Initial commit of ebook 77374 filesHEADmain

1 files changed, 549 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/goldau_v1.txt b/goldau_v1.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5cb08e8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/goldau_v1.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,549 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77374 ***
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                                   THE
+
+                            BRAVE LITTLE MAID
+                                OF GOLDAU
+
+                                   BY
+                         MARY ELIZABETH JENNINGS
+
+                                NEW YORK
+                     ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY
+                             (INCORPORATED)
+                            182 FIFTH AVENUE
+
+
+
+
+                           COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY
+                     ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY.
+                             (Incorporated).
+
+
+
+
+                             ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+                A NESTLING VILLAGE.--Frontispiece.
+
+                THE LAND-SLIDE.--To face page 13.
+
+                THE PEACEFUL VALLEY.--To face page 33.
+
+                EVENING BELLS.--To face page 38.
+
+
+
+
+                          THE BRAVE LITTLE MAID
+                               OF GOLDAU.
+
+
+
+
+                                   I.
+
+
+Throughout Switzerland, the summer of 1806 is always spoken of as “The
+wet Summer.” During May, June, and July, many and heavy showers fell,
+but in August it rained almost every day. In the Canton of Schwytz, the
+sky was so dark and forbidding that the clouds left the upper spaces,
+and chased each other quite down the mountain sides: and shut out the
+lovely little valley, which lay between Mount Rossberg and Mount Rigi,
+from the rest of the world. The people cared little for this, however,
+for was not the grass in the meadows on the mountain side as sweet
+as sweet could be? had the cows ever given richer milk? had ever such
+butter and cheese been made before, or so good a price received for it?
+And look at the gardens; such cauliflower! such cabbage! such potatoes!
+And above all, look around at the “over world,” the mosses, the vines,
+the shrubs, and trees, whose leaves, from the tenderest brown to the
+darkest green, seem as though tipped with diamonds, they sparkle so!
+And the flowers; were their colors ever more soft and lovely? No,
+everything was beautiful! beautiful! True, the tourists grumbled at
+the weather, but they always had a way of grumbling at something, and
+perhaps it might as well be the weather as anything else: and so the
+Fraus talked, and smiled, and nodded their heads, which made their
+words all the more reliable.
+
+At the foot of the Rossberg nestled the pretty little village of
+Goldau. The mountain lifted its head five thousand feet above the
+village, but it smiled down upon it so kindly, and when the sharp
+winds blew shielded it so securely, that the people looked up with
+grateful eyes and spoke of it as their own beautiful mountain. And it
+was indeed beautiful. Near the top, and extending for a good way down
+its side, grew strong large trees, with little trees in between; quite
+a wood in fact; and when the wind passed over the mountain tops, the
+leaves rustled, shook hands, and laughed and talked in the pleasantest
+way imaginable. Below the wood, lay the great green meadows, where
+the grass grew soft and thick like velvet; and gardens too, for the
+people of Goldau not only kept many cows, but thought much of their
+cauliflower, cabbage, and potatoes. A little higher on the mountain
+side than most of the houses in the village, stood the home of young
+Kaspar Bernstein, Josepha his wife, three pretty children, and a
+little maid named Franziska Ulrich. Heinrich, the eldest, was a stout
+lad of eight years, who helped his father drive the cows to and from
+the pasture, and pulled the weeds in the garden. But the pet of the
+household was wee, blue-eyed Gretchen, a demure little maid of six
+years, who helped her mother, or thought she did, and made the hours
+pass happily for baby Fritz. Their home was a very pleasant one, clean
+and comfortable; the floors white with frequent scrubbings,--the
+pretty blue picture dishes at which Gretchen never tired of looking as
+the plates stood on edge in the racks on the wall; the tinware polished
+until it shone like silver; and the great square tile stove, with the
+bench around three sides of it, so that all could sit with their backs
+against the warm tile of an evening, while the top was large enough to
+make a bed upon in the coldest winter nights,--oh, it was as cozy and
+comfortable as a home could well be! And in the Summer time, how breezy
+the house was when the doors and windows were all wide open; why, one
+could stand in the front door, and look right out through the back door
+at the mountain. And the view of Goldau, with other little towns all
+lying so close together, and the shimmering water of the lake, made
+a picture always lovely to look upon; and when the sweet tones of the
+church bells floated up to them, morning and evening, their joy was
+complete.
