Heidi (1899)/Part 1/Chapter 13

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Herr Sesemann climbed the stairs in the greatest agitation and went with a firm step to Dame Rottenmeier's sleeping room. Here he rapped so unusually loud on the door that the good lady woke from sleep with a cry of terror. She heard Herr Sesemann's voice outside:—

"Pray hasten to come into the dining-room; preparations must be immediately made for a journey."

Fräulein Rottenmeier looked at her clock; it was half-past four in the morning; she had never risen at such an hour in her life before. What could have happened? Curiosity and anxious expectation made everything she touched go wrong, and she made slow progress in dressing, for she kept hunting about uneasily in her room for the things she had already put on.

Meanwhile Herr Sesemann went the entire length of the hall and furiously rang every one of the bells used to summon the different servants, so that in each respective room a terrified form jumped out of bed and hurried to dress, for one and all thought the same thing, that the ghost had seized the master of the house, and this was his call for help.

​So they came down one after another, each looking more terrified than the last, and stood in surprise before the master of the house, for he was walking up and down the room, looking fresh and cheerful, and not at all as if a ghost had frightened him.

Johann was immediately despatched to put the horses and carriage in order, to be brought round later on. Tinette was ordered to waken Heidi at once, and to make her ready to take a journey. Sebastian was ordered to hasten to the house where Heidi's aunt was at service and to bring her back. Fräulein Rottenmeier had meanwhile succeeded in getting dressed, and everything was all right except her headdress, which was on crooked, so that from a distance she looked as if her face was on backwards. Herr Sesemann ascribed her perplexing appearance to the fact that she had been awakened so early, and proceeded at once to business. He explained to the lady that she was to procure a trunk without delay, and to pack up all the things belonging to the Swiss child—Herr Sesemann usually spoke of Heidi in this way, as her name was somewhat unfamiliar to him—and also a good part of Klara's clothes, that the child might have everything that was necessary to take with her; but all must be done quickly and without stopping to deliberate.

Fräulein Rottenmeier stood as if rooted to the floor and stared at Herr Sesemann in amazement. She had expected that he was going to tell her in confidence some horrible story of his ghostly experience the night before, and she would not have been displeased to hear ​it now in the clear morning light; instead of that came these very prosaic and particularly inconvenient commands. She could not at once overcome her surprise. She still stood speechless, expecting something further.

But Herr Sesemann had no intention of making further explanations; he let the lady stand where she was and went to his daughter's room. As he supposed, the unusual stir in the house had awakened her, and she was listening to everything and wondering what was going on.

Her father sat down by her bed and told her what the ghost really was, and that in the doctor's opinion Heidi was in a very bad condition, and that her nightly wanderings would become more extensive, and perhaps she might climb up to the roof, and that would be very dangerous. So he had decided to send the child home at once, for he could not be responsible for her; and Klara must be reconciled, for she could see that it could not be otherwise.

Klara was very painfully surprised by this news, and at first wanted to find some way out of the difficulty, but it was of no use; her father remained firm in his decision; but he promised to take Klara the following year to Switzerland, if she would be reasonable now and not grieve. So Klara yielded to what could not be helped; she asked that Heidi's trunk should be brought into her room and packed there, so that she might put in some things Heidi would enjoy; and this her papa willingly granted; indeed, he even encouraged Klara to give the child a fine outfit.

​Meanwhile Aunt Dete arrived and stood with great expectation in the vestibule; for to be summoned at this unusual time must mean something extraordinary. Herr Sesemann went out to her and told her how it was with Heidi, and that he wished she would take the child home at once, that very day. The aunt looked very much disappointed. She had not expected such news. She still remembered very distinctly the parting words the uncle had spoken to her never to come before his eyes again; and having taken the child to him, and then brought her away, it did not seem advisable to take her back again. So she did not consider the matter long, but said, with great earnestness, that unfortunately it would be quite impossible for her to take the journey that day, and the next day she could think of it still less, and the day after that it would be utterly impossible on account of the work to be done then, and after that she would be no better able to go.

