They had been days at dear Interlaken, walking up and down the
_Hoheweg_, of which they never tired, or resting on the benches under
the plane and walnut trees opposite their hotel, just sitting still to
gaze their fill upon the _Jungfrau_. This was best of all--so Polly and
Jasper thought; and Phronsie was content to pass hour after hour there,
by Grandpapa's side, and imagine all sorts of pretty pictures and
stories in and about the snow-clad heights of the majestic mountain.
And the throng of gaily dressed people sojourning in the big hotels,
and the stream of tourists, passed and repassed, with many a curious
glance at the stately, white-haired old gentleman and the little
yellow-haired girl by his side.
"A perfect beauty!" exclaimed more than one matron, with a sigh for her
ugly girls by her side or left at home.
"She's stunning, and no mistake!" Many a connoisseur in feminine
loveliness turned for a last look, or passed again for the same purpose.
"Grandpapa," Phronsie prattled on, "that looks just like a little tent
up there--a little white tent; doesn't it, Grandpapa dear?"
"Yes, Phronsie," said Grandpapa, happily, just as he would have said
"Yes, Phronsie," if she had pointed out any other object in the snowy
outline.
"And there's a cunning little place where you and I could creep into
the tent," said Phronsie, bending her neck like a meditative bird. "And
I very much wish we could, Grandpapa dear."
"We'd find it pretty cold in there," said Grandpapa, "and wish we were
back here on this nice seat, Phronsie."
"What makes it so cold up there, Grandpapa, when the sun shines?" asked
Phronsie, suddenly. "Say, Grandpapa, what makes it?"
"Oh, it's so far up in the air," answered old Mr. King. "Don't you
remember how cold it was up on the Rigi, and that was about nine
thousand feet lower?"
"Oh, Grandpapa!" exclaimed Phronsie, in gentle surprise, unable to
compass such figures.
Mr. King's party had made one or two pleasant little journeys to the
Lauterbrunnen Valley, staying there and at Mürren, and to Grindelwald
as well; but they came back to sit on the benches by the walnut and the
plane trees, in front of the matchless Jungfrau. "And this is best of
all," said Polly.
And so the days slipped by, till one morning, at the breakfast table,
Mrs. Selwyn said, "Tomorrow we must say good-by--my boy and I."
"Hey--what?" exclaimed Mr. King, setting his coffee-cup down, not very
gently.
"Our vacation cannot be a very long one," said Tom's mother, with a
little smile; "there are my father and my two daughters and my other
boys in England."
Tom's face was all awry as Mr. King said, "And you mean to say, Mrs.
Selwyn, that you really must move on to-morrow?"
"Yes; we really must," she said decidedly. "But oh," and her plain,
quiet face changed swiftly, "you cannot know how sorry we shall be to
leave your party."
"In that case, Mrs. Fisher,"--old Mr. King looked down the table-length
to Mamsie,--"we must go too; for I don't intend to lose sight of these
nice travelling companions until I am obliged to." Tom's face was one
big smile. "Oh, goody!" exclaimed Polly, as if she were no older than
Phronsie.
Jasper clapped Tom's back, instead of wasting words.
"So we will all proceed to pack up without more ado after breakfast.
After all, it is wiser to make the move now, for we are getting so that
we want to take root in each place."
"You just wait till you get to Zermatt," whispered Polly to Phronsie,
who, under cover of the talk buzzing around the table, had confided to
her that she didn't want to leave her beautiful mountain. "Grandpapa is
going to take us up to the Gorner Grat, and there you can see another
mountain,--oh, so near! he says it seems almost as if you could touch
it. And it's all covered with snow, Phronsie, too!"
"Is it as big as my mountain here?" asked Phronsie.
"Yes, bigger, a thousand feet or more," answered Polly, glad that she
had looked it up.
"Is it?" said Phronsie. "Every mountain is bigger, isn't it, Polly?"
"It seems to be," said Polly, with a little laugh.
