Part 12

But in one year, when midwinter came, the cold was so severe, the storms so much more frequent and the avalanches so much bigger and more destructive than usual, that the roads were covered, so as to hide even the great landmarks out of sight. Then hunting was impossible. The wind was so tempestuous, that the strongest men kept indoors. Apart from what his wife provided, Jeannod could bring little to the table. In such terrible weather, Jeannod, unable to use his rifle, could not provide meat, and even Silver Wreath could furnish only cheese. In such a case, the husband was often ravenously hungry, and an empty stomach who can bear very long? Even when wolves and lions become tame and helpless, through hunger, what strong man does not become weak?

One day, after trying many hours, to track a chamois, and get within range of it, with his rifle, Jeannod came back empty, and very low in his mind. He was so fiercely hungry, that he threw down his hat and forgot, not only what the edelweiss and Alpine rose had taught him, but even what he had promised.

When he opened the door, into the larder, he saw that there was nothing there, but a strip of cheese, left over, from the last meal. Indeed it was hardly more than a rind. Thinking of nothing, but to satisfy his gnawing hunger, he seized and bit into it.

At that moment, Silver Wreath, his wife, entered the house. She saw him with the cheese in his hand, and cried out:

“Oh, my beloved, remember your promise that you would always keep a slice of cheese. Please do wait until midnight; and, at breakfast time, I promise you, you shall have all you want of the best; but now, please, please, leave even a small piece over.”

But the hungry and tired man was too obstinate to listen. From a thinking being, he had become a ravening beast. He gobbled up the last fragment.

No sooner had he swallowed the morsel, than his fairy wife cried out, “You’ve broken your promise and the rule of good manners in the fairy world. I cannot live with a glutton and promise-breaker. I must return to my mountains and fellow-fairies.”

Thereupon, all her clothing fell off. Her cap and comb, and her shoes, stockings and her pretty garments, one by one, dropped on the floor. In a moment more, her former filmy blue and pink robes covered her, while, from her back, grew out a pair of wings, like a butterfly’s, but larger, and mist-like. Waving a good-bye, she flew out of the door, which opened of its own accord. Soon, on the lofty mountain heights, she rejoined her fairy family, while the hunter-husband was left alone in misery and hunger, and, worse than all, with an accusing conscience.

XXI

THE FAIRIES’ PALACE CAR

Once upon a time, the fairies that live up near the mountain tops got together, and one said to another:

“Let us go travelling.”

“We’ll go as far as Geneva,” said another.

“Agreed,” they all shouted in chorus. “It will be like going from the North Pole to the Spice Islands. We can see all sorts of landscapes and go through many climates, before we get to Geneva. So let us all begin our journey today!”

It was not at all strange, that they should all start off at once. The fairies had no laundry to get home in time, nor new clothes to have made and fitted, nor trunks to pack, nor expressmen to bother with. There were no tickets to be bought, or reserved seats in the cars to look after, or handbags to carry, or telegrams to send, or letters to write. Neither did they fume or fret, because the taxicab man did not arrive on the split second. They had no watches to wind up, or to look at, lest they might miss the train, nor hunting cases to snap, nor sandwiches to carry, in case there were no buffet or dining cars. No! Happily for them, all they had to do was to jump on their ice-chairs at once, and be off.

Now let us ask what was their palace car, in which they were to journey, from the top of Mont Blanc to the Rhone river, and over Lake Leman and thence by ship to Geneva the Beautiful?

It was nothing less than a glacier, twenty miles long and two miles wide. This car, made of white snow and ice crystal, moves, as everybody knows, steadily along, and down, from mountain top to the valley. It does not fly as fast indeed as the Empire State lightning express. Yet it starts on time, and is sure to arrive at its terminal. It takes only about a thousand years, from the mountain’s tip top to the down below, or from snow flake to Rhone river.