+
+
+
+
+                                   II.
+
+
+The second morning of September opened dark and uncomfortable enough.
+The rain fell in torrents; at seven o’clock it was still too dark to
+see without a candle. Kaspar went out and attended to his cattle, and
+when he brought in the milk said to his wife,--
+
+“Frantz Schwartz was on top of the mountain yesterday; he says that the
+little crack up there has so widened that he cannot now jump across it.”
+
+“Is there any danger, think you?” anxiously asked the wife, setting the
+wooden pail on the floor and looking up at him.
+
+“No, no,” answered Kaspar carelessly, shaking the water from his cap,
+“if there should be a split-off, it won’t get any further than the
+trees; they’ll hold it, never fear,” and turning from her he went off
+to his work, whistling merrily.
+
+But Frau Bernstein did not feel so sure, and many times during the
+morning she opened the door and looked long and anxiously toward the
+top of the towering mountain.
+
+“I know not what makes me feel so afraid,” she said to Franziska, who
+was holding and amusing baby Fritz, “yet I cannot help it; even the
+trees seem to be worried about something, the leaves all hang their
+heads so.”
+
+“What nonsense,” laughed Kaspar, coming in just in time to catch her
+last words; “the leaves are soaked through and through with water, and
+are too heavy to hold their heads up.”
+
+But there was work to do, and, in spite of anxiety, the morning hours
+passed quickly.
+
+About dinner-time the rain stopped falling, but the black, angry
+clouds settled down more heavily over meadow and town, and after a few
+moments of quiet a gust of ice-cold wind swept down the mountain sides,
+followed by a furious, though short, storm of hail.
+
+The afternoon wore away with no return of the storm, and the hearts of
+all grew lighter.
+
+“Now God be thanked that it no more rains and the danger is over,” said
+the mother.
+
+About five o’clock Kaspar looked in and said, “Josepha, come out and
+see what the hail has done; the trees no more bear leaves but ribbons
+on their branches; the vines are stripped, and nothing is left in the
+garden.”
+
+Baby Fritz was asleep in his cradle, Gretchen busy with her play,
+and leaving Franziska to care for them, Frau Bernstein, followed by
+Heinrich, passed out through the kitchen leaving the door open,--
+
+“It will be good for the house that the air enter; the rain has made it
+so damp,” said she.
+
+Franziska watched them until Gretchen called,--“Freddie! Freddie! come
+see the funny little birds.”
+
+Franziska hurried to the window, then opened the front door, and stood
+upon the steps, Gretchen close beside her.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+How strangely the birds acted, to be sure. They flew round and round in
+the air, all the time uttering a plaintive little cry: the cattle, too,
+showed great uneasiness, and began to run about the meadows lowing
+as they ran. What could it all mean? Kaspar and his wife asked the same
+question, and, as if in answer, a huge boulder left the mountain top
+and crashed into the trees. It fell no further; the trees held it; but
+when three or four others rolled down together, that was more than the
+trees could stand; they bent and broke and the huge rocks came rolling
+down the mountain side into the village below. Kaspar looked at the
+mountain and saw the trees tottering and falling, and the ground all in
+motion, and seizing Heinrich with one hand and his wife with the other,
+he shouted, “A land slide! run! run!!”
+
+Now, in times of great excitement, a father may forget his children for
+a moment, but a mother never; so tearing herself from her husband’s
+grasp with the words, “Gretchen! Fritz!” Frau Bernstein ran toward the
+house as fast as she could run, not minding in the least that she was
+in the track of the falling stones. As she reached the door, she caught
+Gretchen up in her arms, and rushed into the room where baby Fritz lay
+sleeping. Handing Gretchen to Franziska, who had followed her, it was
+the work of a moment only to lift the baby from his cradle, but as
+Franziska turned to leave the room she saw, with horror-stricken eyes,
+what seemed to be the whole mountain side coming through the back door.
