THE LITTLE MOUNTAIN MAIDEN.

[Illustration]

I want you to look at the picture on this page. It is a little deer:
its name is the chamois. Do you see what delicate horns it has, and
what slender legs, and how it seems to stand on that bit of rock and
lift its head to watch for the hunters.

Last summer I saw a little chamois like that, and just as small: it
was not alive, but cut or carved of wood,--such a graceful pretty
little plaything as one does not meet every day.

Would you like to know who made it, and where it came from?

It was made in the mountain country, by the brother of my good
Jeannette, the little Swiss maiden.

Here among the high mountains she lives with her father, mother, and
brothers; and far up among those high snowy peaks, which are seen
behind the house, the chamois live, many of them together, eating
the tender grass and little pink-colored flowers, and leaping and
springing away over the ice and snow when they see the men coming up
to hunt them.

I will tell you by and by how it happened that Jeannette's tall
brother Joseph carved this tiny chamois from wood. But first you must
know about this small house upon the great hills, and how they live up
there so near the blue sky.