outnumber
the men, many of whom are scattered through all parts of the world,
engaged in the clock trade. Those who remain at home are pale from
their close confinement at work. The women, on the contrary, who labor
in the field are bright and rosy, while a pretty air of demureness is
imparted to their faces by the broad black ribbons they wear tied under
the chin.

Agriculture is practised on a small scale. With the exception of a few
large farms, it is limited to a scanty tillage of the meadows. In some
places a narrow belt of trees runs down to the brook at the very bottom
of the valley; in others, again, a tall, bare pine, on the edge of a
meadow, shows that field and garden-patch have been wrested from the
forest. The ash-trees, whose branches are stripped every year to
furnish food for the goats, look like elongated willows. The village,
or rather the parish, stretches out miles in length. The houses are
built of whole trunks of trees, dovetailed together, and are sprinkled
over mountain and valley. Their fronts present an uninterrupted row of
windows, arranged without intermediate spaces, as the object is to
admit all the light possible. The barn, when there is one, is
approached from the hill behind the house by a passage entering
directly under the roof. A heavy covering of thatch projects over the
front, and serves as a protection from the weather. The color of the
buildings harmonizes with the background of mountain and forest, while
narrow footpaths of a lighter shade lead through the green meadows to
the dwellings of the villagers.

The greater number of the mourners to-day pursued the same road up the
valley. Here and there, as a woman reached the path leading to her own
house, she turned aside from the main group, and waved her hymn-book to
the children, watching at the row of windows, or running down the
meadow lane to meet her. Each, as she laid aside her Sunday clothes,
heaved a sigh of mingled grief for the departed and thankfulness that
she and hers were still alive, and living together in love. But it was
hard to settle down at once to the every-day work. The world had been
left behind for a while, and its labors could not be easily resumed.

One of the group, whose way led him with the others as far as the next
cross-road, was the weight-manufacturer from Knuslingen, the man who
made the most exact lead and copper weights in the country. "A sorry
thing, this dying," said he; "here is all the wi