Johanna Spyri

Rico and Wiseli Johanna Spyri

Rico was almost nine years old, and had been to school for two winters. Up there in the mountains there was no school in the summer-time; for then the teacher had his field to cultivate, and his hay and wood to cut, like everybody else, and nobody had time to think of going to school. This was not a great sorrow for Rico - he knew how to amuse himself. When he had once taken his place in the morning on the threshold, he would stand there for hours without moving, gazing into the far distance with dreamy eyes, until the door of the house over the way openen, and a little girl make her appearance looked over at him laughingly... In the Upper Engadine Valley, on the road leading up to the Maloja Pass, lies a lonely town called Sils. Taking a diagonal path from the street back to the mountains, one comes to a smaller village known as Sils-Maria. Here, a little aside from the highway, in a field, two dwellings stood opposite each other. Both had old-fashioned doors and tiny windows set deep in the wall. One house had a garden, where herbs and vegetables and a few straggling flowers were growing. The other, which was much smaller, had only an old stable with a couple of chickens wandering in and out of it.