When motion was begun, by the fairies in the air, several hundred of them caught, each, a snow flake at the summit, and rode on it from the clouds to the ground, until enough had fallen from the sky to make up the party, which sat, all together, on a snow bank, for awhile, till the train was all ready. Then the slide downhill began.

Every day the sun would tickle the ice mass and melt it, so it had to move on. Then, for the fairies, it was like coasting on a bob sled, and they were as merry as if they were on a toboggan. So they mightily enjoyed the fun. The fairies did not have to sit on a narrow line, or hold on tight, lest they might fall off, bump against a post, or hit a tree, or a rock.

On the contrary, it was more like going on board a big ship, or promenading on the deck of an ocean liner. They played ball, and hockey, and shuffle board, and danced and waltzed, and had guessing and finger games, and leap frog for exercise. They sat in the cabins, which were crystal ice caverns. They played hide and seek in the crevices, and blindman’s buff among the ice ridges. They leaped merrily over the hammocks, and they bathed and swam in the ponds of water, which the sun melted every day toward noon. In the baths, which lasted several hours, they sported around like a lot of mermaids.

In this way, they so amused themselves, that they forgot or did not care to remember the passing months, or years, or centuries. They were travelling for fun, and had no business or social engagements to attend to, or guide books, to tell where they were going. So they were in no hurry, for the glacier only moved at the rate of half an inch an hour, or a few miles in a century. What cared they for rapid transit? There were no strikes or delay, no subway or tunnel rules, no hustler to make you “step lively,” and shut the car door on you, or tell you to “let ’em out,” or “watch your steps.” No policeman on foot, or motorcycle, to overtake and arrest you for speeding! It was all pure fun.

The fairies had a watcher, who sat on an ice pinnacle, like a man in the foretop of an ocean steamer. He it was, who announced anything new in the weather, or the country, or landscape through which they passed. Then, also, a lecturer came aboard, every ten or twenty years, to explain the history and point out the wonderful things along the route, or what had happened, at this or that place.

These wise prompters were also expected to tell what famous trees or flowers lived, along the route, and in the various climates. Without a telescope, they could see little moving specks, looking like flies, or fleas, high up on the eternal snows. These were human beings, who had either, like wild flowers, escaped cultivation; or, perhaps, had fled from prison, or lunatic asylums, and were bound to get up to the mountain tops, as if their keepers were after them with guns. Occasionally an electric railroad, with snorting locomotive, on a track and pinion system of cog-wheels, with central rail, carried the passengers, fat or thin, who could not climb, or who were sane, or, it might be, lazy.

Occasionally, in rambling through the ice halls, the fairies could discern, embedded in the crystal walls, black spots. Asking whether these were flies in amber, such as they had heard of, they were told that these specks were mortals, men and women, mountain climbers, who had fallen down precipices, or upon the ice, or slipped into crevices. Having ended their lives thus, they were kept in the crystal for years, until their bodies were shot out on the moraines, or washed down the rivers. Sometimes the fairies found bits of rope and alpenstocks. They even learned to tell the difference between blondes and brunettes.

Often some of the fairies wondered how it would feel to be born as a baby, and drink milk, and eat candy, and first crawl over the floor, and then walk and grow up to be a man or a woman. They could only guess vaguely what it was to die. For that is the curious thing about fairies, they cannot die, because they were never born. They do not have to grow like human babies, or big elephants, or little kangaroos, or be hatched out of eggs, like chickens, or wriggle in the ponds, or swim in the water like frogs, or fishes, or whales, or porpoises. Once in a while, some fairy thought she would like to try it, just once, to live and die, just to see how it felt, but the other fairies, who did not admire her taste, only laughed at her.

As a rule, these passengers on the glacier did not pay close attention to such matters. They were not much interested in mortals, but more in themselves, for they considered boys and girls, and men and women, to be very inferior creatures. They gave more attention to what they saw, as they traveled through the country, changing climate every few thousand feet and every century or so.

