The New Year’s Carol
The New Year’s Carol
The New Year’s Carol
Nearthe fortress of the little Swiss village above Altdorf are green meadows with fragrant grass and fresh flowers. They are beautiful to look upon and wander over. Shady nut-trees stand here and there, and through the meadow rushes a foaming brook that makes wild leaps over the rocks that lie in its course.
At the end of this village, where stands an old ivy-covered tower, a pathruns along by the brook-side. Here is a very large old nut-tree, and it is a delight to the weary wanderer to throw himself down in its cool shade and gaze far up at the blue sky and high mountains whose tops are lost in the white clouds. Near the tree is a bridge over the dashing waters which rush down between the high mountains. Here the steep path leads to a small Swiss cottage with a little stall near by. Higher is a similar cottage and above them still another, the smallest of all perched up among the wild rocks. Before the low door is a grassy sward where the goats are milked, and in the summer the door stands always open.
Here lived Joseph, the gatherer of wild hay, and Afra, his tidy industriouslittle wife. They seldom left their tiny home except to go to church, which they devoutly attended.
Their boy was born on Saint Sebastian’s day and so received the name of his patron Saint, but was commonly called Barty, and the little sister who came two years later was for the same reason named Franzelie.
But the good Joseph died and Afra was left a widow with the two children for whom she must toil early and late. Their scanty clothing was always clean and carefully mended. When the children went out together, Barty always held his little sister fast by the hand, and people said to the mother, “Your boy with his rosy face is like a strawberry apple, and little Franzelie, with her fairface, blue eyes, and golden curls, is like an altar picture.”
But the mother said,“They are dear sweet children and I am earnestly praying that the good God will keep them well and good and pure.”