Herr Sesemann understood the aunt's excuses and dismissed her without saying anything further. He then summoned Sebastian and told him that he was to prepare immediately to take a journey; he was to go that very day with the child as far as Basle, and the next day to take her home. Then he could at once return; he would have no statement to make, for a letter to the grandfather would explain everything to him.

"There is one thing more of great importance, Sebastian," said Herr Sesemann in conclusion, "and I want you to look out for it carefully. I am acquainted ​at the hotel in Basle, the name of which I have written down here on my card for you. Show my card there and a good room will be given you for the child; you must provide for yourself. Go first into the child's room and fasten all the windows so securely that they can be opened only with great force. When the child is in bed go and fasten the door outside, for the child wanders around in the night and might run into danger in a strange house if she went out and tried to open the house door; do you understand?"

"Aha! That was it, was it? That was it!" exclaimed Sebastian in the greatest surprise, for a great light had just been thrown on the ghosts.

"Yes, that was it! That was it! and you are a coward, and you can tell Johann that he is another, and all of you together a ridiculous set of men."

Having said this, Herr Sesemann went to his room and sat down to write a letter to the Alm-Uncle.

Sebastian stood confounded in the middle of the room and repeated over and over again to himself:—

"If only I had n't let that coward of a Johann pull me back into the room, but had gone after the little white figure, as I undoubtedly should have done!" for now the bright sunshine distinctly lighted up every corner of the sombre room.

Meanwhile Heidi, entirely unsuspicious of what was going to happen, stood waiting in her Sunday frock, for Tinette had merely roused her from sleep, taken her clothes out of the closet and put them on hurriedly without saying a word. She never talked with the ​uncultivated Heidi, for she considered her beneath her notice.

Herr Sesemann walked with his letter into the dining-room, where the breakfast was already served, and asked:—

"Where is the child?"

Heidi was called. When she approached Herr Sesemann to say "good-morning" to him, he looked into her face inquiringly:—

"Well, what do you say to it, little one?"

Heidi looked up at him in amazement.

"You don't know anything about it even now," said Herr Sesemann, laughing. "Well, you are going home to-day, right away."

"Home?" repeated Heidi, unable to speak aloud, and turned white as snow. For a little while she could hardly get her breath, her heart was so violently affected by the impression.

"Don't you want to know something about it?" asked Herr Sesemann, laughing.

"Oh, yes, I do," she now was able to gasp; and she turned deep red.

"Good, good!" said Herr Sesemann, encouragingly, while he seated himself and motioned to Heidi to do the same. "And now eat a hearty breakfast and then into the carriage and away."

But Heidi could not swallow a mouthful, although through obedience she tried to force herself to eat; she was in such a state of excitement that she did not know whether she was awake or dreaming, or whether ​she would not suddenly awaken and be standing at the door in her nightgown.

"Sebastian must take plenty of luncheon," said Herr Sesemann to Fräulein Rottenmeier, who was just entering the room; "the child cannot eat, of course not. Go in to Klara until the carriage comes," he added kindly, turning to Heidi.

This was what Heidi wished, and she ran out of the room. In the middle of Klara's room stood a huge trunk, with the cover still wide open.

"Come, Heidi, come!" Klara called out to her; "see what I have had packed for you! come, do you like it?"

And she showed her a quantity of things, dresses and aprons, underwear and sewing materials; "and see here, Heidi," and Klara held up a basket triumphantly. Heidi peeped in and jumped high in her delight, for inside lay twelve lovely, round white rolls, all for the grandmother. The children in their glee entirely forgot that the moment had come for them to part, and when suddenly the call was heard—"The carriage is ready!"—there was no time left to be sad.

Heidi ran to her room; her beautiful book from the grandmamma must still be there; no one could have packed it; it lay under her pillow, for Heidi could not be parted from it day or night. That was laid in the basket on the bread. Then she opened her closet to see if there was anything left that had not been packed. To be sure—the old red neckerchief still lay there, for Fräulein Rottenmeier had not thought it worth packing. Heidi wrapped it around something else and laid it ​on top of the basket, so that the red parcel was very conspicuous. Then she put on her fine hat and left her room.

