Treasures of the Snow (10 page)

That evening the Noah’s ark was finished. Lucien, with a flushed face and a hammering heart, set off for the Burniers’ chalet to leave it on his way home.

When he came within sight of the chalet, he hid behind a tree in panic. What would he say? How would he break the silence? If he could see Dani alone it would be easier, but Annette was always with him out of school hours.

Surely they would forgive him when they saw the Noah’s ark! If only they would forgive him and give him a chance, he would gladly spend the rest of his life trying to make up for it. Struggling between hope and fear, Lucien came out from behind his tree and walked toward the chalet.

Annette was sitting alone outside.

Lucien swallowed hard, walked up to her, and held out the Noah’s ark.

“It’s for Dani,” he whispered, and the words seemed to stick in his throat. Looking down at the ground, he held up the box to Annette.

“How dare you come here!” she burst out. “How dare you offer presents to Dani! Go away. And don’t you ever come here again!”

As she said it, she kicked the Noah’s ark with all the strength of her young legs into the woodpile below her. All the little animals lay scattered on the logs.

Lucien stared at her for a moment, then he turned and ran as fast as he could. All his efforts had been for nothing. He would never be forgiven. It had all been one long waste of time.

Then the old man’s words came into Lucien’s mind like a tiny ray of light in his angry, bitter heart.

“Those who keep trying find more happiness in earning love than in gaining it.”

Perhaps it was true. He had certainly not gained anything, but at least he had been happy making the Noah’s ark and thinking of Dani’s pleasure. Perhaps, if he persevered and went on putting his love into his work, someday someone would accept it and love him for it.

He did not know. But he decided not to give up just yet.

D
ani’s leg was very slow in healing. Many times the doctor climbed the mountainside to visit him, but he seemed worried and puzzled. The time came for Dani to go back to the hospital and have the plaster taken off. It was then that the doctor broke the news to Dani’s father that, as he had feared all along, Dani would not ever be able to walk properly. His bad leg was much shorter than his good one.

Feeling very sad indeed, Monsieur Burnier went to the carpenter and asked him to make a tiny pair of crutches. Then he visited the cobbler with a pair of Dani’s boots and asked him to make one sole an inch and a half thicker than the other one.

The carpenter and the shoemaker were very upset. The carpenter carved little bears’ heads on the handles of the crutches to make Dani smile, and the cobbler returned the boots stuffed with chocolate sticks, and in both cases their efforts were a great success. Dani looked upon his crutches as a new toy and was really impatient to try them out.

For a day or two he hopped about like an excited grasshopper in front of the house Then he heard his father say that he was going to take his cows up the mountain to feed in the high pastures. Dani sat down and cried loudly, because he suddenly realized that, even with his nice bear crutches and his new boots, he could no longer follow the cows up the mountain.

Dani did not often bellow, but when he did, he really did! Annette, Monsieur Burnier, and Grandmother all rushed for the woodpile where Dani was crying, and they all started shaking him and kissing him at once. Klaus, who hated lots of noise, arched her back and hissed.

When at last they understood the reason for Dani’s unhappiness, they all tried to make lots of comforting plans. In the end it was decided that Dani should go down to the marketplace in a little wooden cart to watch the cows gather together, and afterward he would drive up behind the herd in the horse cart, sleep the night in the hay, and come down next day. Annette would go with him, while Grandmother and Klaus stayed at home and kept house.

The great day dawned clear and blue, and Dani woke early with a feeling that something wonderful was going to happen. When he remembered what it was, he tried to yodel, which he couldn’t do at all, and then dragged Klaus into bed with him and began to tell her all about it. But Klaus was not interested and struggled out again, and went with her tail in the air to catch mice on the woodpile.

An hour later Dani was curled up in the wood cart and Annette was taking him down to the village. Long before they reached the marketplace they heard the clanging of cowbells, the mooing of frightened cattle, the shouting of men, and the shrill screams of excited children. When they turned the corner by the fountain and bumped down the shallow steps, what a sight greeted them!

The market was a solid mass of cows and calves all pressed together. They all wore clanging bells and tossed their heads nervously. Here and there cows broke loose and jumped on each other, and over by the grocer’s shop a crowd of young men was shouting at a young bullock who was trying to put his horns through the shop window. In and out among their legs swarmed the children, for this was a great holiday—school was closed.

In Switzerland, when the grass begins to grow long in the fields, the cows go up the mountains for the summer and feed in the high pastures while the hay ripens in the valleys. The farmers go up and live with them, while the women and children stay behind. On the day when they all set out, the cows are gathered together before starting on their different paths, and the children follow their own cows up to the high pastures and spend the day in the mountains, settling the cows into their new homes.

When Dani arrived in the marketplace people gathered all around him. Except for his journey to hospital, this was his first public appearance in the village, and everyone wanted to look at him. All the children wanted to pull his cart, and all the women wanted to kiss him. What with the cows and the crowds and the cobbles, it was a wonder he wasn’t tipped right out.

Time was getting on, and the procession had to start moving. The farmers were drawing their leaders out of the crowd, each group shoving its way out after them. The group leader wore a bigger bell than the rest, and was followed by all the others.

Monsieur Burnier was drawing out his leader by the collar, and his few cattle were making their way out from the crowd as best as they could. He walked up to Dani’s cart with his hand on the cow’s neck. “The mule cart is waiting around the back of the cobbler’s shop,” he said, “so put Dani into it, Annette, and we will make a start.”

