Translation:The High Mountains/20

A road is not made only for some. Some open it up and many benefit from it.

The road is for everyone. It is for the rich and the poor, for the master and the beggar.

With the road a mountain meets the next mountain, a city joins hands with another city.

There are flat roads, wide and straight like town roads. There are narrow, difficult roads which climb up the cliffs, go across rivers and come into the fresh forests.

Such a road as this brought them here, into the high mountains. Since then the children have understood that the road is a great asset.

And now that they're so busy making a road, they're in a hurry to finish it and see the results.

Of course it's not roads they're making, but little paths. But for their community they are necessary. Isn't it a fine piece of work? And won't other people be passing this way too?

They calculated that first of all they needed a path to go to the Vlachs. This one would be the most important one as the Vlachs supply them with provisions.

Another path must go to the woodcutters, and another to lead them towards the road to the Small Village.

If they manage to make these three paths, they will have means of communication.

They had a hard time! They had to struggle with the earth in many places ; several distant trees had thrown up roots just where they wanted to build the path.

These roots, which were very big and strong, they tried to cut so they wouldn't trip over them during the night. They had needed a saw, an axe and a lot of sweat.

Elsewhere they came across steep inclined banks, formed by rainwater.

The path had to pass there. But hardly had they finished, than as soon as they walked on it, the soil slid down. How to stabilise it?

They thought of reinforcing the path with a little wall from below. But to build this low wall, they would need many things they'd never previously imagined : first of all, a mace to break the stones. They didn't have one and they sent someone off again to the head of the Small Village to ask him to give them one.

—You're going to make a dry stone wall? asked the head of the village. Bravo for your perseverance, children!

With their perseverance they made the low wall and two paths.

Apart from all that, they also did some small jobs in the community.

The whole place was covered with dried pine needles, they cleared them all up. First so that they could wander around easily, and then to eliminate the fire risk : as dry pine needles are both very slippery and highly inflammable.

They also levelled the ground around the dining room pines so they could eat comfortably.

They also cleared the path which leads to the fountain.

At the end they had a look at their work and felt proud.

They thought :”We are the first ones to make the communication routes up here”.

But were they really the first? No. Long before them the goats had opened the paths up there in order to move together as a herd. The goat paths which can be seen everywhere were the common routes made by the herds to allow easy access to the pastures.

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