see, sir—"

Professor Luttman's kindly, studious face was suddenly very weary. "Did you even hear me?" he asked.

"No, sir," Franz admitted.

"Very well, I'll repeat. Translate the assigned lesson."

"I—I cannot do it, sir."

"Why not?" Professor Luttman asked.

"I do not know it, sir," Franz confessed.

Hertha Bittner, who was always able to do any lesson perfectly, giggled. Her laugh was echoed by the other students. Professor Luttman looked directly at Franz.

"I fear," he said sorrowfully, "that your scholarly instincts and abilities leave much to be desired. For two years I have tried earnestly to teach you, and I question whether you have yet mastered the simplest portion of any subject at all. It is my considered opinion that your time will be far more constructively spent if you devote it to helping your father. Will you be so good as to go home and tell him what I have said?"

"Yes, sir."

Franz left the schoolroom, his cheeks burning. Caesar's meeting him at the door lifted none of his shame and embarrassment, but did provide solace. Laying his hand on the big mastiff's neck, Franz struck directly away from the school.

At least, he could take the long way home.

2: SHAME

Franz left by the north door. He began to run at once, with Caesar keeping effortless pace beside him.

With its base only a few rods from the schoolhouse, the mountain on the north side rose so steeply that the youngsters of Dornblatt used it as a practice site for their first lessons in mountain climbing. There were numerous sheer bluffs, and such soil as existed was thickly sprinkled with boulders that varied from the size of a man's head to the size of a Dornblatt house.

Shame was the spur that made Franz run, for as he sped between the school and the great log and earth barrier that the men of Dornblatt hoped would keep a major avalanche from crushing the school, it seemed to him that every pupil and Professor Luttman must be looking at him and jeering. He imagined the superior smile on Hertha Bittner's pretty lips, the scornful curve of Willi Resnick's mouth, the sardonic contempt that would be reflected in Hermann Gottschalk's cold eyes, and in his mind he heard Professor Luttman say, "There goes Franz Halle, the failure! There goes one too stupid to understand the true value of learning! Look upon him, so that you may never be like him!"

Franz's cheeks flamed and his ears were on fire. He might have chosen not to attend the school and everyone would have understood. But of his own free will he had become a student, and by Professor Luttman's order he was ignominiously expelled. Nobody in Dornblatt could ever live such a thing down.

Then Franz and Caesar were across the clearing and back in the hardwood forest.

Franz slowed to a walk, for the great trees that grew all about had always been his friends and they did not forsake him now. They formed a shield that no scornful eyes could penetrate, and as long as he was in the forest, he would know peace. His own practiced eye found a big sycamore that was half-rotted through, and he marked it for future firewood. The sycamore was sure to fall anyway, and in falling it would certainly crush some of the trees around it. But it could be felled in such a fashion that it would hurt nothing, and a healthy young tree would grow in its place.

Franz stole a moment to wonder at himself. Other Dornblatt boys and girls, some of whom were much younger than he, had no trouble learning Professor Luttman's assigned lessons. Why should that which was written in books be so hopelessly beyond his grasp while that which was written in the forest and mountains was always so easy to read?

He spied a squirrel's nest, a cluster of leaves high in a birch tree, and beneath the same tree he found a crushed and rounded set that meant a hare had crouched there. A jay tilted saucily on a limb and peered at Franz and Caesar without scolding. Jays never shrieked at him, Franz thought, as they did at almost everyone else, and he was sure that was because they knew he was their friend.

The two friends wandered on, and when they reached a little open space among the trees, Franz halted to tilt his head and turn his eyes heavenward. High above him towered a rock-ribbed peak, so tall that even in summer its upper reaches were snowbound. Franz stood a moment, contented just to look and grow happier in the looking.

Unknown to his father, or to anyone else in Dornblatt, he had climbed that peak. Little Sister it was called, to distinguish it from an adjoining peak known as Big Sister. Carrying only his ropes and alpenstock, he was accompanied by the mastiff until blocked by a wall that the dog could not climb and up which Franz could not rope him. He had ordered Caesar to wait and gone on alone. From the topmost eminence of Little Sister, he had viewed a breath-taking array of other peaks.

But there was infinitely more than just a view.

Franz had never told even Father Paul, Dornblatt's kindly little parish priest, how, as he stood on the summit of Little Sister, he had felt very close to Heaven—he, simple Franz Halle who could not even get ahead in school. He had never told anyone and he had no intention of telling.

Now, as he looked up at Little Sister, remembering that wonderful feeling, Franz became almost wholly at peace. The school seemed very far away, part of a different world. This, and this alone, was real. It seemed to Franz that he always heard music, with never a jarring or discordant note, whenever he was in the forest or climbing the mountains.

From the topmost eminence of Little Sister, he had viewed a breath-taking array of other peaks

Presently he reached another downsloping gulley and halted on its near rim to look across. On the far rim was a farm that differed from the houses in Dornblatt because quarters for the people, a neat chalet, were separate from the building that housed the stock. It was the home of the Widow Geiser and had been the best farm anywhere around Dornblatt.

Then, three years ago, Jean Geiser had gone into the mountains to hunt chamois. He had never returned, and ever since the Widow Geiser had been hard put to make ends meet. Her two sons, aged four and six, were little help and no woman should even try doing all the work that a place such as this demanded. The Widow Geiser still tried, but it was rumored that she was heavily in debt to Emil Gottschalk.

Caesar pricked his ears up and looked at the goat shed. Following the dog's gaze, Franz saw a brown and white goat, one of the widow's small flock, come from the rear door, squeeze beneath the enclosing pole fence and make its way into a hay meadow. It stalked more like a wild animal than a domestic creature and its obvious destination was the forest. Should it get there, it would be almost impossible to capture the animal again.

Franz turned to his dog. "Take her back, Caesar."