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 snowdrifts,
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.
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