+One step only when a crashing, splintering, grinding noise filled her
+ears; and then all became a blank. When she came to herself, she was
+in the dark; so dark it was she could not see at all, but worse than
+that, she was buried to her shoulders in wet earth and stones, and the
+blood was running down her face from a sharp cut in her forehead.
+
+After struggling a few moments she succeeded in freeing one of her
+hands, and as she wiped the blood away, the horrible truth flashed
+upon her--she was buried alive! Then how she struggled, and cried, and
+prayed, and shouted for help; but the cruel earth held her close, and
+there was no one to hear or answer her. “Oh, if with the rest of them I
+too had died!” she sobbed, when the first paroxysm of terror had spent
+itself,--“but to starve here is horrible! horrible!” and again she
+sought to free herself from the earth around her, but in vain.
+
+A low moan, followed by sobs of fright and pain, with a piteous cry of
+“Mutter! Mutter!” broke upon her ear; it was little Gretchen’s voice.
+
+At the sound, all that was noble and heroic in the girl’s nature
+asserted itself; her own pain and danger were forgotten; she must save
+Gretchen somehow, but first she must soothe and comfort her. “Gretchen!
+Gretchen!” she called, “where are you, dear?”
+
+“Don’t know,” answered the little one between her sobs.
+
+“Come here, darling, you can come to Freddie, can’t you?”
+
+“I can’t get up,” wailed the child after a moment’s silence; “something
+won’t let me go.”
+
+“Don’t cry so, darling,” said Franziska; “can you see anything?”
+
+“Can’t see anything but a little star in the dark,” replied the
+plaintive little voice. At this answer, a great hope filled the heart
+of Franziska; the little star must be a small opening through which the
+fading daylight found an entrance; they were not so deeply buried as
+she had feared.
+
+“Want a drink of water,” wailed the little one,--“Freddie, come and
+give Gretchen a drink.”
+
+Oh, how she longed to go.
+
+“What shall I do! oh, what shall I do!” she moaned under her breath;
+then with a great effort at self-control she said aloud,--“Gretchen,
+darling, Freddie can’t come, so fast the dirt holds her; but perhaps
+‘der Vater’ will come soon, and he will give Gretchen water; only be
+patient, darling, and do not be afraid, Freddie is close here; now
+don’t cry any more and she will tell you a story; you want to hear
+again the story, don’t you, Gretchen, about the prince who found the
+real princess?”
+
+No answer, but the sobbing grew less violent. The tears were running
+down her own cheeks, but she began bravely,--
+
+“Once, upon a time, there was a prince who wished to marry a princess,
+but he wanted her to be a real princess. He travelled all around the
+world to find one; not that there was any lack of princesses, but as to
+whether or no they were real ones, he could not always make out; there
+was sure to be something about them not just satisfactory. At last he
+went home quite unhappy, so disappointed was he at not finding a real
+princess.
+
+“One evening there was a furious storm. It thundered and lightened,
+and the rain poured down till it was quite dreadful. Between the
+thunderclaps there came a knock at the town-gate. The old king, after
+thinking a moment, said the gate should not be opened; no good person
+would be out in such bad weather; and if he were, he had no business
+to be. But he was a kind-hearted old king, and when it thundered and
+lightened and rained harder than ever, he went himself and opened it.
+
+“A princess stood outside the gate, but,--oh dear--what a state she was
+in from the rain and the bad weather! The water was dripping down from
+her hair and her clothes, and running in at the tips of her shoes and
+coming out at the heels. Yet she said she was a real princess. Well,
+that we’ll presently see, thought the old queen, the king’s wife, but
+she said nothing. She opened the door into a large room. ‘Oh, my!’