At first, all was snow, ice and rocks, with no birds, shrubs, or trees, or flowers, and not even moss. Indeed, some of them grumbled and declared they would not have left home, if they thought they were to see nothing more than mere human beings. But very soon, that is, after a few years, ten or twenty, perhaps, their ice chariot or train had carried them past this old scenery.

Now they began to see mosses and lichens, and occasionally a condor, or Alpine eagle, on a crag, eating his dinner—perhaps a young lamb, or a rabbit, or a marmot, or a chamois kid, or something from a cow’s carcass, which the big bird of prey had stolen from some butcher’s slaughter house. This was the first sign of that uncanny thing they called life; which, inside of mortals and other animals, makes them move about.

It was a stunning novelty, when the conductor called out the name of a new station:

“Flowers!”

Then they saw, overhanging the rocks, or near the edges of the precipices, or in the crevices and crannies of the cliffs, what they called flowers. Yet to us folks, who live in the house and nursery, these plants, so bundled up in white, hardly seemed to be flowers. They rather looked like babies, ready to be taken out to ride, for they were well swaddled in what appeared to be fur or flannel. In fact, their flowers, so called, were so woolly, and cushiony, and flat, and low, and they kept holding on so hard, as if for dear life, in the biting cold wind, that they looked bleak and ghostly. Some of these Alpine flowers were as downy as a duckling, and as hairy as a poodle. But this was to keep the plants warm. For life is warm. Death is cold.

Even more wonderful, to most of these fairies, that had lived so long up among the highest mountain tops, and had never been lower down than eight thousand feet or so, was another lovely sight—that of green meadows, spangled with blooms. It was that of the summer pastures.

Now they began to hear the tinkling of bells and saw many cows. They laughed uproariously, as they saw that the billy goats waved their chin beards, up and down, and stood on their hind legs. On the roofs of the shepherds’ chalets, they noticed the big stones. These were laid in rows, to keep down the strips of bark or shingles, when the tempests roared. While they were wondering how funny it must feel, to be a boy or a girl, and live in a skin, with clothes on, they heard the Alpine horn. While listening to its sweet echoes, some of the fairies actually began to think that perhaps, after all, mortals might have a good time, and, possibly, as much enjoyment as fairies do, and always have had. Most of them, however, scouted the very idea.

A real epidemic of rapture broke out and went through the fairies, like measles among children, when they looked upon still greener meadows rich in grass, which were spangled with flowers and these of the loveliest hues, deep red, scarlet, crimson, pink, violet, blue and yellow. They saw the Alpine Poa, which the cows love so dearly.

When the lecturer described its kangaroo-like mothers and babies of this family of plants, the fairies laughed, so loud and merrily, that some of the shepherds thought that a swift horse, with a strap of silver sleigh bells, around its neck, was galloping over the ice.

Perhaps the greatest surprise of all was the sight of trees, which those fairies who had never traveled, had not seen before. In one country, that is, on one level, they found only pines and firs, which rocked in the wind.

Several of the fairies jumped off the train, to pick up a handful of pine needles from the ground, and to play cradle-swinging in the tree branches. They were not afraid of being left behind, by the train rushing past them; for, after playing two or three years under the trees, these passengers jumped on again, and showed handfuls of the curious things that had fallen off the trees, and covered the ground like a brown carpet. Then there were many exclamations of wonder among those that had kept on the train.

Lower down, in another climate, or country, or level, they found forests of oak, birch, and maple. Yet they could not get any sweets out of this Swiss tree, for these fairies did not live in America, where the sugar maple grows.

Every once in a while, the fairy that was the conductor would get out and consult the thermometer. Then, with an air of great wisdom, like an owl, or grand daddy, it was announced that tomorrow—that is, a year, or two, from that date—they would come into a new climate, and to such and such a level, or place, so many feet above sea. Then they would see this and that sort of thing, such as houses, church spires, cheese factories, etc.