"And has it a little white tent on the side, just like my mountain
here?" asked Phronsie, holding Polly's arm as she turned off to catch
the chatter of the others.
"Oh, I suppose so," answered Polly, carelessly. Then she looked up and
caught Mamsie's eye, and turned back quickly. "At any rate, Phronsie,
it's all peaked on the top--oh, almost as sharp as a needle--and it
seems to stick right into the blue sky, and there are lots and lots of
other mountains--oh, awfully high,--and the sun shines up there a good
deal, and it's too perfectly lovely for anything, Phronsie Pepper."
"Then I want to go," decided Phronsie. "I do so want to see that white
needle, Polly."
"Well, eat your breakfast," said Polly, "because you know we all have
ever so much to do to-day to get off."
"Yes, I will," declared Phronsie, attacking her cold chicken and roll
with great vigour.
"It seems as if the whole world were at Zermatt," said the parson,
looking out from the big piazza crowded with the hotel people, out to
the road in front, with every imaginable tourist passing and repassing.
Donkeys were being driven up, either loaded down to their utmost with
heavy bags and trunks, or else waiting to receive on their patient
backs the heavier people. Phronsie never could see the poor animals,
without such distress coming in her face that every one in the party
considered it his or her bounden duty to comfort and reassure her. So
this time it was Tom's turn to do so.
"Oh, don't you worry," he said, looking down into her troubled little
face where he sat on the piazza railing swinging his long legs, "they
like it, those donkeys do!"
"Do they?" asked Phronsie, doubtfully.
"Yes, indeed," said Tom, with a gusto, as if he wished he were a
donkey, and in just that very spot, "it gives them a chance to see
things, and to hear things, too, don't you know?" went on Tom, at his
wits' end to know how he was going to come out of his sentences.
"Oh," said Phronsie, yet she sighed as she saw the extremely fat person
just being hauled up to a position on a very small donkey's back.
"You see, if they don't like it," said Tom, digging his knife savagely
into the railing, "they have a chance to kick up their heels and
unsettle that heavy party."
"O dear me!" exclaimed Phronsie, in great distress, "that would hurt
the poor woman, Tom."
"Well, it shows that the donkey likes it," said Tom, with a laugh,
"because he doesn't kick up his heels."
"And so," ran on Tom, "why, we mustn't worry, you and I, if the donkey
doesn't. Just think,"--he made a fine diversion by pointing with his
knife-blade up to the slender spire of the Matterhorn--"we're going up
on a little jaunt to-morrow, to look into that fellow's face."
Phronsie got out of her chair to come and stand by his side. "I like
that white needle," she said, with a gleeful smile. "Polly said it was
nice, and I like it."
"I should say it was," declared Tom, with a bob of his head. "Phronsie,
I'd give, I don't know what, if I could climb up there." He thrust his
knife once more into the railing, where it stuck fast.
"Don't." begged Phronsie, her hand on his sleeve, "go up that big white
needle, Tom."
"No, I won't; it's safe to promise that," he said grimly, with a little
laugh. "Good reason why; because I can't. The little mother wouldn't
sleep nights just to think of it, and I promised the granddaddy that I
wouldn't so much as think of it, and here I am breaking my word; but I
can't help it." He twitched his knife out suddenly, sprawled off from
the railing, and took several hasty strides up and down the piazza.
"Well, that's all right, Phronsie," he said, coming back to get astride
the railing again; this time he turned a cold shoulder on Phronsie's
"white needle." "Now, to-morrow, we'll have no end of fun." And he
launched forth on so many and so varied delights, that Phronsie's
pleased little laugh rang out again and again, bringing rest to many a
wearied traveller, tired with the sights, sounds, and scenes of a
European journey.
"I wish we could stay at this nice place," said Phronsie, the next
morning, poking her head out over the side of the car, as it climbed
off from the Riffelalp station.
"Take care, child," said Grandpapa, with a restraining hand.
"You would want to stop at every place," said Polly, from the seat in
front, with a gay little laugh. "And we never should get on at that
rate. But then I am just as bad," she confessed.
