Rico and Wiseli Part 2

When Stineli awoke on the following Sunday morning, she was conscious of an unusual light-heartedness, and at first could not understand the cause, until she remembered what day it was, and that her grandmother had said, on the previous evening, "To-morrow you must have the whole afternoon to yourself: it is rightfully yours."

After dinner was finished, and all the dishes taken away, and the table washed off by Stineli, Peterli called out, "Come here to me;" and the two others screamed, "No, to me!" and her father said, "Now Stineli must go to look after the goats."

But at this moment her grandmother went through the kitchen, and made a sign to Stineli to follow her.

"Now go in peace, my child," she said. "I will take care of the goats and the children; but be sure to come home, both of you, punctually when the bell rings for prayer." The grandmother knew very well that there were two of them.

Off flew Stineli, like a bird whose cage-door has suddenly been opened; and outside stood Rico, who had been waiting for a long time. They went on together, across the meadow towards the wood.

On the mountains the sun was s.h.i.+ning brightly, and the blue heavens lay over all the landscape. They were obliged to pa.s.s, for a little while, through the shade in the snow; but the sun was s.h.i.+ning a little farther on, and s.h.i.+mmered on the waters of the lake, and there were lovely dry spots on the slope that was almost hanging over the lake.

There the children seated themselves. A sharp wind came down from the heights, and whistled about their ears. Stineli was as happy as happy could be. She shouted out, again and again, "Oh, look, Rico; look! How beautiful it is in the sun! Now summer has come, look how the lake glistens! There cannot be a more beautiful lake than this one anywhere,"

she said confidently.

"Yes, yes, Stineli! You ought to see the lake I know about just once,"

said Rico; and looked so longingly across the lake, that it seemed as if that which he wanted to see began just beyond their vision.

"Over there are no dark fir-trees, with sharp needles, but s.h.i.+ning green leaves, and great red flowers; and the mountains are not so high and dark, nor so near, but lie off in the distance, and are purple; and the sky and the lake are all golden and still and warm. There the wind does not feel like this, and one's feet never get full of snow; and one can sit all day long on the sunny ground, and look about."

Stineli was quite carried away by this description. She already saw the red flowers and the golden lake before her eyes, and seemed to know exactly how beautiful it all was.

"Perhaps you may be able to go there again to see it all, Rico. Do you know the way?"

"You must cross the Maloja. I have been there with my father once. He pointed me out the road that goes all the way down the mountain,--first this way, then that, and far below lies the lake; but so far, so far, that it is scarcely possible to go there."

"Oh! that is easy enough," said Stineli. "You have to go farther and farther, that is all; and at the end you will surely get there."

"But my father told me something else. Do you know, Stineli, when you are travelling and stop at an inn, and eat something and sleep there, then there is something to pay, and you must have money for that."

"Oh! we have lots of money," cried Stineli triumphantly. But her companion was not triumphant.

"That is exactly as good as nothing. I know that by the affair of the fiddle," he said sadly.

"Then it will be better for you to stay at home, Rico. Look! it is beautiful here at home, I am sure."

The lad sat thoughtfully silent for a long time, leaning his head on his hand, and his eyebrows brought in a close line down over his eyes. At last he turned again to Stineli, who had been gathering the soft green moss that grew around the spot where they were lying, and of which she made a tiny bed with two pillows and a coverlet. She meant to carry them home to the sick Urschli.

"You say I had better stay at home, Stineli; but, do you know, it is just as if I did not know where my home really is."

"Oh, dear me! what do you mean?" cried the girl; and in her surprise she threw away a whole handful of moss. Your home is here, of course. It is always home where father and mother"--She stopped suddenly. Rico had no mother, and his father had been away now for a very long time; and the cousin? Stineli never went near that cousin, who had never spoken one pleasant word to her. The child did not know what to say, but it was not natural to her to remain long in uncertainty. Rico had already fallen into one of his reveries, when she grasped him by the arm, and said,--

"I should just like to know something; that is, the name of the lake where it is so lovely."

Rico pondered. "I do not know," he said; and felt very much surprised himself as he spoke.

Now Stineli proposed that they should ask somebody what it was called; for even if Rico had ever so much money, and was able to travel, he must know how to inquire the way, and what the name of the lake was. They began at once to think of whom they should inquire,--of the teacher, or of the grandmother.

