, to be always looking for some hole that he might crawl into, where he would never be found again.

So it had come about that the older children, Jopp, Hans, Uli, and the girl Lisi, often said to him, "What a stupid Rudi you are!" and the four little ones began saying it as soon as they could talk. As Rudi never tried to deny it, all the people in time assumed that it must be so, and he was known throughout the neighborhood simply as "Stupid Rudi." And it really seemed as though the boy could not attend to anything properly as the other children did. If he was sent along with the other boys to herd cows, he would immediately hunt up a hedge or a bush and hide behind it. There he would sit trembling with fear, for he could hear the other boys hunting him and calling to him to come and join their game. The games always ended with a great deal of thumping and thrashing, of which Rudi invariably got the worst, because he would not defend himself, and, in fact, could not defend himself against the many stronger boys. So he crept away and hid as quickly as he could; meanwhile his cows wandered where they pleased and grazed on the neighbors' fields. This was sure to make trouble, and all agreed that Rudi was too stupid even to herd cows, and no one would engage him any more. In the field work there was the same trouble. When the boys were hired to weed potatoes they thought it great fun to pelt each other with bunches of potato blossoms,--it made the time pass more quickly,--and of course each one paid back generously what he got. Rudi alone gave back nothing, but looked about anxiously in all directions to see who had hit him. That was exactly what amused the other boys; and so, amid shouts and laughter, he was pelted from all sides,--on his head, his back, or wherever the balls might strike. But while the others had time to work in the intervals, Rudi did nothing but dodge and hide behind the potato bushes. So at this work he was a failure, too, and young and old agreed that Rudi was too stupid for any kind of work, and that Rudi would never amount to anything. As he could earn nothing and would never amount to anything, he was treated accordingly by Joe's wife. Her own four little ones had hardly enough to eat, and so it usually happened that for Rudi there was nothing at all and he was told, "You can find something; you are old enough."

How he really existed no one knew, not even Joe's wife; yet he had always managed somehow. He never begged; he would not do that; but many a good woman would hand out a piece of bread or a potato to the poor, starved little fellow as he went stealing by her door, not venturing to look up, much less to ask for anything. He had never in his life had enough to eat, but still that was not so hard for him as the persecution and derision he had to take from the other boys. As he grew older he became more and more sensitive to their ridicule, and his main thought at all times was to escape notice as much as possible. As he was never seen to take any part with the other children in work or play, people took it for granted that he was incapable of doing what the others did, and they declared that he was growing more stupid from day to day.