"So am I," chimed in Jasper. "Dear me, how I wanted to get a chance to
sketch some of those magnificent curves and rapids and falls in the
Visp River coming up."
"Oh, that dear, delicious Visp River!" echoed Polly, while Adela began
to bemoan that it was the best thing they had seen, and the car whizzed
them by so fast, she couldn't do a thing--O dear!
"I got some snap-shots, but I don't believe they are good for
anything," said Jasper, "just from the pure perversity of the thing."
"Take my advice," said Tom, lazily leaning forward, "and don't bother
with a camera anyway."
"As if you expected any one to take up with such a piece of advice,"
ejaculated Jasper, in high disdain. "Say something better than that,
Tom, if you want to be heard."
"Oh, I don't expect to be heard, or listened to in the slightest," he
said calmly. "Anybody who will trot round with a kodak hanging to his
neck by a villanous strap--can't be--"
"Who's got a villanous strap hanging to his neck?" cried Jasper, while
the rest shouted as he picked at the fern-box thus hanging to Tom.
"Oh, that's quite a different thing," declared Tom, his face growing
red.
"I know; one is a kodak, and the other is a fern-box," said Jasper,
nodding. "I acknowledge they are different," and they all burst out
laughing again.
"Well, at least," said Tom, joining in the laugh, "you must
acknowledge, too, that I go off by myself and pick up my wild flowers
and green things, and I'm not bothering round focussing every living
thing and pointing my little machine at every freak in nature that I
see."
"All right," said Jasper, good-naturedly, "but you have the strap round
your neck all the same, Tom."
And Phronsie wanted to stay at the Riffelberg just as much; and old Mr.
King was on the point of saying, "Well, we'll come up here for a few
days, Phronsie," when he remembered Mrs. Selwyn and her boy, and how
they must get on. Instead, he cleared his throat, and said, "We shall
see it after dinner, child," and Phronsie smiled, well contented.
But when she reached the Corner Grat station, and took Grandpapa's
hand, and began to ascend the bridle path to the hotel, she couldn't
contain herself, and screamed right out, "Oh, Grandpapa, I'd rather
stay here."
"It _is_ beautiful, isn't it?" echoed old Mr. King, feeling twenty
years younger since he started on his travels. "Well, well, child, I'm
glad you like it," looking down into her beaming little face.
"You are very much to be envied, sir. I can't help speaking to you and
telling you so," said a tall, sober-looking gentleman, evidently an
English curate off on his vacation, as he caught up with him on the
ascent, where they had paused at one of the look-offs, "for having that
child as company, and those other young people."
"You say the truth," replied old Mr. King, cordially; "from the depths
of my heart I pity any one who hasn't some children to take along when
going abroad. But then they wouldn't be little Peppers," he added,
under his breath, as he bowed and turned back to the view.
"There's dear Monte Rosa," cried Polly, enthusiastically. "Oh, I just
love her."
"And there's Castor and Pollux," said Jasper.
"And there's the whole of them," said Tom, disposing of the entire
range with a sweep of his hand. "Dear me, what a lot there are, to be
sure. It quite tires one."
"Oh, anybody but a cold-blooded Englishman!" exclaimed Jasper, with a
mischievous glance, "to travel with."
"Anything on earth but a gushing American!" retorted Tom, "to go round
the world with."
"I wish I could sketch a glacier," bemoaned Adela, stopping every
minute or two, as they wound around the bridle path, "but I can't; I've
tried ever so many times."
"Wait till we get to the _Mer de Glace_," advised Tom. "You can sit
down in the middle of it, and sketch away all you want to."
"Well, I'm going to," said Adela, with sudden determination. "I don't
care; you can all laugh if you want to."
"You can sketch us all," suggested Jasper, "for we shall have horrible
old stockings on."
"I sha'n't have horrible old stockings on," said Adela, in a dudgeon,
sticking out her foot. "I wear just the same stockings that I do at
home, at school in Paris, and they are quite nice."