The two children had to say a speedy farewell, for Herr Sesemann was already there to take Heidi down to the carriage. Fräulein Rottenmeier stood at the head of the stairs to bid Heidi good-bye. When she noticed the strange red bundle, she took it quickly out of the basket and threw it on the floor.

"No, Adelheid," she said, still finding fault, "you cannot leave this house so; you do not need to carry off such a thing as that. Now good-bye."

After this Heidi did not dare to pick up her bundle again, but she looked beseechingly at the master of the house, as if she were having her greatest treasure taken from her.

"No, no," said Herr Sesemann in a very decided voice, "the child shall carry home whatever gives her pleasure, and if she takes away kittens or turtles we will not get excited about it, Fräulein Rottenmeier."

Heidi quickly picked up her bundle from the floor, and her eyes beamed with gratitude and pleasure.

When Heidi reached the carriage Herr Sesemann held out his hand to the child and said to her with friendly words that she must think of him and his daughter Klara. He wished her a happy journey, and Heidi thanked him very prettily for all the kindness he had shown her and finally said:—

"And I leave a thousand good-byes for the doctor, and thank him many times," for she had noticed how ​he had said to her the night before: "And to-morrow everything will be all right." Now it had all come true, and Heidi thought he was the cause of it.

Then the child was lifted into the carriage, and the basket and the lunch box and Sebastian followed. Herr Sesemann called out once more in a friendly voice: "A pleasant journey!" and the carriage rolled away.

Soon after, Heidi was sitting in the train and holding her basket firmly in her lap, for she would not let it out of her hands for a moment; the precious rolls for the grandmother were inside, and she had to watch them carefully and delight her eyes with a look at them every now and then. Heidi sat as still as a mouse for several hours, for now she began to realize that she was on the way home to her grandfather on the Alm, to the grandmother, and Peter, the goatherd; one thing after another came before her eyes—all that she was going to see again, and she imagined how everything would look at home, and new thoughts kept arising in her mind; suddenly she said anxiously:—

"Sebastian, are you sure that the grandmother on the Alm is not dead?"

"No, no," said he soothingly; "we hope she's not dead. She must be still alive."

Then Heidi became absorbed again in her own thoughts; only now and then she peeped into her basket, for her greatest desire was to lay all the rolls on the grandmother's table. After some time she said again:—

​"Sebastian, if we could only be perfectly sure that the grandmother is still alive."

"Yes, indeed! Yes, indeed!" replied her companion, half asleep; "she's still alive; I don't see any reason why not."

After a while Heidi's eyes also closed; after the disturbance of the previous night and the early start she was so heavy with sleep that she did not awaken until Sebastian shook her by the arm and called out to her:

"Wake up! Wake up! We must get out now, we are in Basle!"

On the following morning they journeyed for several hours more. Heidi again sat with the basket in her lap, for on no account would she give it up to Sebastian; but to-day she did not speak, for with each hour her eagerness became more intense. Then suddenly, when Heidi was not thinking about it, came the loud call—"Mayenfeld!" She jumped up from her seat, and Sebastian did the same, for he too had been surprised. Now they stood outside with the trunk, and the train was whistling farther on up the valley. Sebastian looked longingly after it, for he much preferred traveling on in that safe and easy way to undertaking a journey on foot, which had to end in climbing a mountain, and might be hard and dangerous besides, in this country where everything was still half wild, as he supposed. He therefore looked carefully about him for some advice concerning the safest way to "Dörfli." Not far from the railway station stood a little wagon, drawn by a lean horse; into this a broad​shouldered man was loading several large bags, which had been brought by the train. Sebastian stepped up to him and questioned him about the way.

"All ways are safe here," was the curt reply.