+said the princess, as she looked around. Except where the windows were,
+the walls were all covered with closets and mirrors: first a closet,
+and then a mirror; then a closet, then another mirror, and so on all
+around the room. The old queen opened a closet door. There were the
+prettiest little slippers the princess had ever set her eyes upon.
+Slippers of white satin, slippers of black satin, slippers of red
+satin, slippers of gold satin,--indeed there were slippers of every
+color under the sun.
+
+“The princess peeped into another closet. On shelves lay piles of
+the softest silk stockings,--a pair of stockings for every pair of
+slippers. ‘Oh, my!’ again said the princess. In the other closets hung
+gowns of satin, and gowns of silk, and indeed there was everything a
+princess could have need of.
+
+“‘Now, help yourself,’ said the old queen, and off she went to the
+kitchen to hurry up the dinner; for when princesses have been out in
+the rain they are apt to be hungry.”
+
+“Gretchen’s hungry too,--give Gretchen some bread,” came in faint tones.
+
+“When ‘der Vater’ comes, darling. Just hear the rest of the story.
+
+“The princess stood a long time in thought. She could not make up her
+mind just what to put on. Black would be the most appropriate, she at
+last decided; she was not in mourning, but she was in trouble, and that
+was the next thing to it. So she put on the black silk stockings, the
+black satin slippers, and a black satin gown; then she stood in the
+middle of the room and looked at herself in the mirrors.
+
+“‘Oh, my,’ said the princess, ‘how fine it is to see one’s self all
+around at the same time, and not have to turn first this way and then
+that.’
+
+“When the princess came out of the room how lovely she did look, to be
+sure. Her hair curled all around her face in little rings; her eyes
+were blue as a bit of the sky in sunshiny weather, her hands were white
+as milk, and when the prince touched one of them he thought he had
+never felt anything softer. So delighted was he, he wished to marry
+her on the spot, but the old queen was not quite satisfied. ‘She looks
+well, and she eats well, but wait and see how she sleeps,’ said she.
+So she went into the chamber and took off the bedding and laid a bean
+upon the mattress. Then she laid twenty mattresses upon the bean, and
+piled twenty eider-down beds on top of the mattresses.
+
+“The princess lay upon them the whole night. In the morning, ‘How did
+you sleep?’ asked the old queen.
+
+“‘Oh, very badly,’ said the princess; ‘I scarcely closed my eyes all
+night! I do not know what was in the bed! I laid upon some hard thing
+which has made me black and blue all over. It was quite dreadful!’
+
+“It was now evident that she was a real princess, since she perceived
+the bean through twenty mattresses and twenty eider-down beds. None but
+a princess could have such delicate feeling. So the prince married her,
+for he knew he had found a real princess, and they lived happy ever
+after.
+
+“Now, wasn’t it nice that the prince found a real princess after all?”
+
+No answer.
+
+“Gretchen, can’t you hear me?” she cried.
+
+Still no answer.
+
+“Gretchen! Gretchen!” she called, now thoroughly frightened, “speak
+to Freddie!” but there was no sound save her own voice. Then despair
+filled the heart of poor Franziska. “Oh! she is dying! she is dead! my
+little Gretchen! if I could only go to her I could get her out from
+under the dirt and stones, so strong am I”; and she dug desperately at
+the earth surrounding her with her one poor hand, but how vain were all
+her efforts--and soon realizing this, she stopped struggling.
+
+The long hours in their slow march seemed almost to pause beside her.
+How cold she was, all except her head,--that seemed on fire. How the
+earth pinched her; if it held her so tight long, her heart must stop
+beating,--how still everything was;--she had heard of the quiet of
+the grave, now she knew what that meant;--only she had never thought
+it could press down upon and hurt her so;--and the night wore itself
+slowly out, with now no sound save the creaking of some heavy timber as
+it sank prone upon the ground under its load of earth and stones.
+
+The faint, sweet tones of the morning bell penetrated her prison,
+arousing her from the stupor into which she had fallen.
+
+“Oh, I cannot die! I cannot die, when it is morning and the earth is
+so near! my sweet bells! how you torture me. _Heilige Maria, bitt für
+uns!--bitt für uns!_”
+
+Her piteous cry pierced little Gretchen’s returning consciousness, and
+feebly she answered her.
