Franz left by the north door. He began to run at once, with Caesar
keeping effortless pace beside him.
With its base only a few rods from the schoolhouse, the mountain on the
north side rose so steeply that the youngsters of Dornblatt used it as a
practice site for their first lessons in mountain climbing. There were
numerous sheer bluffs, and such soil as existed was thickly sprinkled
with boulders that varied from the size of a man's head to the size of a
Dornblatt house.
Shame was the spur that made Franz run, for as he sped between the
school and the great log and earth barrier that the men of Dornblatt
hoped would keep a major avalanche from crushing the school, it seemed
to him that every pupil and Professor Luttman must be looking at him and
jeering. He imagined the superior smile on Hertha Bittner's pretty lips,
the scornful curve of Willi Resnick's mouth, the sardonic contempt that
would be reflected in Hermann Gottschalk's cold eyes, and in his mind he
heard Professor Luttman say, "There goes Franz Halle, the failure! There
goes one too stupid to understand the true value of learning! Look upon
him, so that you may never be like him!"
Franz's cheeks flamed and his ears were on fire. He might have chosen
not to attend the school and everyone would have understood. But of his
own free will he had become a student, and by Professor Luttman's order
he was ignominiously expelled. Nobody in Dornblatt could ever live such
a thing down.
Then Franz and Caesar were across the clearing and back in the hardwood
forest.
Franz slowed to a walk, for the great trees that grew all about had
always been his friends and they did not forsake him now. They formed a
shield that no scornful eyes could penetrate, and as long as he was in
the forest, he would know peace. His own practiced eye found a big
sycamore that was half-rotted through, and he marked it for future
firewood. The sycamore was sure to fall anyway, and in falling it would
certainly crush some of the trees around it. But it could be felled in
such a fashion that it would hurt nothing, and a healthy young tree
would grow in its place.
Franz stole a moment to wonder at himself. Other Dornblatt boys and
girls, some of whom were much younger than he, had no trouble learning
Professor Luttman's assigned lessons. Why should that which was written
in books be so hopelessly beyond his grasp while that which was written
in the forest and mountains was always so easy to read?
He spied a squirrel's nest, a cluster of leaves high in a birch tree,
and beneath the same tree he found a crushed and rounded set that meant
a hare had crouched there. A jay tilted saucily on a limb and peered at
Franz and Caesar without scolding. Jays never shrieked at him, Franz
thought, as they did at almost everyone else, and he was sure that was
because they knew he was their friend.
The two friends wandered on, and when they reached a little open space
among the trees, Franz halted to tilt his head and turn his eyes
heavenward. High above him towered a rock-ribbed peak, so tall that even
in summer its upper reaches were snowbound. Franz stood a moment,
contented just to look and grow happier in the looking.
Unknown to his father, or to anyone else in Dornblatt, he had climbed
that peak. Little Sister it was called, to distinguish it from an
adjoining peak known as Big Sister. Carrying only his ropes and
alpenstock, he was accompanied by the mastiff until blocked by a wall
that the dog could not climb and up which Franz could not rope him. He
had ordered Caesar to wait and gone on alone. From the topmost eminence
of Little Sister, he had viewed a breath-taking array of other peaks.
But there was infinitely more than just a view.
Franz had never told even Father Paul, Dornblatt's kindly little parish
priest, how, as he stood on the summit of Little Sister, he had felt
very close to Heaven--he, simple Franz Halle who could not even get
ahead in school. He had never told anyone and he had no intention of
telling.
Now, as he looked up at Little Sister, remembering that wonderful
feeling, Franz became almost wholly at peace. The school seemed very
far away, part of a different world. This, and this alone, was real.
It seemed to Franz that he always heard music, with never a jarring
or discordant note, whenever he was in the forest or climbing the
mountains.
[Illustration: _From the topmost eminence of Little Sister, he had
viewed a breath-taking array of other peaks_]
Presently he reached another downsloping gulley and halted on its near
rim to look across. On the far rim was a farm that differed from the
houses in Dornblatt because quarters for the people, a neat chalet, were
separate from the building that housed the stock. It was the home of the
Widow Geiser and had been the best farm anywhere around Dornblatt.
Then, three years ago, Jean Geiser had gone into the mountains to hunt
chamois. He had never returned, and ever since the Widow Geiser had been
hard put to make ends meet. Her two sons, aged four and six, were little
help and no woman should even try doing all the work that a place such
as this demanded. The Widow Geiser still tried, but it was rumored that
she was heavily in debt to Emil Gottschalk.
Caesar pricked his ears up and looked at the goat shed. Following the
dog's gaze, Franz saw a brown and white goat, one of the widow's small
flock, come from the rear door, squeeze beneath the enclosing pole fence
and make its way into a hay meadow. It stalked more like a wild animal
than a domestic creature and its obvious destination was the forest.
Should it get there, it would be almost impossible to capture the animal
again.