Johanna Spyri

“ Hugo found Jos alone on the pasture, singing and whistling while he strolled about among the cows. Alida and Stefeli had gone on a little trip of discovery. It seemed as if Hugo saw the beautiful creatures who were grazing here and there, looking about them, for the first time in his life. He began to ask Jos many questions, for after watching them carefully he had noticed how much they differed in their looks as well as in their ways. He had always thought that cows were just cows, one like another. ”

“ Whenever his uncle Lorenz started to sing, more songs he had known in his youth rose in his memory. Even if Vinzi did not know them, all the uncle had to do was to sing them to the boy a few times and the latter would repeat them perfectly. The rest could follow his piping and in that way learn all the songs. The uncle got a tremendous satisfaction from it all. When such a musical evening had passed the uncle shook Vinzi’s hand three or four times. “You can make one young again with your music,” he would say. “You are piping the joy of youth back into my heart, boy.” ”

“ Lesa had grasped his son’s hand. “More than that, more than that, Vinzi,” he finally said after a great effort to control himself. “You make your parents proud of you and not what I used to think. I never realized such a thing could happen. I never, never knew it. When I used to come to Freiburg as a boy and heard this organ, I thought that people who played it were creatures entirely set apart, not human beings like one of us. You must be most thankful to Mr. Delrick, boy, for we owe him everything. He found the way for you and made this possible.” ”

“ They wanted to see how he did it, and Vinzi was only too glad to do so. He played as long as they liked to hear him, while they actually crowded around him and eagerly watched his fingers. The melodies seemed to come somehow of themselves. All he did was to let his fingers leap lightly over the holes, and it looked childishly simple. After watching him each thought that he could now do it, too, and it made every boy eager to try afresh. If one seemingly succeeded fairly well, another boy would say that he could do it as well if only he had his own pipe and took time to practice. ”

“ Stefeli wanted to know.
After meditating a little Vinzi answered, “I don’t know what the profession is in which I could do what I like best of all.”
“What do you like to do best? I never saw you do it, I think,” Stefeli said, quite surprised that she should not know.
“I like above all to listen to the bells and all the sounds in the branches of the trees. Also [39] those that drift down from the mountains on all sides. Can you hear how it seems to sing everywhere about us? Can you hear it?” Vinzi’s eyes grew more large and gleaming while he listened. ”

“ My cousin Lorenz is a good, sensible man who won’t treat him badly, and Cousin Josepha is a splendid woman who is bringing up her three boys in such a way that it gives one pleasure to look at them. I saw them right in the midst of their cows and I never heard such singing and jokes and such cracking of whips. They seem to have an eternal holiday. Don’t you believe yourself that our boy might change in such surroundings and realize how lucky he is to have been born to be a farmer? ”

“ On the other hand was the full realization that all his marvellous life on the mountain with these kind people had come to an end. Yes, and the music, all the music, too. There was no one who would be able to help him at home, no one. Should the whole thing really be over for good and all? His heart contracted painfully at this thought, but the next moment he found joy again in the happy anticipation of going home and seeing his loved ones.
Even if the music must stop when he got home, he would not entirely lose his good teacher, Pater Silvanus. ”

“ When the day was over and Vinzenz Lesa had settled as usual on his bench, his forehead lay in deep furrows. Staring at the ground, he even let his pipe go out.
Mr. Delrick now stepped up to him.
“Mr. Lesa,” he said, striking a match and offering the light to his host, “you are not in a good humor, or you would not let your pipe go out. Here, light it again.”
“Humor, you say, humor!” Lesa repeated grimly. “If one’s field is spoilt by hail, one can always hope that it will bring good fruit next year. But when a man’s only son goes from bad to worse, no hope is left him. ”

“ I mean Vinzi. For whom should I do all of it if not for him, and what kind of a boy is he? He has no eyes in his head and shows not the slightest pleasure or interest in taking to pasture the most beautiful cows that can be found far and wide in the whole neighborhood. If I say to him, ‘Just look what wonderful fodder is in this meadow!’ he says ‘yes’ and stares into the distance so one can see that he has neither listened nor really looked at the meadow he is standing in. ”

