Heidi - Johanna Spyri (red scrolls of magic .txt) 📗
- Author: Johanna Spyri
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branches waving outside.
Then it grew very cold, and Peter would come up early in the
morning blowing on his fingers to keep them warm. But he soon
left off coming, for one night there was a heavy fall of snow
and the next morning the whole mountain was covered with it, and
not a single little green leaf was to be seen anywhere upon it.
There was no Peter that day, and Heidi stood at the little window
looking out in wonderment, for the snow was beginning again, and
the thick flakes kept falling till the snow was up to the
window, and still they continued to fall, and the snow grew
higher, so that at last the window could not be opened, and she
and her grandfather were shut up fast within the hut. Heidi
thought this was great fun and ran from one window to the other
to see what would happen next, and whether the snow was going to
cover up the whole hut, so that they would have to light a lamp
although it was broad daylight. But things did not get as bad as
that, and the next day, the snow having ceased, the grandfather
went out and shovelled away the snow round the house, and threw
it into such great heaps that they looked like mountains standing
at intervals on either side the hut. And now the windows and door
could be opened, and it was well it was so, for as Heidi and her
grandfather were sitting one afternoon on their three-legged
stools before the fire there came a great thump at the door
followed by several others, and then the door opened. It was
Peter, who had made all that noise knocking the snow off his
shoes; he was still white all over with it, for he had had to
fight his way through deep snowdrifts, and large lumps of snow
that had frozen upon him still clung to his clothes. He had been
determined, however, not to be beaten and to climb up to the
hut, for it was a week now since he had seen Heidi.
“Good-evening,” he said as he came in; then he went and placed
himself as near the fire as he could without saying another
word, but his whole face was beaming with pleasure at finding
himself there. Heidi looked on in astonishment, for Peter was
beginning to thaw all over with the warmth, so that he had the
appearance of a trickling waterfall.
“Well, General, and how goes it with you?” said the grandfather,
“now that you have lost your army you will have to turn to your
pen and pencil.”
“Why must he turn to his pen and pencil?” asked Heidi
immediately, full of curiosity.
“During the winter he must go to school,” explained her
grandfather, “and learn how to read and write; it’s a bit hard,
although useful sometimes afterwards. Am I not right, General?”
“Yes, indeed,” assented Peter.
Heidi’s interest was now thoroughly awakened, and she had so
many questions to put to Peter about all that was to be done and
seen and heard at school, and the conversation took so long that
Peter had time to get thoroughly dry. Peter had always great
difficulty in putting his thoughts into words, and he found his
share of the talk doubly difficult to-day, for by the time he had
an answer ready to one of Heidi’s questions she had already put
two or three more to him, and generally such as required a whole
long sentence in reply.
The grandfather sat without speaking during this conversation,
only now and then a twitch of amusement at the corners of his
mouth showed that he was listening.
“Well, now, General, you have been under fire for some time and
must want some refreshment, come and join us,” he said at last,
and as he spoke he rose and went to fetch the supper out of the
cupboard, and Heidi pushed the stools to the table. There was
also now a bench fastened against the wall, for as he was no
longer alone the grandfather had put up seats of various kinds
here and there, long enough to hold two persons, for Heidi had a
way of always keeping close to her grandfather whether he was
walking, sitting or standing. So there was comfortable place for
them all three, and Peter opened his round eyes very wide when
he saw what a large piece of meat Alm-Uncle gave him on his thick
slice of bread. It was a long time since Peter had had anything
so nice to eat. As soon as the pleasant meal was over Peter
began to get ready for returning home, for it was already growing
dark. He had said his “good-night” and his thanks, and was just
going out, when he turned again and said, “I shall come again
next Sunday, this day week, and grandmother sent word that she
would like you to come and see her one day.”
It was quite a new idea to Heidi that she should go and pay
anybody a visit, and she could not get it out of her head; so
the first thing she said to her grandfather the next day was, “I
must go down to see the grandmother to-day; she will be expecting
me.”
“The snow is too deep,” answered the grandfather, trying to put
her off. But Heidi had made up her mind to go, since the
grandmother had sent her that message. She stuck to her
intention and not a day passed but what in the course of it she
said five or six times to her grandfather, “I must certainly go
to-day, the grandmother will be waiting for me.”
On the fourth day, when with every step one took the ground
crackled with frost and the whole vast field of snow was hard as
ice, Heidi was sitting on her high stool at dinner with the
bright sun shining in upon her through the window, and again
repeated her little speech, “I must certainly go down to see the
grandmother to-day, or else I shall keep her waiting too long.”