+
+
+
+
+                                  III.
+
+
+Above, Kaspar Bernstein was searching frantically for the location
+of his lost home. As the bells died away, with the full force of his
+strong lungs he shouted, “Josepha! Josepha! Jo-se-pha!”
+
+Franziska heard, and, with the cry--“Oh, Gretchen! hear you? it is ‘der
+Vater’s’ voice,”--answered him with all her strength, but her voice
+failed to reach the outer air.
+
+Still shouting he wandered to and fro, now near them, now more remote.
+
+“Gretchen!” she called, “answer ‘der Vater’; perhaps he can hear you
+through the little star.”
+
+Gretchen only moaned.
+
+“Gretchen, you _must_ answer! ‘der Vater’ will not find us; he will
+go away and leave us here to die,--Gretchen darling--shout as loud as
+you can--for the love of God, Gretchen!” And the little one lifted her
+feeble voice and called, “Vater! Vater!”
+
+Overwhelmed by sorrow, as Kaspar stood a moment motionless, that faint
+cry reached him like a whisper from God. Oh, how desperately he dug,
+throwing the earth and stones in all directions in his eager haste to
+reach his darling, while he shouted words of hope and comfort to her.
+
+It was not long before he came upon the front room of his ruined home.
+There, beside the crushed cradle, lay his dead wife, little Fritz
+clasped in her arms. He lifted them tenderly, and laid them carefully
+down out in the open air. He would go back to them later; there would
+be time for grieving, but not now. A little further on lay Gretchen,
+under a pile of dirt and stones. She was badly bruised, and her hip was
+broken. As he raised her in his arms, the blue eyes opened; a slight
+smile flitted over the pale face as she whispered “Vater.”
+
+The tears which had not started when he beheld his dead wife and baby
+now ran down his cheeks, and he felt as though he could never let her
+go; but there was still work to do, so placing her in the arms of a
+kind-hearted Frau from a neighboring village, he carefully dug his way
+towards Franziska. As the light entered her prison she looked about
+her. Some of the beams and boards of the house were jammed together
+about six inches above her head, and held back the earth that must
+otherwise have crushed her. When Kaspar reached her, he found her so
+wedged in between great stones and beams, he could not dig her out
+alone; so bidding her keep her hope and courage a little longer, he
+went for help.
+
+The earth, which had so recently been disturbed, now and then fell in
+small quantities into the opening; and occasionally a stone rolled over
+the edge.
+
+Franziska’s strength began to desert her;--how long it was since “der
+Vater” had left her;--what if the earth should cave in upon her before
+he returned;--the beams above her head,--she surely saw them move; and
+when at last help reached her she was unconscious.
+
+The kind-hearted Frau who had taken Gretchen opened her heart and home
+to Franziska also; but many weeks passed before she knew any one.
+In her delirium she was constantly talking to Gretchen, telling her
+stories, begging her not to be afraid,--not to cry so; until the good
+Frau would turn away her head, and with her apron wipe her eyes. But,
+one day, when the ground was white with snow, she awoke and knew them,
+and when little Gretchen, who had grown quite well and strong, climbed
+up on the bed and kissed her over and over again, Franziska thought she
+must have died and waked up in heaven, such a wave of happiness rolled
+over her.
+
+It was many days before Frau Brinkerhoff told her how on that
+never-to-be-forgotten day tons and tons of earth and stones broke away
+from the Rossberg, and came sweeping into the valley, burying four
+villages and five hundred souls; how the earth filled up one end of the
+lake, and the water rose in a great wall and swept out onto the land
+wrecking all before it; how Frau Bernstein and baby Fritz lay in the
+quiet church-yard, and how the beautiful laughing valley was beautiful
+no longer, but oh, so desolate!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                                   IV.
