Rollo in Geneva Part 16

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 pa.s.sed 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.

They pa.s.sed through the village, and then came into the open country again. Sometimes the mountains that bordered the valley receded to some distance; at other times they came very near; and there was one place where they formed a range of lofty precipices a thousand feet high, that seemed almost to overhang the road. Here Rollo stopped to look up. He saw, near a rounded ma.s.s of rock, half way up the mountain, two young eagles that had apparently just left their nest, and were trying to learn to fly. The old eagles were soaring around them, screaming. They seemed to be afraid that their young ones would fall down the rocks and get killed. Rollo wished that they would fall down, or at least fly down, to where he was, in order that he might catch one of them. But they did not. They took only short flights from rock to rock and from thicket to thicket, but they did not come down. So, after watching them for a time, Rollo went on.

Next they came to a place where the valley took a turn so as to expose the mountain side to the sun in such a manner as to make a good place there for grapes to grow and ripen. The people had accordingly terraced the whole declivity by building walls, one above another, to support the earth for the vineyards; and when Rollo was going by the place he looked up and saw a man standing on the wall of one of the terraces, with the tool which he had been working with in his hand. He seemed suspended in mid air, and looked down on the road and on the people walking along it as a man would look down upon a street in London from the gallery under the dome of St. Paul's.

"That's a pleasant place to work," said Rollo, "away up there, between the heavens and the earth."

"Yes," said his mother; "and I should think that taking care of vines and gathering the grapes would be very pretty work to do."

There was a little building on the corner of one of the terraces, which Mr. Holiday said was a watch tower. There were windows on all the sides of it.

"When the grapes begin to ripen," said he, "there is a man stationed there to watch all the vineyards around, in order to prevent people from stealing the grapes."

"I should think there would be danger of their stealing the grapes,"

said Rollo.

After going on a little way beyond this, they began to approach the town of Aigle. Mrs. Holiday was surprised that she could have come so far with so little fatigue. Rollo told her that it was because she had walked along so slowly.

"Yes," said Mr. Holiday; "and because there have been so many things to take up our attention by the way."

When they arrived at the village they went directly to the inn. The inns in these country towns in Switzerland are the largest and most conspicuous looking buildings to be seen. Rollo went first, and led the way. He went directly to the dining room.

The dining rooms in these inns, as I have already said, are the public rooms, where the company always go, whether they wish for any thing to eat or not. There is usually one large table, for dinner, in the centre of the room, and several smaller tables at the sides or at the windows, for breakfasts and luncheons, and also for small dinner parties of two or three. Besides these tables, there is often one with a pen and ink upon it for writing, and another for knapsacks and carpet bags; and there are sofas for the company to repose upon while the waiter is setting the table for them.

Rollo accordingly led the way at once to the dining room of the inn, and conducted his mother to a sofa.

"Now, Rollo," said Mr. Holiday, "order us a dinner."

So Rollo went to the waiter, and after talking with him a little while, came back and said that he had ordered some fried trout, some veal cutlets, fried potatoes, an omelette, and some coffee.

"And besides that," said Rollo, "he is going to give us some plums and some pears. This is a famous place for plums and pears."

"And for grapes, too, in the season of them," said Mr. Holiday.

This was very true. Indeed, on looking about the walls of the room, to see the maps and the pretty pictures of Swiss scenery that were there, Rollo found among the other things an advertis.e.m.e.nt of what was called the _grape cure_. It seems that eating ripe grapes was considered a cure for sickness in that country, and that people were accustomed to come to that very town of Aigle to procure them. There was no place in Switzerland, the advertis.e.m.e.nt said, where the grapes were richer and sweeter than there.

The advertis.e.m.e.nt went on to say that the season for the grape cure was in September, October, and November; that there were a number of fine vineyards in the vicinity of the town which produced the most delicious grapes; and that these vineyards were placed at the disposal of the guests of the hotel at the rate of a franc a day for each person; so that for that sum they could have every day as many as they could eat; and this was to be their medicine, to make them well.

Rollo read this advertis.e.m.e.nt aloud to his father and mother, with a tone of voice which indicated a very eager interest in it.

"Father," said he, "I wish you would come here and try it. Perhaps it would make you well."

The advertis.e.m.e.nt was in French, and Rollo translated it as he read it.

He succeeded very well in rendering into English all that was said about the grapes, and the manner of taking them, and the terms for boarders at the hotel; but when he came to the names of the diseases that the grapes would cure, he was at a loss, as most of them were learned medical words, which he had never seen before. So he read off the names in French, and concluded by asking his father whether he did not think it was some of those things that was the matter with him.

"Very likely," said his father.

"Then, father," said Rollo, "I wish you would come here in October, and try the grape cure, and bring me too."

"Very likely I may," said his father. "This is on the great road to Italy, and we may conclude to go to Italy this winter."

Just at this time the door of the dining room opened, and a new party came in. It consisted of a gentleman and lady, who seemed to be a new married pair. They came in a carriage. Rollo looked out the window, and saw the carriage drive away from the door to go to the stable.

The gentleman put his haversack and the lady's satchel and shawl down upon the table, and then took a seat with her upon another sofa which was in the room.

The dinner which Rollo had ordered was soon ready, and they sat down to eat it with excellent appet.i.tes. While they were at dinner, Rollo inquired of the waiter what time the omnibus went to Villeneuve, and he learned that it did not go for some hours. So Mr. Holiday told his wife that she might either have a chamber, and lie down and rest herself during that time, or they might go out and take a walk.

Mrs. Holiday said that she did not feel at all fatigued, and so she would like to go and take a walk.