The grandfather rose from table, climbed up to the hayloft and
brought down the thick sack that was Heidi’s coverlid, and said,
“Come along then!” The child skipped out gleefully after him
into the glittering world of snow.
The old fir trees were standing now quite silent, their branches
covered with the white snow, and they looked so lovely as they
glittered and sparkled in the sunlight that Heidi jumped for joy
at the sight and kept on calling out, “Come here, come here,
grandfather! The fir trees are all silver and gold!” The
grandfather had gone into the shed and he now came out dragging
a large hand-sleigh along with him; inside it was a low seat, and
the sleigh could be pushed forward and guided by the feet of the
one who sat upon it with the help of a pole that was fastened to
the side. After he had been taken round the fir trees by Heidi
that he might see their beauty from all sides, he got into the
sleigh and lifted the child on to his lap; then he wrapped her
up in the sack, that she might keep nice and warm, and put his
left arm closely round her, for it was necessary to hold her
tight during the coming journey. He now grasped the pole with his
right hand and gave the sleigh a push forward with his two feet.
The sleigh shot down the mountain side with such rapidity that
Heidi thought they were flying through the air like a bird, and
shouted aloud with delight. Suddenly they came to a standstill,
and there they were at Peter’s hut. Her grandfather lifted her
out and unwrapped her. “There you are, now go in, and when it
begins to grow dark you must start on your way home again.” Then
he left her and went up the mountain, pulling his sleigh after
him.
Heidi opened the door of the hut and stepped into a tiny room
that looked very dark, with a fireplace and a few dishes on a
wooden shelf; this was the little kitchen. She opened another
door, and now found herself in another small room, for the place
was not a herdsman’s hut like her grandfather’s, with one large
room on the ground floor and a hayloft above, but a very old
cottage, where everything was narrow and poor and shabby. A
table was close to the door, and as Heidi stepped in she saw a
woman sitting at it, putting a patch on a waistcoat which Heidi
recognised at once as Peter’s. In the corner sat an old woman,
bent with age, spinning. Heidi was quite sure this was the
grandmother, so she went up to the spinning-wheel and said, “Good-day, grandmother, I have come at last; did you think I was a long
time coming?”
The woman raised her head and felt for the hand that the child
held out to her, and when she found it, she passed her own over
it thoughtfully for a few seconds, and then said, “Are you the
child who lives up with Alm-Uncle, are you Heidi?”
“Yes, yes,” answered Heidi, “I have just come down in the sleigh
with grandfather.”
“Is it possible! Why your hands are quite warm! Brigitta, did Alm-Uncle come himself with the child?”
Peter’s mother had left her work and risen from the table and
now stood looking at Heidi with curiosity, scanning her from head
to foot. “I do not know, mother, whether Uncle came himself; it
is hardly likely, the child probably makes a mistake.”
But Heidi looked steadily at the woman, not at all as if in any
uncertainty, and said, “I know quite well who wrapped me in my
bedcover and brought me down in the sleigh: it was grandfather.”
“There was some truth then perhaps in what Peter used to tell us
of Alm-Uncle during the summer, when we thought he must be
wrong,” said grandmother; “but who would ever have believed that
such a thing was possible? I did not think the child would live
three weeks up there. What is she like, Brigitta?”
The latter had so thoroughly examined Heidi on all sides that
she was well able to describe her to her mother.
“She has Adelaide’s slenderness of figure, but her eyes are dark
and her hair curly like her father’s and the old man’s up there:
she takes after both of them, I think.”
Heidi meanwhile had not been idle; she had made the round of the
room and looked carefully at everything there was to be seen.
All of a sudden she exclaimed, “Grandmother, one of your shutters
is flapping backwards and forwards; grandfather would put a nail
in and make it all right in a minute, or else it will break one
of the panes some day; look, look, how it keeps on banging!”
“Ah, dear child,” said the old woman, “I am not able to see it,
but I can hear that and many other things besides the shutter.
Everything about the place rattles and creaks when the wind is
blowing, and it gets inside through all the cracks and holes.
The house is going to pieces, and in the night, when the two
others are asleep, I often lie awake in fear and trembling,
thinking that the whole place will give way and fall and kill us.
And there is not a creature to mend anything for us, for Peter
does not understand such work.”
“But why cannot you see, grandmother, that the shutter is loose.
Look,
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