This then was Schuster (or Shoe-maker) Alois, in preparation of whose advent the good aunt had scrubbed a bed-room, and Moidel had beautified the window with pots of blooming geraniums. The room was a large chamber, set apart for the different ambulatory work-people who came to the Hof in the course of the year. The weaver, who arrived in the spring to weave the flax which the busy womankind had spun through the winter, had been the last occupant of the room, and had woven no less than two hundred and ninety-three ells of linen, which now in long symmetrical lines were carefully pegged down on the turf of the pleasaunce by Moidel, who walked over them daily with her bare feet, busily watering until the gray threads were turning snowy white. Later on in the year the sewing-woman would appear, and then the tailor, to make the clothing for this large household, the servants, according to an old custom long since extinct in most countries, being chiefly paid in kind. Schuster Alois had now come to make the boots for Jakob and the Senner Franz preparatory to their going with the cattle to the Alpine pastures. I greatly doubt whether the tailor or the weaver was so well waited upon as the shoemaker: I fancy they were left more to the maids. Passing the open door of the family house-place, aunt and niece might now be seen sitting hour after hour, the elder lining the soles of Jakob's stockings with pieces of strong woolen to prevent mending on the Alp, or attending to other needs of his homely toilet; the younger at her paste-board or kneading-trough, whilst Schuster Alois sat between them in the sunny oriel window, and while he steadily plied his awl appeared to be either telling them tales or reciting poetry. The Alp, or Olm (to use the provincial word), lay at the distance of about six hours, and the Hofbauer went up to examine the state of the pasturage before his son and the cattle finally started. In two days he returned. "The going up of the cattle must be postponed at least a week," he said, "for snow had fallen at the huts the depth of a man; and the river had swollen to such a height that it had carried two houses away in St. Wolfgang, the highest mountain-village; and even life had been lost." This delay caused a respite from hard work. The next morning Alois's arms did not move like unwearying machinery, and, the ten o'clock-dinner being over, we saw him seated at his ease on the adjoining hillside. Should we go and speak to him? He appeared different from the ordinary run of his class (though cobblers are often clever men enough), and moreover of a decidedly friendly turn of mind. We determined that we would. We joined Alois on the stony, waste hillside, crowned by two trees with a crucifix in the centre, which formed from the house, with its background of mountains, ever a melancholy, soul-touching little poem. "You have not quite such hard work to-day, Schuster?"