Then Sebastian asked him about the best way one could go without falling over the precipices, and also how a trunk could be taken to Dörfli. The man looked at the trunk and measured it with his eyes; then he stated that, if it was not too heavy, he would take it in his wagon, since he himself was going to Dörfli. So some words were exchanged and finally the two arranged that the man would take both the child and the trunk with him, and that the child could be sent from Dörfli up the Alm with some one that evening.

"I can go alone; I know the way from Dörfli up the Alm," said Heidi, for she had been listening attentively while they were making the bargain. A heavy load was taken from Sebastian's mind when he found himself so suddenly released from the prospect of climbing the mountain. He now secretly beckoned Heidi to one side and handed her a heavy roll and a letter to her grandfather, and explained to her that the roll was a present from Herr Sesemann, which must be put in the bottom of her basket, under the bread, and that she must take care of it, so that it should not be lost, or Herr Sesemann would be frightfully cross about it, and would never get over it all his life long; the little mamselle must surely remember this.

"I will not lose it," said Heidi assuringly, and placed ​the roll and the letter in the bottom of the basket. The trunk was put into the wagon and then Sebastian lifted Heidi with her basket up to the high seat, held out his hand to bid her good-bye, and once more urged her, with all sorts of signs, to keep her eyes on the contents of her basket; for the driver was near, and Sebastian was all the more cautious because he knew that he ought to go with the child himself to the end of her journey. The driver swung himself up on the seat beside Heidi, and the wagon rolled off toward the mountain, while Sebastian, glad to escape the dreaded mountain journey, sat down in the station to wait for the returning train.

The man on the wagon was the baker of Dörfli, and he was carrying home his bags of meal. He had never seen Heidi, but like every one else in Dörfli he knew about the child that had been brought to the Alm-Uncle. Besides, he had known Heidi's parents and at once surmised that she was the much-talked-of little girl. He wondered somewhat why the child was so soon coming home again, and during the journey began to talk with Heidi:—

"You are the child who was up with the Alm-Uncle, your grandfather, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Did you fare badly that you have already come home from so far?"

"No, I did not; no one can fare better than I did in Frankfurt."

"Why are you running home then?"

​"Only because Herr Sesemann allowed me, or I should not be coming home."

"Bah! why didn't you prefer to stay there, if you were only allowed to come home?"

"Because I would a thousand times rather be at home with my grandfather on the Alm than do anything else in the world."

"Perhaps you'll think differently when you get up there," growled the baker; "but I wonder," he said to himself, "if she can know how it is."

Then he began to whistle and said nothing more, and Heidi looked around her and began to tremble inwardly from excitement, for she recognized the trees by the way, and over yonder stood the lofty peaks of the Falkniss mountain looking down at her, as if they were greeting her like good old friends. And Heidi greeted them in return, and with every step forward Heidi's expectation grew more eager, and she felt as if she would have to jump down from the wagon and run with all her might until she was up there. However, she remained still and did not move, but trembled all over. As they came into Dörfli the clock was just striking five. In a moment a crowd of women and children gathered around the wagon, and two neighbors came out to it, for the child and trunk on the baker's cart had attracted the attention of all the inhabitants, and each one wanted to know where they had come from and where they were going.

When the baker had lifted Heidi down, she said quickly:—

​"Thank you, my grandfather will come for my trunk"; and she would have run away, but she was held fast on every side, and there was a tumult of voices, each asking something different. Heidi pressed through the crowd with such anxiety on her face that they unwillingly made room for her and let her pass, and one said to another: "You see how frightened she is; she has every reason to be."

Then they began to tell one another how the Alm-Uncle for a year past had been worse than ever, and would not speak a word to any one, and when any one came in his way he made up a face, as if he would like to kill him; and if the child knew anything in the world about it, she would not run to the old dragon's nest. But here the baker interrupted their remarks by saying he knew more about it than all the rest, and then told them, with an air of mystery, how a gentleman had brought the child as far as Mayenfeld, parted from her in a very friendly way, and had at once, without any bargaining, paid the fare he asked, besides adding a fee; and, more than all, he could say surely that the child had been well off where she was, and that she was anxious to come back to her grandfather. This news caused great surprise and was immediately spread through all Dörfli, so that there was not a house that evening where it was not repeated that Heidi had been anxious to come back from a life of luxury to her grandfather.

