The Red Cloud chief., 1880-05-13
THE LITTLE WHITE DOOR.

THE LITTLE WHITE DOOR.
i SUPPOSE that most boys and girls
who go TO school and study geography
know, by sight at least, the little patch
of pale pink which is marked on the
map as Switzerland" Isuppose, too,
that if / asked What can you tell me
about Switzerland" a great many of
them would cry out, ut is a mountain
Gus country. The Alps are there, Mont
Blanc is there, the highest land in Eu-
rope" All this is true, but / wonder
If all Of those who know ever so much
have any idea what a beautiful country
Switzerland isp Not only are the moup-
tains very high and very grand, bat the
valleys which lie between s,e as green
as emerald, and full Of all sorts of wild
flowers, there are ,.akes of the loveliest
blue, rivers Which foam and dash as
merrily az rivers do i'm America, and the
pre'tlcst farmhouses in the world,
cha Is the Swiss call them, with steep
roofs and hanging balconies. and mot.
toes and quaint ornaments carved all
over their fronts. And the most pecu-
liar and marvellous thing of all is the
strange nearness of the grass and herb.
age TO the SHOWS High, high up in tho
foldings of the great mountains, on
whose tops winter sits all tho year long,
are lovely little valleys hidden away,
where goats and sheep feed by the side
of glacier-fed Streams, and the air is full
of the tinkIc of their bells, and of the
sweet SHELLS of the mountain flowers.
The ~. II of these streams has an odd
color which - other waters have, a sort
of milky blue-giSen, like an opal. Even
On the hottest days : chilly air plays
over their surface, the S-eath, as it
WERE, of the great ice-fields above, from
whose melting SHOWS the streams are
fed. And still the higher you climb,
the greener grow the pastures and the
thicker the blossoms, while the milk i'm
the chalet pans seems half cream it is
so rich. Delicious milk it is, ice cold,
and fragrant as if the animals which
produce it had fed on flowers. Oh.
Switzerland is a wonderful land indeedi
One day as / sat in a thickct of Alp
roses in one of those lovely, lonely up
per valleys, 1 happened to raise my eve.
and noticed, high in the cliff above, a
tall, narrow rock as white as snow,
which looked exactly like a door set in
the face of the gray precipice. An old
shepherd came by, and 1 asked him
about it. He said it was called 1.-The
Door," and that the valley was called
"The Valley Of the Door" by some
folks because of it, but that its real
name was die Fritzenthdl, or "Fritz's
Valley" on account of a boy called
Fritz who once lived. l wanted to know
about the boy, and as the old man had
a little time to spare, he sat down be.
side me and told this story, which l will
now tell you.
1t was many, many years ago (the
shepherd said), so many that no man
now remembers exactly when it hap
pened Fritz's mother was a widow.
and he was her only child. They were
poor people, and had to work hard for
a living. Fritz was a steady, faithful
lad. and did his best. All day long he
dug and toiled, herded his goats,
milked, fed; in the winter he carved
wooden bowls for sale in the lower val
ley, but work as he would, it was not
always easy to keep the meal-bin full.
What made it harder, were the strange
storms which every few months swept
the valley and damaged the crops. Out
OF the blue sky, as it were. these storms
would suddenly drop. The sun would
be shining n moment, the next, great
torrents of rain would begin to fall and
fierce winds to blow, flooding the crops
and carrying drifts of sand and gravel
across the fields; or again, at other
times, no rain would fall for months to-
gether, and every green thing would be
burned and dried up. while perhaps
at the very same time the lower valleys
had plenty of rain. This happened SO
often that people gave the Thai the
name of The Unlucky Valley and it
was accounted a sad thing to have to
get your living there. The climate is
very different now-praised be God.
You a see, madame, that Fritz's
lot wa not strewn with roses. Still he
was a brave lad. and did not lose heart.
He had no playfellows. but sometimes
in the long summer days when he sat to
watch the herd, he would tell himself a
story by way of amusement, and almost
always these stories were about the
White Door up there, which was as
much a marvel then as now. AT last,
by dint of looking and dreaming. il
grew to be so like a real door to him,
that he resolved one day to climb up and
see it closer"
"Up therer' I cried with horror.
"YeS, madame. 1t was very rash.
Any ordinary boy would have been
dashed to pieces, but Fritz was wiry,
strong and active as q mountain goat.
There are no such boys left nowadays.
One night, while his mother slept, he
stole away, climbed as high as he dared
by moonlight, took a wink of sleep
under q shelving rock, and with the
first dawn began to make his way up
ward, testing every foothold. and NOV
ing cautiously, for though he loved ad-
venture, Fritz was by no mea q fool.
hardy boy, and had no mind to lose his
life If wit and care could keep it safe.
But the climb was a terrible one. He
had been on precipices before, but never
on such as this. Only Gods goodness
saved him again and again. A hundred
times he wished himself back, but to
return was worse than to 90 on. So uI
and up he went, and at last, scaling
that sheer brown cliff which you see
there, and throwing himself breathless
on a narrow ledge, he found himself
close to the object of his desires. There,
Just before him, was the Little White
Door.
1.-The sight restored his energies al
once. 1t was q real door-that he saw
at q glance, for there was a lat ch, and 8
keyhole and a knocker, all carved ol
white stone, and on the door a name in
good German characters-.D Die Wolken.
I do not know the name in English"
"It is Clouds" 1 told him.
"Ah, yes, die Clouds Fritz could
hardly believe his eyes. as you may
imagine.
Pretty soon he grew bold. and seiz-
ing the knocker he gave a loud rap,
Nobody answered at first, so he raped
again, louder and louder, until the
sound echoed from the rocks like thun'
der. At last the door opened very
suddenly. and some one drew Fritz in
and shut the door again quickly. AL
was dark inside, but he felt q cool wrisI
touch on his wrist, and q hand he could