"Oh, I mean you'll have to put on coarse woollen ones that the peasant
women knit on purpose,--we all shall have to do the same, on over our
shoes," explained Jasper.
"O dear me!" cried Adela, in dismay.
"And I think we shall slip and slide a great deal worse with those
things tied on our feet, than to go without any," said Polly, wrinkling
up her brows at the idea.
"'Twouldn't be safe to go without them," said Jasper, shaking his head,
"unless we had nails driven in our shoes."
"I'd much rather have the nails," cried Polly, "oh, much rather,
Jasper."
"Well, we'll see what father is going to let us do," said Jasper.
"Wasn't that fun snowballing--just think--in July," cried Polly,
craning her neck to look back down the path toward the Riffelberg
station.
"Did you pick up some of that snow?" asked Adela.
"Didn't we, though!" exclaimed Jasper. "I got quite a good bit in my
fist."
"My ball was such a little bit of a one," mourned Polly; "I scraped up
all I could, but it wasn't much."
"Well, it did good execution," said Tom; "I got it in my eye."
"Oh, did it hurt you?" cried Polly, in distress, running across the
path to walk by his side.
"Not a bit," said Tom. "I tried to find some to pay you back, and then
we had to fly for the cars."
The plain, quiet face under the English bonnet turned to Mrs. Fisher as
they walked up the path together. "I cannot begin to tell you what
gratitude I am under to you," said Tom's mother, "and to all of you.
When I think of my father, I am full of thankfulness. When I look at my
boy, the goodness of God just overcomes me in leading me to your party.
May I tell you of ourselves some time, when a good opportunity offers
for a quiet talk?"
"I'd like nothing better," said Mother Fisher, heartily. "If there is
one person I like more than another, who isn't of our family, or any of
our home friends, it's Mrs. Selwyn," she had confided to the little
doctor just a few days before. "She hasn't any nonsense about her, if
she is an earl's daughter."
"Earl's daughter," sniffed the little doctor, trying to slip a collar
button into a refractory binding. "Dear me, now that's gone--no,
'tisn't--that's luck," as the button rolled off into a corner of the
bureau-top where it was easily captured.
"Let me do that for you, Adoniram," said Mother Fisher, coming up to
help him.
"I guess you'll have to, wife, if it's done at all," he answered,
resigning himself willingly to her hands; "the thing slips and slides
like all possessed. Well, now, I was going to say that I wouldn't hate
a title so much, if there was a grain of common sense went along with
it. And that Mrs. Selwyn just saves the whole lot of English nobility,
and makes 'em worth speaking to, in my opinion."
And after they had their dinner, and were scattered in groups in the
bright sunshine, sitting on the wooden benches by the long tables, or
taking photographs, or watching through the big glass some mountain
climbers on one of the snowy spurs of the Matterhorn, "the good
opportunity for a quiet talk" came about.
"Now," said Mother Fisher, with a great satisfaction in her voice, "may
we sit down here on this bench, Mrs. Selwyn, and have that talk?"
Tom's mother sat down well pleased, and folding her hands in her lap,
this earl's daughter, mistress of a dozen languages, as well as
mistress of herself on all occasions, began as simply and with as much
directness as a child.
"Well, you know my father. Let me tell you, aside from the
eccentricities, that are mere outside matters, and easily explained, if
you understood the whole of his life, a kinder man never lived, nor a
more reasonable one. But it was a misfortune that he had to be left so
much alone, as since my mother's death a dozen years ago has happened.
It pained me much." A shadow passed over her brow, but it was gone
again, and she smiled, and her eyes regained their old placid look. "I
live in Australia with my husband, where my duty is, putting the boys
as fast as they were old enough, and the little girls as well, into
English schools. But Tom has always been with my father at the
vacations, for he is his favourite, as of course was natural, for he is
the eldest. And though you might not believe it, Mrs. Fisher, my father
was always passionately fond of the boy."
