Max is dust; it soars up on one side of this road, very steep and
very majestic, having bare stone at its base, and being all along
its summit crowned with pine woods; and on the other side of the
road are a little stone church, quaint and 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