At last, having used up their old calendar, through centuries, and into and out of many climates, they found that their palace car train had itself greatly changed within. In one place, where the mountain sides came close together, the road narrowed. Then the rate of movement slackened, so that the ice forming the train was all squeezed up high, and curled, and twisted up, like tooth-paste pressed out of a tube. The glacier was cracked and fissured in every direction.

Some of the fairies had feared, lest their train should run off the track, and bump into a hill, and a wreck follow; but the conductor assured them all was perfectly safe, and that no accidents ever happened on that line. One fairy tried to quote Latin, having once heard a parson say it, in his sermon. In attempting to say Deo Volente, she got it Dic Volente. So the knowing ones nicknamed this member of their family “Dick,” and one, who was very irreverent, called her “Slippery Dick.” She did not like a boy’s name, but she could not help herself.

Dick warned them that they were near the end of the first part of their journey and that the train would stop, when at the level of five thousand feet. Then the temperature would be so high, that they must all be prepared to jump overboard and swim.

At this bit of news, all the family laughed. They said they were glad, for already the palace cars had got so wet with the thaw, inside, that the ceiling dripped on them continually, the seats were slippery, and fast melting away, while as for the floor, it was only a puddle, most of the time. It was a case of watering stock. After all, however, the fairies did not mind it much, and they were only in fun, when they pretended to grumble.

At last, the train, after having made a quick passage of a thousand years, or thereabouts, arrived at its terminal. Then it gradually melted away, becoming a noisy and very muddy river. One after another, the fairies turned themselves into water, and slid out into the stream, rolling about until they reached the beautiful Lake Leman, at the end of which was Geneva. Here they expected to pay a brief visit, of four or five hundred years, before returning home to the mountain tops.

When they arrived at the entrance of the lake, and were well into the deep water, the fairies found waiting for them one of the prettiest craft that ever floated. It was a galley, of strange shape, with a high deck at the bow and the stern. There was plenty of room in the middle for the fairies to play and dance. With their pretty butterfly wings, and lovely gauzy robes, of every tint and hue, they looked so sweet!

On the prow of the ship stood their Queen, who ruled over the lowlands and lake waters, and was captain of this fairy vessel. The smallest of the fairies were continually flitting round the queen, dropping flowers and fruits, and filling the air with perfumes. The vessel had sails of the shape called lateen, or leg-of-mutton. These were made of embroidered silk and cloth of gold. For even more rapid movement, several snow white swans, swift of feet and bright of eye, were harnessed, with silver chains, to the front part, called the cut-water. These drew the ship along gracefully, all the time singing in chorus the sweetest songs imaginable. Accompanying this music was a large golden harp, set in front of the mast, and this, whispered to by the winds, made, with the swans’ songs, the most delicious melody all day long.

Some of the fairies remembered the echo music of the Alpine horn, sent back by the lofty mountain peaks; which, however, lasted but a few seconds. Yet this lake melody continued from sunrise to sunset.

Whenever the Fairy Ship touched the shore, the ground, no matter how hard and stony it had been, at once became soft with soil. Then, grasses, and flowers, grain farms and orchards, and trees rich in luscious fruits, sprang up. Every boy and girl, always on the lookout, and adults, who were so fortunate as to catch a glimpse of the Fairy Ship, would make a wish in their hearts, which was sure to be gratified. They got what they wanted, though often in fairy time, that is, years afterwards.

For years and years, the Fairy Ship plied up and down the lovely blue lake, stopping here and there. A moonlight night was the best time for catching a glimpse of it. Many old folks, still living, like to tell about the craft of good fortune, and also what they then wished for, when they were so happy as to see it coming, or sailing past them.

But bye and bye, when the black smoke of steamboats poisoned the air, and set the fairies sneezing and coughing, and roughened the throats of the swans, so that they could not sing any more, the Fairy Queen gave up her pleasure trips on the lake and ordered the snow fairies back to their mountains.

But, first, the mountain fairies had their visit to Geneva, where they saw the pretty shops and streets, and there these fairies still live, in the hearts of the children. Although nobody ever sees them nowadays, the old folks love to talk about them, and tell of the lovely times they had when children.