+
+
+When Spring came again, and Kaspar got his little family together, what
+could they have done without Franziska. She cooked, and scrubbed, and
+sewed, and mended, and kept the patches on Heinrich’s knees; she knit
+the long woolen stockings, and taught Gretchen all she could, just as
+the good “Mutter” would have wished. And as the years passed away,
+Kaspar and the children thought there never was a lovelier, sweeter
+maid than Franziska Ulrich.
+
+Karl Schultzer thought so too; he told her so one day and asked her
+to be his wife. She put her hand in his, and, looking into his honest
+eyes, said, “Karl, I love you too, but the last thing ‘die Mutter’
+said on that--that dreadful day when she gave me Gretchen, was, ‘Take
+care of her’;--I cannot leave her.”
+
+“But now Gretchen is old enough to take care of herself,” urged Karl.
+
+With a faint smile Franziska answered,--“Karl, you cannot change me;
+I thought it all out as I lay upon my bed when my head was no longer
+queer, and the first time I went to the church to pray to the ‘Heilige
+Mutter’ I told her I would be faithful;--my word I cannot break”; and
+seeing how it was with her, Karl kissed the eyes now full of tears and
+went back home disappointed, but not despairing.
+
+So the years sped until Gretchen’s nineteenth birthday.
+
+One evening she hid her head in Franziska’s lap, and, with many a
+break, confessed that the brave hunter from over the mountains had said
+that he loved her, and asked her to be his wife.
+
+“His wife you wish to be?” asked the tender voice.
+
+“I love him,” was the whispered answer, “and to-morrow he comes to ask
+‘der Vater.’”
+
+If, for a moment, Franziska’s faithful heart ached, Gretchen never knew
+it; and when “der Vater’s” yes had been spoken, no one entered more
+heartily into the work and plans than she. What love and sympathy and
+counsel, as well as work, she gave, no one save Gretchen ever knew.
+
+On a bright morning, to the sound of music, there came marching down
+the long street Gretchen in gay attire, followed by her mates; the
+bridegroom and his friends, who had come over the mountain-passes to
+see him married. And when, in the dim old church, the gray-haired,
+fatherly priest had counselled them, married them, and blessed them,
+Gretchen kissed “der Vater” and Heinrich good-bye; clung for a moment
+to Franziska, as though she could not let her go;--then turned her face
+toward the snow-clad mountains, beyond which lay her husband’s home.
+
+As the day passed, how desolate was the house without bright, laughing
+Gretchen. It seemed to Franziska as though she could not bear it, and
+when her work was done she stepped out into the twilight that “der
+Vater” and Heinrich might not see her grieving and her tears.
+
+Suddenly Karl stood before her. He held out his hands and said, “So
+long have the years been, Franziska, and the home so lonesome is; will
+you now come?”
+
+Then was her sorrow turned into joy, and she answered, “If you want me,
+oh so gladly will I come to you, my Karl”; and Karl was content.
+
+All this happened long ago, and both Gretchen and Franziska lived to
+tell the story of their marvellous escape to their many grandchildren;
+while “der Vater” never wearied of repeating, or Heinrich’s children
+of hearing, how brave Franziska encouraged and cheered little Gretchen
+through that long and terrible night.
+
+Some time ago I stood above the buried village and looked up at the
+Rossberg. The mountain has never smiled since that awful day. No
+trees or shrubs or grassy meadows grow upon its sides; all is bare and
+desolate. But in the valley the grass and moss grow green; the vines
+twine themselves over and around the great rocks, from under whose
+shadows ferns and lovely little flowers lift their heads.
+
+Suddenly the soft, clear tones of the evening bell floated through the
+air,--that sweet-voiced bell whose music reached Franziska and called
+her back to hopes of life and home so long ago. How sweetly it sounded
+on the quiet air,--coming,--going,--softer,--fainter; and when at last
+it died away the sun had dropped behind the mountains, leaving the
+rosy-tinted clouds peeping over their rocky edges; while in the valley
+the shadows lay thick upon grass and vine.
+
+Stepping softly, reverently, over the dead homes, Goldau and the night
+were left alone together.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77374 ***