He went off, rounded up his cows, and set off up the steep steps behind the clock tower looking like a pied piper with a stream of children following him. All the children liked Monsieur Burnier.

Soon the mule cart caught them up, with Annette holding the reins and clicking her tongue. Dani lay in the back holding his crutches, which he had brought to show to the people in the village, and shouting at the top of his voice.

Dani never forgot that ride up the mountain. One of the bull calves, called Napoleon, grew tired and started dropping behind, so Dani leaned over and put his hand on his collar and pulled him alongside the cart.

His father looked back and smiled. “He’s tired, poor young thing,” he said. “You’d better take him in the cart with you, Dani.”

Father lifted the wobbly-legged creature into the cart, and Dani flung his arms round his woolly neck and shrieked for joy. It was a beautiful calf with gentle eyes, silky ears, and pale, stubby curls on its forehead. They sat watching the forest together, sniffing the scent of the pine trees.

By the time they came out of the forest they had climbed so high that they could see right over the green mountains that surrounded the valley to the snow-capped ranges beyond, where the snows never melt. Dani lay back, counting the white peaks, and imagined himself in heaven. Then, to make his happiness complete, Annette suddenly produced a long twisty roll and a hunk of cheese and told him to sit up for his dinner. He sat nibbling one end of the hard golden crust while the calf put out its pale pink tongue and licked the other end.

Annette left the mule to make its own way while she wandered up and down the slopes picking the alpine flowers that grew in the high pastures as a present for Grandmother. It occurred to Dani that it would be nice to run up and down the slopes to pick flowers with Annette, but he did not think about it for long. There was so much else to be happy about. Besides, if he had not been lame he would never have had his bear crutches, nor would he have been sitting in the cart with his arms around the bull calf.

The path turned a hairpin bend around the roots of a great pine tree, and as they turned the corner they came in sight of their summer home—a little shut-up cow barn with one living room joined onto it, standing in the middle of a meadow of yellow flowers. Just behind it rose the last steep slope of the rest of the mountain.

It seemed very welcoming, this hut, as though it was longing to be opened up and lived in again. The cows moved a little faster at the sight of it, and their lazy bells pealed out merrily.

A fountain splashed into a wooden trough outside the chalet, and the thirsty cattle plunged their heads into it and enjoyed a long, noisy drink. Dani and the calf tumbled out of the cart and drank, too. Then they all gathered around the door while Monsieur Burnier turned the key in the lock and went in.

The hut was damp and cold after being buried in snow all winter, but they had brought logs and provisions in the mule cart and soon they had lit a fire. As Annette flung back the shutters, the sun came streaming in, showing up the dust everywhere.

Around went Annette with a broom and duster, and Dani came hopping behind like a cheerful grasshopper. Monsieur Burnier vanished up a ladder into the loft to bring down armfuls of musty hay for the cows’ bedding. Then it was milking time and the cattle wandered in one by one. After that it was suppertime, and Monsieur Burnier and Annette sat on stools at the table while Dani sat on a rug on the floor because the condition of his legs made stools uncomfortable for him. They ate bread, smoked sausage, and cheese and drank hot coffee out of enormous wooden bowls. It was a lovely meal.

When he had finished his last mouthful Dani struggled to his feet and held up his arms to his father.

“Do you want to go to bed now?” asked Monsieur Burnier, picking him up.

“No,” replied Dani firmly, “I want you to carry me to the top of the mountain!”

Monsieur Burnier looked horrified. The top of the mountain was a good twenty-five minutes steep climb, and Dani was a heavy child. But he always found it impossible to refuse his little son anything, so he burst into a hearty roar of laughter at his own foolishness and started off with Dani on his shoulder. Dani drummed his heels against his father’s chest while Annette clung to his coat-tail.

The mountaintop was covered with rare, beautiful flowers, and Annette ran among them while Monsieur Burnier strode on, too out of breath to speak. Only when they at last reached the top did he put Dani down, and then they all sat looking about them, thinking their own thoughts.

Everywhere they looked, rosy snow peaks rose upward. The sun was setting, and while twilight had fallen on the valleys below, the high mountains caught the last rays of the sun and were bathed in a bright pink glow. An English child might have thought that the Alps were on fire, but Dani, who was used to the sight, just sighed contentedly. As they sat watching, the sun sank a little lower until the very tips still burned crimson. Then the glow faded altogether and there was nothing to be seen at all but cold, ice-blue mountains with the stars coming out behind them. Soon the moon would rise and then the peaks would turn to dazzling silver.

It was nice to get back to the chalet and see the firelight flickering in the window, and to gather around the blazing logs and shut out the night. The door into the stable was open, and the calf came straying in and sat down on the floor by Dani, with its long legs crumpled up beneath it.

“I want to sleep with the calf,” announced Dani in his firmest voice.

“No, Dani,” said Annette quickly, “you will catch fleas.”

“But if Napoleon had fleas I should have caught them already in the cart,” reasoned Dani. “Please, Papa, I want very badly to sleep with Napoleon!”

Monsieur Burnier remarked that he thought it could be managed for a treat. So he rigged up a hay mattress covered with a sack, and Dani was tucked up on it under the rug while Napoleon happily lay on a heap of straw beside him. Annette slept in the one and only bed, and Monsieur Burnier went off and made himself comfortable in the hayloft.