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When they had told her she said: "That's nice and good, and I am very glad that you have come again; but today you must be off early, the day is short and it is growing colder. Only this morning there was no frost in Millsdorf." "Not in Gschaid, either," said the boy. "There you see. On that account you must hurry so that you will not grow too cold in the evening," said grandmother.
He took none but the best workmen and kept after them when they worked in order that they should do as he told them. And really, he accomplished his desire, so that not only the whole village of Gschaid, which for the most part had got its shoes from neighboring valleys, had their work done by him, but the whole valley also. And finally he had some customers even from Millsdorf and other valleys.
Now, the natives of Gschaid rarely leave their valley, as has been remarked hardly even traveling to Millsdorf from which they are separated by customs as well as by mountain-ridges; besides, it never happens that a man leaves his valley to settle in a neighboring one though settlements at greater distances do take place; neither does a woman or a girl like to emigrate from one valley into another, except in the rather rare cases when she follows her love and as wife joins her husband in another valley.
Therefore, he said, his daughter would receive nothing from home but an excellent outfit; all else it was and remained the duty of the husband to provide. The dyeing works in Millsdorf and the farming he carried on were a dignified and honorable business by themselves which had to exist for their own sake.
On beautiful mornings, one could see the children walk southward through the valley, and traverse the meadows toward the point where the forest of the "neck" looks down on them. They would enter the forest, gain the height on the road, and before noon come to the open meadows on the side toward Millsdorf.
When they had finally arrived at the outermost edge of the Millsdorf heights where the road enters the dark pines of the "neck" the solid front of the forest was already prettily sprinkled by the flakes falling ever more thickly. They now entered the dense forest which extended over the longest part of the journey still ahead of them.
When they were descending toward the forest of the "neck" they saw tracks which, he declared, came not from shoes of his make. The explanation came soon. Attracted probably by the many voices they heard, another body of men joined them. It was the dyer ash-gray in the face from fright descending at the head of his workmen, apprentices, and several men of Millsdorf.
With regard to food and clothes, and other material things, his care for them was above reproach. At first, the dyer's wife frequently came over to Gschaid, and the young couple in their turn visited Millsdorf on occasion of country-fairs and other festivities. But when the children came, circumstances were altered.
Thus it happened that the two children made the way over the pass more frequently than all the other villagers together; and inasmuch as their mother had always been treated as half a stranger in Gschaid, the children, by this circumstance, grew up to be strangers' children to the village folks; they hardly were Gschaid children, but belonged half to Millsdorf.
But in this they all agree, that they adhere to established customs and the usages of their forefathers, lightly bear the absence of great traffic, cling to their native valley with an extraordinary love; in fact, can hardly live out of it. Months, ay a whole year may pass without a native of Gschaid setting foot into the valley beyond and visiting the town of Millsdorf.
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