Perhaps there are no flowers that give a higher pleasure to the possessors than those which a boy of Rollo's age gathers for his mother.
The party walked on. Mrs. Holiday's attention was soon strongly attracted to the various groups of peasants which she saw working in the fields, or walking along the road. First came a young girl, with a broad-brimmed straw hat on her head, driving a donkey cart loaded with sheaves of grain. Next an old and decrepit-looking woman, with a great bundle of sticks on her head. It seemed impossible that she could carry so great a load in such a manner. As our party went by, she turned her head slowly round a little way, to look at them; and it was curious to see the great bundle of sticks-which was two feet in diameter, and four or five feet long-slowly turn round with her head, and then slowly turn back again as she went on her way.
Next Mrs. Holiday paused a moment to look at some girls who were hoeing in the field. The girls looked smilingly upon the strangers, and bade them good morning.
"Ask them," said Mrs. Holiday to Rollo, "if their work is not very hard."
So Rollo asked them the question. Mrs. Holiday requested him to do it because she did not speak French very well, and so she did not like to try.
The girls said that the work was not hard at all. They laughed, and went on working faster than ever.
Next they came to a poor wayfaring woman, who was sitting by the roadside with an infant in her arms. Rollo immediately took out one of the little cakes from the parcel in his knapsack, and handed it to the child. The mother seemed very much pleased. She bowed to Rollo, and said,-
"She thanks you infinitely, sir."
Thus they went on for about three quarters of an hour. During all this time Mrs. Holiday's attention was so much taken up with what she saw,-sometimes with the groups of peasants and the pretty little views of gardens, cottages, and fields which attracted her notice by the road side, ever and anon by the glimpses which she obtained of the stupendous mountain ranges that bordered the valley on either hand, and that were continually presenting their towering crags and dizzy precipices to view through the opening of the trees on the plain,-that she had not time to think of being fatigued. At length Rollo asked her how she liked the walk.
"Very well," said she; "only I think now I have walked full as far as I should ever have to go at home, when making calls, before coming to the first house. So as soon as you can you may find me a place to sit down and rest a little while."
"Well," said Rollo, "I see a grove of trees by the roadside, on ahead a little way. When we get there we will sit down in the shade and rest."
So they went on till they came to the grove. The grove proved to be a very pretty one, though it consisted of only four or five trees; but unfortunately there was no place to sit down in it. Rollo looked about for some time in vain, and seemed quite disappointed.
"Never mind," said his mother; "sometimes, when I make a call, I find that the lady I have called to see is not at home; and then, even if I am tired and want to rest, I have to go on to the next house. We will suppose that at this place the lady is not at home."
Rollo laughed and walked on. It was not long before they reached a place where there was a kind of granary, or some other farm building of that sort, near the road, with a little yard where some logs were lying. Rollo found excellent seats for his father and mother on these logs. They sat on one of them, and leaned their backs against another that was a little higher up. They were in the shade of the building, too, so that the place was very cool.
"This is a very nice place to rest," said Mrs. Holiday; "and while we are sitting, we can amuse ourselves in looking at the people that go by."
The first person that came was a pretty-looking peasant girl of about seventeen, who had a tub upon her head. What was in the tub Rollo could not see. With such a burden on her head, however, it is plain that the girl could not wear her hat in the ordinary manner, and so she carried it tied to the back of her neck, with its broad brim covering her shoulders. This, Mr. Holiday said, seemed to him to be carrying the modern fashion of wearing the bonnet quite to an extreme.
[Illustration: THE BASKET RIDE.]
The Swiss women have other ways of bearing burdens, besides loading them upon their heads. They carry them upon their backs, sometimes, in baskets fitted to their shoulders. A woman came by, while Rollo and his father and mother were sitting upon the logs, with her child taking a ride in such a basket on her back. As soon as this woman was past, Rollo was so much struck with the comical appearance that the child made, sitting upright in the basket, and looking around, that he took out some paper and a pencil immediately from his portfolio, and asked his mother to make a drawing of the woman, with the child in the basket on her back. This Mrs. Holiday could easily do, even from the brief glimpse which she had of the woman as she went by; for the outlines of the figure and dress of the woman and of the basket and child were very simple. Mrs. Holiday afterwards put in some of the scenery for a background.
When the drawing was finished, Rollo told his mother that he calculated that they had come one third of the way, and asked her if she felt tired; and she said she did not feel tired at all, and so they rose and went on.
In a short time they came to a village. It consisted of a narrow street, with stone houses on each side of it. The houses were close together and close to the street. In one place several people were sitting out before the door, and among them was a poor, sickly child, such as are found very often in the low valleys of Switzerland, of the kind called cretins. These children are entirely helpless, and they have no reason, or at least very little. The one which Rollo saw was a girl, and appeared to be about ten years old; but it did not seem to have strength enough to sit up in its chair. It was continually lolling and falling about on this side and that, and trying to look up. The mother of the child sat by her, and kept her from falling out of the chair. She was talking, the mean while, with the neighbors, who were sitting there on a bench, knitting or sewing.
The face of the child was deformed, and had scarcely a human expression. Both Rollo and his mother were much shocked at the spectacle.
"It is a cretin-is it not?" said Mrs. Holiday to her husband, in a whisper, as soon as they had passed by.
"Yes," said Mr. Holiday.
"Mother," said Rollo, "would you give that poor little thing a cake?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Holiday; "I would."
"Do you think she will understand?" asked Rollo.
"Yes," said Mrs. Holiday; "I think she will; and at any rate her mother will."
Rollo had by this time taken out his cake. He went back with it to the place where the women were sitting, and held it out, half, as it were, to the mother, and half to the child, so that either of them might take it, saying, at the same time, to the mother, in French,-
"For this poor little child."
The mother smiled, and looked very much pleased. The cretin, whose eyes caught a glimpse of the cake, laughed, and began to try to reach out her hand to take it. It seemed hard for her to guide her hand to the place, and she fell over from side to side all the time while attempting to do so. She would have fallen entirely if her mother had not held her up. At length she succeeded in getting hold of the cake, which she carried directly to her mouth, and then laughed again with a laugh that seemed scarcely human, and was hideous to see.
"Does she understand?" asked Rollo.
"Yes," said the mother; "she understands, but she can't speak, poor thing. But she is very much obliged to you indeed."
So Rollo bowed to the mother of the child, and to the other women, and then went on and rejoined his father and mother.