low, and gray with age, and a stone
farmhouse, and cattle-sheds, and timber-sheds, all of wood that is
darkly brown from time; and beyond these are some of the most beautiful
meadows in the world, full of tall grass and countless flowers, with
pools and little estuaries made by the brimming Inn River that flows
by them; and beyond the river are the glaciers of the Sonnstein and the
Selrain and the wild Arlberg region, and the golden glow of sunset in
the west, most often seen from here through the veil of falling rain.

At this farmhouse, with Martinswand towering above it, and Zell a mile
beyond, there lived, and lives still, a little boy who bears the old
historical name of Findelkind, whose father, Otto Korner, is the last
of a sturdy race of yeomen, who had fought with Hofer and Haspinger, and
had been free men always.

Findelkind came in the middle of seven other children, and was a pretty
boy of nine years, with slenderer limbs and paler cheeks than his rosy
brethren, and tender dreamy eyes that had the look, his mother told him,
of seeking stars in midday: de chercher midi a quatorze heures, as the
French have it. He was a good little lad, and seldom gave any trouble
from disobedience, though he often gave it from forgetfulness. His
father angrily complained that he was always in the clouds,--that is, he
was always dreaming, and so very often would spill the milk out of the
pails, chop his own fingers instead of the wood, and stay watching the
swallows when he was sent to draw water. His brothers and sisters were
always making fun of him; they were sturdier, ruddier, and merrier
children than he was, loved romping and climbing, and nutting, thrashing
the walnut-trees and sliding down snow-drifts, and got into mischief of
a more common and childish sort than Findelkind's freaks of fancy. For,
indeed, he was a very fanciful little boy: everything around had tongues
for him; and he would sit for hours among the long rushes on the river's
edge, trying to imagine what the wild green-gray water had found in its
wanderings, and asking the water-rats and the ducks to tell him about
it; but both rats and ducks were too busy to attend to an idle little
boy, and never spoke, which vexed him.

Findelkind, however, was very fond of his books: he would study day and
night, in his little ignorant, primitive fashion. He loved his missal
and his primer, and could spell them both out very fairly, and was
learning to write of a g