Weber State University - Acorn Yearbook (Ogden, UT)

Page 33 text:

THK ACORN 3 Gaston’s back is getting tired already, so he stops to rest and wanders over to examine the con- tainer. He finds it to be a fun- nel-shaped, wooden receptacle about four feet deep, two feet wide and one foot in breadth at the top. one side of which is con- vex and the opposite one concave to fit the back of the carrier. Fas- tened on the concave side are two great round straps that go over the shoulders and under the arms of the one who carries the crushed grapes to the big barrel. The mill at the top is simply two grooved logs working like cog- wheels and turned by a small han- dle. While examining the huge barrel Gaston is startled by a cry of surprise coming from the little dark-eyed girl who has just payed the penalty for missing a bunch of grapes. Imagine now that you have worked all morning and that Henri is just emptying the contents of the container into the barrel for the tenth time when the call comes for dinner. We all leave our buckets to mark our places and follow the lane running between a high rock wall on one side and a row of huts on the other. Finally we reach the proprietor’s house and barn which, by the way, are the same build- ing. Entering by the barn door we pass through the loft, step down two steps through another doorway and we arc in the kitchen, where dinner—soup, salad, potatoes, sausage and Swiss pudding—is already on the table, and the smiling Swiss housewife waits to see that we eat until we literally can't swallow another bite. The meal is about half over and, up to the present, has been enjoyed immensely. The Americans of the party are exerting their best efforts to down some of that country sausage, when a squeal of indigestion comes from the next room. It is one of those animals Sir Walter Scott calls swine, which is bemoaning the death of one of his brothers, who is now the principal ingredient of the sausage we are trying so hard to eat.

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SoutifKir front 1310 NUMBER FIVE VOL. SEVEN “tD]e Penbangi Imagine yourself in old Switzerland on a crisp fall morning standing at the foot of a hill covered with grape vines. Imagine that the grapes are ripe and that you and several companions are there contemplating the work before you. And if you wish, picture some of us in a happy, boisterous mood and others more contem- plative. If you are there now we will begin to pick. The boys of the party take every other row and the girls, as a means of precaution, take the rows between, for during the grape gathering of Switzerland it is held as a divine right for the boy to embrace the maiden beside him if she should happen to miss a bunch of grapes, granting, of course, the same right to her. The baskets are being rapidly filled, for we are not stopping to pick the ripe, luscious ones only, but all on the vines from those that make one’s mouth water to those that give one a shudder to think of eating. “Raisins.” someone calls, and Henri goes to empty the basket of the picker. On his way back he takes the contents of the others’ baskets and carries all to the container, into which he squashes the grapes by means of a little hand mill on top of the container.

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4 THEVP acorn Imagine, again, that dinner is fin- ished with no further disturbances, that all afternoon we gather grapes, ' that the barrel is filled with crushed fruit and stems. Now think: All those grapes that were picked during the day—those beautiful ones and those j wormy, dirty ones—are all mixed to- gether and pressed into wine—that clear, red wine that one sees so much on the market. Imagine now that the “vendange” is finished, and if you have pictured well you have seen a typical grape gathering scene and the incidents pertaining to it as it really happens in Switzerland every year. — W. F. D., ’08. “Now then, my hearties,“ said the gallant captain, you have a tough battle before you. Fight like heroes until your powder is gone, then run. I’m a little lame, so I’ll start now.”—Ex.