It is certain that the fairies left their blessing behind them, for to this day, on the great Genevan holiday, in the confectionery shops, on birthday greetings, and on Christmas and New Year’s cards, you may see a picture of the Fairy Ship, with its brightly colored lateen sails, inscribed with “Good Luck,” or “Happy New Year,” or “Many Joyful Returns of the Day.” Sometimes, they who receive these cards feel as happy as if they had seen the Fairy Ship.

XXII

THE WHITE CHAMOIS

The dwarfs and chamois have always been good friends. This is chiefly because they are so much like each other, in being small. The short dwarfs look like little men. They have beards, and wear caps and clothes, but they are hardly as high as a yard stick, and measure up, only to the heads of quite small boys. In weight, some of them scarcely reach up to a calf. Occasionally, you find a little fellow that could be packed in a band box, or carried in a suit case. As for the baby dwarfs, one of them could be wrapped up in a napkin, and be dropped into a man’s overcoat pocket.

Now the chamois is like the dwarf in this, that he is too small to be a goat, and not big enough to be a deer. He is a funny fellow to look at. His horns are only as long as from your elbow to your hand, and are turned around and backwards at the ends, so that they look like a pair of big, black fish hooks. He has a yellow head, with a dark band on it, and on each cheek is a strip of black, as if he were held in, with bridles and bit. His coat of hair is brown, but his funny little tail is also black, and, oh, how bright his eyes are!

But when it comes to leaping, from rock to rock, the chamois is the Johnny Jump Up, among all animals, for he will skip over a chasm fifteen feet wide. Then, he will land on a tiny ledge of rock, so narrow that one could hardly imagine a cat could hold itself on. Putting his hind legs first, it gets a good footing, and then bounds forward.

These creatures are so agile, that one almost expects to see the strongest of them climb up trees, by hooking their horns on the branches, but they do not. They cut many capers, but not this one. The wonderful thing is that the females, as well as the males, have horns also.

These chamois ladies, and the little folks of the family, that is, the doe and fawn, generally live down among the lower forests, while the daddies and strong young bucks stay, most of the time, up among the high rocks and peaks. They all eat the lovely flowers, grasses, mosses and aromatic herbs, that have a hot taste, and which keep them warm inside.

The very old chamois, with beards, often live alone and off by themselves. So the dwarfs and chamois are much alike, in this respect, that they are both chin choppers, in having hair growing, like a tuft, under their chins, and both are able to whistle. For, when a hunter comes near and the wind blows from him to them, the sentinel, or watchman of the herd gives the alarm, by means of a short shrill sound. Then the whole party scampers far away.

Many thousands of stuffed heads of chamois, mounted, with their hooked horns and bright, artificial eyes, are seen on the walls of Swiss hotels and houses. After the invention of the rifle, so many chamois were killed, that laws were passed which forbade any one hunter to shoot more than one hundred during his lifetime. Then, when the herds of chamois went further and further away, men put telescopes on their long-range rifles, and were thus able to kill at a great distance—even a mile off.

Now among these four footed inhabitants of the high places near the sky, the white chamois is the king of the herds and the pet of the dwarfs. No hunter can kill this leader, for he is the property of the fairies. After a man has shot his hundredth animal, the white chamois appears, to give him warning to stop killing his fellow creatures. This king of the hook-horns can leap, as if it were flying, over chasms. It moves through the deep snows far faster than the strongest man in the land.

To the good people, the white chamois is a messenger of joy, telling of the safety of the herds, announcing also that there will be much sport for the brave hunter, and plenty of meat for the people, next summer, and for years to come; but, for the bad hunter who breaks the law and shoots over a hundred, whether bucks or does, or both, the white chamois is the messenger of death.

Now there was a very bad man, a hunter named Erni, who only said, “pooh pooh,” and “fudge,” when an old man informed him that a white chamois had been seen near the village, as if he had braved danger, in coming so near houses, in order to give warning.