The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1871-11-15

~cH'.No' af-f.f
The grasshopper had ceased its mon
otonons chirp. You could not hear m
insect hum, nor a leaf stir, nor a bid
chirp.,s sd
The oxen and the cows-their eye
lids closed, their legs folded under
them -reposed in the shade of great
oak, in the middle of the field, and oc-
casionally one of them would low in a
slow and heavy voice, as if complain
ing. 4-., ,e.s3 $500
Fritz, at first, had begun to braid the
cord of his whip, but lie soon stretched
himself out upon the grass, his hat over
his eyes, and Freidland came and lay
down beside him, yawning form ear to
ear.
MYRTLE, alone, was not affected by
extreme heat. Crouching down near
the fire, hugsing her knees, she sat mo-
tionless in the full blaze of the sun,
gazing with her dark eyes into the SOM
Der recesses of the forest.
The hours wore slowly on; the dis
tant village clock struck twelve, then
one, then two, and the gypsy girl did
not stir. The woods, the bare noun
tain tops, the rocks, the rows of pine
trees stretching down the opposite side
Of the mountain, all seemed to possess
a profound, mysterious meaning for
her. -
eyes," whispered she to herself
81 saw that long ago."
Suddenly, she looked at Fritz, who
was fast asleep, then rose up softly and
fed. Her light feet hardly touched
the ground she flew, flew up the side
of the mountain; Friendland turned
his head lazily around, and seemed in
clined to follow her, but stretched
himself out again upon the ground,
overcome with lassitude.
MYRTLE disappeared among t h e
bushes that border the forest; with
one bound she crossed muddy ditch,
where a solitary frog was croaking
among the rushes. Twenty minutes
later, she gained the crest of Roche
Grouse, which oyerlooks Alsatia, and
the blue tops of the Vosges; then she
looked back to see if any one was
following her.
Fritz, with his hat over his eyes,
was still sleeping soundly in the green
fields; so were Friedland and the cat
tie under the trees.
She gazed at the village beyond, at
the river, at the roof of the farm house,
around which the pigeons were flying,
looking in the distance like so many
swallows; she gazed at the crooked
high street where several peasant wo-
men in red petticoats were walking
at the little moss grown church, where
the good cure Nicklauses had baptized
and afterward confirmed her in the
Christian faith then she turned to-
ward the mountain and gazed upon
the arrowy tops of innumerable pines,
growing as thick as grass on the sides
of. the precipice. In the presence Of
this grand spectacle, the gypsy girl felt
her breath leave, her heart beat with
unaccustomed force. as
Resuming her course, she crossed a
crovico carpeted with moss and ferns,
in order to gain the herdsman's foot.
path through the woods. Her whole
soul, all her wild nature shone forth
in her conntenance with unwonted
force; she semed TRANSPORTED she
clutched the ivy with her little hands,
and planted her bare feet firmly in the
assures of her rock.
| She soon set off on the other side of
the mountain, running, leaping, and
sometimes suddenly stopping to re-
gard the surrounding objects a tree, a
ravine, a solitary pool, q clump of
sweet smelling grasses, as if struck
dumb with surprise. Although she
had never, to her recollection, seen
these thickets, these copses, this heath,
yet at every turn of the road she
would say, 81 knew that this tree was
here, that rock there, and the stream
down below" A thousand strange
memories crossed her mind with light
1
ming speed, but she did not understand
why, nor did she reason about it. She
had not yet said to herself: "What
Fritz and other people need is the viii
lage, the fields, the shelter of the farm
house, the fruit trees in the orchard,
the COW that gives milk, the hen that
lays eggs, the provisions stored in the
cellar and in the garnet, the warm
room in winter but l have no need
of such things because / am savage
a real savage; I was born to these
woods as the squirrel to the oak, the
hawk to the rock, the thrush to the
pine"
| No, she had never reasoned about
these things, but her instinct guided
her, and urged on by this strange
power she reached at sunset the bare
plateau of .Kohle-Platzs, where the
gipsies who travel from Alsatia to
Lorraine ordinarily halt to pass the
~; ,1,t !ond honr th a;r 1-attla o,,,;.1s - ~, i,