“ Vinzi went out. The sunset glow was gilding the rocky mountains opposite, the dark spruces had bright, golden tops, and now the bell of the little chapel began to fill the air with its lovely, peaceful music. Vinzi, carried completely away by all the beauty, stood and listened, rooted to the spot. He stood thus until the glow had faded and the chapel bell had stopped.
“Hello!” cried a voice behind him, while a [128] brisk blow fell on his back. Then he was pulled by force to the pump, where the very necessary daily ablutions had to be made before supper. ”

“ But where did you find the music?”
“It came to me because I wanted to sing you the song you could not remember,” said Vinzi.
“It is very good of you to give an old man such pleasure. But wait! I nearly forgot something,” said the grandfather, searching about in his pockets. “I have thought of you, too, for I told Pater Silvanus about your wanting a certain kind of song. You can see how good he is, for look! he brought it to me. The only condition he made is that you are to sing him the song when you have found the tune for it. ”

“ Good monks live there, who take in people that travel by in winter, half frozen. They have a warm fire for you and a drop of something warm to strengthen you.”
“What is that over there?” asked Vinzi again after a little while, when an old solitary tower showed itself to the right of the road.
“Do you think you have to live there? Don’t make such eyes!” said the young man. “I shouldn’t like to live there myself. It is as quiet here as if it were at the end of the world. But they do grow old here. Ten years ago I saw a man sitting there with his hair and beard as white as the snow on that peak. ”

“ No less practical is the influence of good music upon children, the value of which is just beginning to be properly recognized in school and home.
But no moralizing ever interferes with the course of the narrative, which flows along with a delicate intuition as to suspense and climax. The boy Vinzi’s love of music and his father’s determination to make a farmer of him provide the central motive. It is noteworthy that the father, who with a less skilful author would be the villain of the tale, is never made to lose our respect. ”

“ Faz explained. “Jos always takes his part because he can jodel so well.”
“Yes he can do it like no one else and I love to hear him,” affirmed Jos. “I think that the invention of naughty tricks is beginning to die down a bit. Vereli is needed for that, and he has something else in his head now. Vinzi has made him a pipe, which he has wanted for ages, and he is so determined to learn how to play that nothing will stop him. You know that if he wants a thing he never gives up till he has it.” ”

“ Vinzi had not said a word. When he sat on his threshold later on, looking up at the stars, he was conscious of a deep inner conflict. He looked forward to seeing his mother and Stefeli again, yes and his father, too. Maybe the latter would be kind to him now as he used to be in the old days Vinzi remembered so well, when he would let the boy ride on his knees and would say to him, “Just ride ahead, Vinzi; as soon as you can ride you shall have a horse.” Vinzi could not quite remember when his father had begun to treat him less kindly. ”

“ I would keep such a lad at home. One usually sends a boy away when he isn’t quite as he ought to be, or if he has queer ideas in his head that he might lose among strangers. But there are very few boys like Vinzi. Since he has come here I hardly recognize our own. Take Russli, for instance. Every morning he had to be dragged by violence to the fountain, and while he got washed, he usually shrieked like mad. Now he runs over to the stream behind the hay-rick as soon as he is out of bed. He loves to wash himself there, he says, because Vinzi does it, too, and likes it. ”

“ All Vinzi needs is to have a companion, for he can look after himself perfectly well. No boy is a little child any more at twelve.”
“Young enough, to go away alone,” uttered the mother with a sigh. “Does he really have to go on Monday? Tomorrow is Sunday.”
“Nothing could be better,” the husband said decisively. “If a thing has to be done, it is best to have it settled right away. I can’t see anything dreadful in it. He is not going to Australia, and next winter he’ll be home again.” ”

“ Vinzenz Lesa could not help thinking to himself that a year among strangers would benefit Vinzi greatly. After all, the boy had seen very little of other people’s lives. He would meet [236] boys of his own age struggling for their existence and that might teach him to be grateful for his own good fortune. To be taken to the paved streets of a city from his free life in the country might even make him homesick and anxious to come back before the year was out. ”