"I do believe it," said Mother Fisher, quietly, and she put her hand
over the folded ones. Mrs. Selwyn unclasped hers, soft and white, to
draw within them the toil-worn one.
"Now, that's comfortable," she said, with another little smile.
"And here is where his eccentricity became the most dangerous to the
peace of mind of our family," continued Mrs. Selwyn. "My father seemed
never able to discover that he was doing the lad harm by all sorts of
indulgence and familiarity with him, a sort of hail-fellow-well-met way
that surprised me more than I can express, when I discovered it on my
last return visit to my old home. My father! who never tolerated
anything but respect from all of us, who were accustomed to despotic
government, I can assure you, was allowing Tom!--well, you were with
him on the steamer," she broke off abruptly. The placid look was gone
again in a flash.
"Yes," said Mother Fisher, her black eyes full of sympathy; "don't let
that trouble you, dear Mrs. Selwyn; Tom was pure gold down
underneath--we saw that--and the rest is past."
"Ah,"--the placid look came back as quickly--"that is my only
comfort--that you did. For father told the whole, not sparing himself.
Now he sees things in the right light; he says because your young
people taught it to him. And he was cruelly disappointed because you
couldn't come down to visit him in his home."
"We couldn't," said Mother Fisher, in a sorry voice, at seeing the
other face.
"I understand--quite," said Tom's mother, with a gentle pressure of the
hand she held. "And then the one pleasure he had was in picking out
something for Polly."
"Oh, if the little red leather case _had_ gone back to the poor old
man!" ran through Mother Fisher's mind, possessing it at once.
"I don't think his judgment was good, Mrs. Fisher, in the selection,"
said Mrs. Selwyn, a small pink spot coming on either cheek; "but he
loves Polly, and wanted to show it."
"And he was so good to think of it," cried Mother Fisher, her heart
warming more and more toward the little old earl.
"And as he couldn't be turned from it, and his health is precarious if
he is excited, why, there was nothing to be done about it. And then he
insisted that Tom and I come off for a bit of a run on the Continent,
the other children being with him. And as my big boy"--here a loving
smile went all over the plain face, making it absolutely
beautiful--"had worried down deep in his heart over the past, till I
was more troubled than I can tell you, why, we came. And then God was
good--for then we met you! Oh, Mrs. Fisher!"
She drew her hands by a sudden movement away, and put them on Mother
Fisher's shoulders. And then that British matron, rarely demonstrative
with her own children, even, leaned over and kissed Polly's mother.
"I can't see why it's so warm up here," said Polly, racing over to
their bench, followed by the others. "Dear me, it's fairly hot." And
she pulled off her jacket.
"Don't do that, Polly," said her mother.
"Oh, Mamsie, it's so very hot," said Polly; but she thrust her arms
into the sleeves and pulled it on again.
"I know; but you've been running," said Mrs. Fisher, "and have gotten
all heated up."
"Well, it's perfectly splendid to travel to places where we can run and
race," said Polly, in satisfaction, throwing herself down on the rocks.
The others all doing the same thing, Mr. King and the Parson and Mrs.
Henderson found them, and pretty soon the group was a big one. "Well,
well, we are all here together, no--where is Mrs. Gray?" asked Mr.
King, presently.
"She is resting in the hotel," said Mother Fisher, "fast asleep I think
by this time."
"Yes," said Adela, "she is. I just peeked in on her, and she hasn't
moved where you tucked her up on the lounge."
"Grandpapa," asked Polly, suddenly, from the centre of the group, "what
makes it so very warm up here, when we are all surrounded by snow?"
"You ask me a hard thing," said old Mr. King. "Well, for one thing, we
are very near the Italian border; those peaks over there, you
know,--follow my walking-stick as I point it,--are in sunny Italy."
"Well, it is just like sunny Italy up here," said Polly, "I think,"
blinking, and pulling her little cap over her eyes.
"It's all the Italy you will get in the summer season," said Grandpapa.
"You must wait for cold weather before I take one of you there."