At last it occurred to Rico that his father would know better than anybody else, and he thought he would certainly ask him when he came home again.

The time had slipped away quickly as they sat talking, and presently the children heard the distant sound of a bell. They recognized the sound.

It was the bell for prayers.

They sprang up quickly, and ran off, hand in hand, down the hill-side through bushes, and through the snow across the meadow; and it had scarcely stopped ringing when they reached the door where the grandmother was on the lookout for them.

Stineli had to go at once into the house, and her grandmother said quickly, "Go home directly, Rico, and do not hang around the door any longer."

The grandmother had never said such a thing to him before, although he had always been in the habit of hanging around the door; for he was never in haste to go home, and stood always for a while before he could make up his mind to enter. He obeyed at once, however, and went into the house.

CHAPTER V.

A SAD HOUSE, BUT THE LAKE GETS A NAME.

Rico did not find his cousin in the sitting-room; so he went to the kitchen, and opened the door. There she stood; but before he could enter, she raised her finger, saying, "Sch! sch! Do not open and shut the doors, and make a noise, as if there were four of you. Go into the other room, and keep still. Your father is lying in the bedroom up there. They brought him home in a wagon: he is sick."

Rico went into the room, seated himself on a bench, and did not stir.

He sat there for at least a half-hour. Presently he heard the cousin moving about in the kitchen. Then he thought that he would go up very softly, and peep into the bedroom. Perhaps his father would like something to eat: it was long past the meal-time.

He slipped behind the stove, mounted the little steps, and went very softly into the bedroom. After a while he returned, went at once into the kitchen, approached quite close to his cousin, and said softly,--

"Cousin, come up."

The woman was about to strike him angrily, when she happened to glance at his face. He was perfectly colorless,--cheeks and lips as white as a sheet, and his eyes looked so black that the cousin was almost afraid of him.

"What is the matter with you?" she asked hastily, and followed him almost involuntarily.

He mounted the little steps softly, and entered the chamber. His father lay on the bed with staring, wide-open eyes,--he was dead.

"Oh, my G.o.d!" screamed the cousin, and ran crying out of the door that opened upon the pa.s.sage on the other side of the room, went down the staircase, and across into the opposite house, where she called out to tell the neighbor and the grandmother the sad news; and thence she ran on to the teacher and to the mayor.

One after another they came, and entered the quiet room until it was full of people; for the news spread from one to another of what had taken place. And in the midst of all the tumult, and of all the clamor of the crowd of neighbors, Rico stood by the bedside speechless, motionless, and gazed at his father. All through the week the house was filled with people who wished to look at the man, and hear from the cousin how it had all happened; so that the lad heard it repeated over and over, that his father had been at work down in St. Gall on the railroad.

He had received a deep wound on the head when they were blasting a rock; and, as he could not work any longer, he wished to go home to take care of himself until the wound was healed. But the long journey--sometimes on foot, sometimes in an open wagon--was too much for him; and when he had reached his home on Sunday, towards evening, he he had lain down on the bed never to rise again. Without any one knowing it, he had pa.s.sed away; for he was already stiff when Rico had found him. On the following Sunday the burial took place. Rico was the only mourner to follow the coffin. Several kind neighbors joined in, and thus the little procession went on to Sils. In the church, Rico heard the pastor when he read out, "The deceased was called Henrico Trevillo, and was a native of Peschiera on the Lake of Garda."

These words brought the feeling to Rico that he had heard something that he knew perfectly well before, and yet could not recollect. He had always seen a picture of the lake before his eyes when he had sung,--

"One evening In Peschiera,"

with his father, but he had never known the reason. He repeated the name softly to himself, while one old song after another arose in his memory.

As he came back from the burial all alone, he saw the grandmother seated on the log of wood, and Stineli by her side. She beckoned him to come over to them. She gave the lad a bit of cake and another to Stineli, and said now they might go off together for a walk. Rico ought not to be alone.

So the children rambled off together, hand in hand. The grandmother remained seated on her log, sadly gazing after the black-haired lad until they had wandered slowly up the hillside and pa.s.sed out of sight.

Then she said softly to herself,--