THE DISTANT LAKE WITHOUT A NAME
When Stineli awoke the following morning, she instantly realized that
it was Sunday. The grandmother's words of the previous evening were
still fresh in her memory, "You deserve the whole afternoon to-morrow,
and you shall have it."
After dinner, when Stineli had finished all the necessary duties and
was prepared to join Rico, Peter called from his bed, "Stineli, come,
stay with me!"
The two others who were ill shouted, "No, no, Stineli, we want you!"
The father said, "I should like to have you go to the barn and take a
look at the goat first."
"Hush, everybody!" broke in the grandmother. "Stineli shall go in
peace. I will look after these things myself. Remember, dear, that
when the vesper bell rings, you are to come home like good children."
The grandmother knew that there would be two of them.
Stineli flew away like a bird for whom the door of its cage had been
opened, and went directly to Rico, who was waiting as usual. The sun
was shining pleasantly, and the heaven was an unbroken blue above them
as they crossed the meadow to reach the hill beyond. They still found
patches of snow in the shaded places, until they got up where the
whole surface had been exposed to the sun; from here they could see
the waves beating steadily against the rocks on the shore. They
searched for a dry place on a cliff directly over the water, and here
they sat down. The wind was blowing a sharp gale at this height; it
whistled in their ears and swayed the woods above them like a living
mass of green.
"Oh, see, Rico, how beautiful it is here!" exclaimed Stineli as she
looked about. "I am so glad that spring has come again. See how the
water sparkles in the sunlight. There really cannot be a prettier lake
than this one."
"I should say there is!" exclaimed Rico. "You ought to see the one I
mean! No such black fir trees with needles grow by my lake. We have
shining green leaves and large red flowers there. The hills are not so
high and black, nor so near, but show their violet colors from a
distance. The sky and water are all a golden glow, and there is such a
warm, fragrant air that one can always sit on the shore without being
cold. The wind never blows like this, and there is no snow to cover
one's shoes as ours are covered now."
This description convinced Stineli that Rico was not speaking of a
place that he had simply dreamed about, so she said half sadly:
"Perhaps you can go there sometime and see it again. Do you know the
way?"
"No," answered Rico, "but I know that you have to go up the Maloja. I
have been as far as that with my father, and he showed me the road
that leads ever and ever so far down toward the lake. It is such a
long way that you could hardly get there."
"It would be easy enough," remarked Stineli. "All you have to do is
just to keep right on going farther and farther and at last you _must_
get there."
"Yes," said Rico, "but father told me something else too. You have to
go to hotels to eat and to sleep on the way, and it takes money for
that."
"But think of the money we own together!" cried Stineli.
Rico frowned and said: "That doesn't amount to anything. I found that
out when I wanted to buy a violin."
"Then you had better stay at home and not go, Rico. It is always nice
to be at home."
Rico sat lost in thought, his head resting on his arm. Stineli was
busy gathering some moss and shaping it into pillows, which she
intended to take to the sick ones when she and Rico went home. She
thought nothing of Rico's silence until he said: "You say that I can
stay at home, but it seems to me exactly as if that were something I
did not have. I am sure I don't know where it is."
"O Rico, what are you saying!" cried the astonished Stineli, letting
the moss fall unheeded in her lap. "You are at home here, of course.
You are always at home where your father and mother--" Here she
stopped abruptly as she remembered that Rico had no mother and that
his father had not been at home for ever so long, and she shuddered as
she thought of his aunt, of whom she had always been afraid. She
scarcely knew how to continue, yet it grieved her to see Rico so sadly
silent. She impulsively took his hand and said, "I should like to know
the name of the lake where it is so beautiful."
Rico meditated a moment. "I don't know it, Stineli. I wonder what it
can be and why I can't remember it!"
"Let us try to find out," suggested Stineli; "then, when we get money
enough, you will be able to find your way to it. We might ask the
teacher about it, and possibly grandmother could tell us."
"I think my father will know, and I will ask him just as soon as he
comes back."
They heard the vesper bell ringing in the distance. They rose
immediately and ran through the bushes and snow, down the hill and
across the meadow. In a few moments they were panting beside the
grandmother, who stood at the door waiting for them. She greeted them
hastily and motioned for Stineli to pass into the house; then she
added to Rico: "I think that you had better go in when you get to the
house to-night, instead of waiting awhile outside. It may be better."
No one had ever spoken like that to him before, and he wondered why
she asked it of him. He wished to obey the grandmother, but he could
not help entering the house reluctantly.