“ But I cannot believe him to be a dull boy, for he seems to have been tremendously eager to take music lessons from my daughter. According to her he showed the most extraordinary comprehension.”
“Oh, no, he is not dull,” replied Mrs. Lesa with animation, “the trouble with him is that he has his thoughts where they ought not to be. If he happens to be out in the field with his father and he hears the sound of a bell anywhere he drops everything and pays attention to absolutely nothing else till no sound of it can be heard any more. ”

“ I shall not tolerate strangers in the house. I mean to live by myself and I absolutely forbid the children to have anything to do with those city folks. Don’t let them go over there or our girl will soon become as spoilt as the boy. I am glad to say she is still different from him. She runs after the cows and strokes them like friends and the young cattle run after her, eat from her hand and rub their heads against her like comrades. If one says anything, the child pays attention and minds her business and uses her own eyes besides. ”

“ We hardly need Monsieur Coué to tell us that a brave confidence in the future is one of the most valuable qualities of character, especially for a child. Philosophers, both theoretical and practical, dilate on the importance of freeing ourselves from fear and discouragement as early in life as possible. This is just what the story of Vinzi tends to do by presenting the small hero as a natural example of the well-known principle. ”

“ On Monday morning the sun had only just flushed the tops of the mountains before rising above the wooded heights, when, early as it was, Stefeli, already neatly washed and dressed, rushed into Vinzi’s little chamber. She found him still fast asleep.
“Wake up, Vinzi,” she cried out. “The man has just brought back the cows from the pond and as soon as we have had breakfast, father wants us to go up to the pasture to watch them. The man has to come back when we get there. We’ll take lunch with us and stay all day long because it’s too far to come all the way home. ”

“ That evening he repeated Vereli’s words to his uncle, asking at the same time what he was to do.
“Go up to the tower tomorrow, boy,” answered the uncle. The grandfather was the oldest man on the whole mountain-side and one had to do his bidding.
“Whose grandfather is he?” asked Vinzi.
“Oh, the grandfather of all the so-called Tower Boys,” replied the uncle, “and of a huge family besides who stay at home. Only the boys who attend to the cattle go up there. He is in fact their great, or even great-great grandfather. ”

“ Do you think my uncle will be cross when I forget to mind the cows? Stefeli always called to me when she needed me if I was not paying attention.”
“I don’t know, as I never saw either your aunt [74] or your uncle,” replied the mother. “But I want to beg of you, Vinzi, to do your very best to please them. If they should complain of you, or feel obliged to send you home, your father could not bear it. Never do anything that would prevent you from looking cheerfully up to your good Father in Heaven, for you can always look to him when you feel afraid or lonely. ”

“ You learned something worth while up there, Vinzi, for you did not use to be the first in the morning. Come and walk over to our walnut trees till your mother calls us to breakfast. Don’t you think our trees are fine, and the grass about them, too? I hope you have learned to see that it is not quite so bad here at home. It is beautiful here, isn’t it? ”

“ Do you think your father would mind if I cut Russli a pipe?”
“Why should he mind? What do you mean? I couldn’t even guess why not?” Jos exclaimed. “I am sure he couldn’t possibly object, and we are only too glad if you keep Russli busy. He makes the cows simply wild and that keeps us chasing them. The minute they see him even they begin to run.”
“Shouldn’t I help you mind the cows?” asked Vinzi, slightly concerned. “Can I really sit down quietly and cut out pipes?”
“You can’t help us any better way than that,” said Jos. “Please believe me. Look how peacefully they are grazing. ”

“ It is sure to delight all children and as many of their elders as have retained their youthful sympathies. The revival of other stories by Madame Spyri has shown that her simple charm never fails to win an increasing audience, but in Vinzi her gift is positively at its best. In none of her books is the interest centered and sustained more perfectly.
There are few things more enjoyable or profitable for children than to learn how children live in other countries. ”