The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1882-05-27


This point having been settled by Hans
with quiet decision, the artist stranger
was received without more formality
into the simple Inequalities of the chalet,
and soon adapted himself to their primi-
tive WAYS. What a wonderful life it
was! He breathed the exhilarating
mountain air and was shut in but not
imprisoned by these ancient sentinels.
How silent they often were through days
of dazzling sunshine and nights of clear.
cold frost, and again how many-voiced
as they echoed the wind and storm and
avalanche, or repeated the wild jodel of
the peasants.
He watched Reinhold, the elder peas
ant, and Hans toiling early and late with
simple, faithful hearts at their mental
tasks. Perhaps even more, as was
natural, he watched Gretel moving with
light step about her little kingdom,
lending to each of her household duties
an unconscious dignity. The clouds
that often lay beneath them, hiding the
valley from sight, seemed-and he felt
it almost with alarm-to be blotting out
his old life with its achievements and in
terests, till they grew faint as a half
remembered dream. He thought of
this mountain life as of a picture done
with simple, mastery strokes and. rich,
pure coloring, and of his own, in COM
parison, as piece of delicate genre
painting, executed with feverish and
morbid attention to detail and finish.
And he strove to attain to the strength
and serenity of those who had lived
habitually on the heights.
Yet Gretel was human and compan-
ionable, too. One day-a month must
have passed since his arrival-she said
to him with gentle solicitude: 81 fear
you will not have many sketches to show
when you return to your country, my
friend. This is fine, clear day. Let
me fetch your pencils and paper and you
can get rare outline of old Dreizacken
opposite
"But, Gretel, what beautiful day to
gather flowers, and you need the air.
Let us climb to the point where the
Edelweiss grows"
So her mild reproof was as usual un-
availing.
"You see am gathering inspiration,
though my pencil and brush are idle"
he explained TO her as they swung them
selves up to bold promontory where
red and pink rhododendrons blossomed
in brilliant profusion. Gretel, always
fleeter and surer than her companion
climbed rapidly to still higher ledge
and brought back in triumph a beautiful
specimen of the pure and starlike Edel-
weiss with its strange woolly covering.
Her face was flushed with cxertion.
Ordinarily it was so pale and transpa-
rent that he had sometimes compared
her to the Edelweiss, although he had
never told her so. Sometimes also,
though not habitually, he had seen q
sunrise in the Alps. and his artist soul
had thrilled, as even an inartistic soul
must, at sight of that marvellous rose
tint which touches and glorifies the cold
snowy peaks until they seem to glow
with life. OF such a sunrise he thought
now as he looked at the flush on Greters
cheek. He was right. His artistic
sense was by no means lying as dormand
as she had fancied
"What beautiful world this is up
herer' she said.
''f only it might remain so! But
soon the winter will come, and this
happy summer be over, and there will
be change and parting, Gretel."
EYES," she said, quietly.
The air, the place, the girl and the
flowers wrought sudden mood in him,
a mood both daring and impractical.
:. Is she formed of the white ice of the
glaciers?" he thought: "can nothing
thaw her frigid heart?'' Then aloud:
F" But need there be parting, Gretel?
When the cruel winter reigns here with
its ice and snow, there is another land
where happy home and a bright hearth
and love and good cheer awaits our
coming"
All, the sunrise glow was in her face
again! He saw it and triumphed.
Then she turned her full gaze upon
him without trace of self-consciousnes
or assimilation in it.
"Look at this Edelweiss, this child of
the mountains, placed here by God to
bloom for Him. Do you not know how,
when the covetous tourist has torn it
from its native soil and transplanted it
to his own, in spite of all the care and
tenderness bestowed upon it, it droops
and dies in the uncongenial soil? Shall
we be deaf to the lesson it teaches us,
my friendP No, must live and die here
in my mountains. 1t would wrong us
both to do otherwise. Let us go down,
for hear already the Jingle Of the cow
bells"
Neighbor Bachmann has moved to-
day to the chalet on the Dreizacken,"
said Reinhold that evening. 1t is most
unwise. Why, Herr Georg? Because
1t lies in an unprotected spot, and an
avalanche might at any moment sweep
down upon it. 1t has not happened for
many years, but the snow is treacherous
under this warm sun, and / would not
trust my life there
The next morning the artist sat on the
bench before the chalet sketching more
busily than he had done since his ar
rival.
Gretel came out with q small basket
IN her arm ssT au orrsn~ 20 o.~~,-