Heidi ran up the mountain from Dörfli as fast as she could; but now and then she would suddenly stand ​still, for she quite lost her breath; the basket on her arm was heavy for her, and besides it grew steeper and steeper the higher she went. Heidi had only one thought:—

"Will the grandmother still be sitting in the corner at her spinning wheel; has she not died in all this time?"

Now Heidi saw the hut up in the hollow on the Alm, and her heart began to throb; she ran still faster; her heart kept beating louder and louder.—Now she was up there—she could hardly open the door, she trembled so—but now!—She ran into the middle of the little room and stood there, completely out of breath and unable to speak.

"Oh, Heavens!" sounded from the corner, "our Heidi used to run in like that! Ah, if only I could have her with me once more while I live! Who has come in?"

"Here I am, grandmother; here I am, really!" exclaimed Heidi.

Rushing into the corner and getting on her knees into the old dame's lap, she seized her arm and her hands and snuggled up to her, and was unable to say anything more from delight. At first the grandmother was so overcome that she could not speak a word; then she began to stroke Heidi's curly hair with her hand and kept saying again and again:—

"Yes, yes, it is her hair; and it is her voice; ah, dear Lord, that thou shouldest have permitted me this!"

And two great tears of joy dropped from her blind eyes on Heidi's hand.

​"Are you here, Heidi? are you really here?"

"Yes, yes, really, grandmother," said Heidi with all assurance; "but do not cry; I am very surely here again and will come to you every day and never go

away again; and you won't have to eat hard bread for many days, for see, grandmother, do you see?"

And Heidi now took one roll after another out of her basket, until she had piled up all twelve in the grandmother's lap.

"Oh, child! Oh, child! what a blessing you have brought me!" exclaimed the grandmother, when the rolls did not come to an end, but one kept following another. "But the greatest blessing is you yourself, child!" Then she seized hold of Heidi's curly hair and stroked her hot cheeks and said again:—

​"Say just a word more, child; say something more, so that I can hear you."

Heidi then told the grandmother how she had suffered, fearing she might perhaps die while she was away and not have the white rolls, and she would never, never be able to go to her.

Then Peter's mother came in, and for a moment stood still in astonishment. Then she exclaimed:—

"Surely, it is Heidi! how can it be possible!"

Heidi rose and shook hands with her, and Brigitte could not wonder enough at Heidi's appearance, and she walked around the child, saying:—

"Grandmother, if you only could see what a beautiful dress the child has on and how she looks; I hardly know her. And does the little hat trimmed with feathers, on the table, belong to you also? Just put it on, so I can see how you look in it."

"No, I will not," said Heidi decidedly; "you can have it; I don't need it any longer, I still have my own."

Whereupon Heidi opened her little red bundle and took out her old hat, which had become still more bent during the journey than it was before. But that troubled Heidi little; she had never forgotten how, when she was leaving her grandfather, he had called after her that he never wanted to see her in a hat trimmed with feathers, and that was why Heidi had kept her hat so carefully, for she always thought of the time when she should go home to her grandfather.

But Brigitte said she must not be so foolish; it was ​a splendid hat, and she might sell it to the teacher's little daughter in Dörfli, and get a good deal of money for it, if she did not care to wear it. But Heidi was firm in her decision and laid the hat gently in the corner behind the grandmother, where it was entirely hidden. Then Heidi took off her lovely dress, and she folded the red neckerchief over her underwaist, in which she now stood with bare arms, and then seized the grandmother's hand, saying:—

"Now I must go home to my grandfather, but to-morrow I will come to you again; good-night, grandmother."

"Yes, come again, Heidi; come again to-morrow morning," said the grandmother; and she pressed Heidi's hand between her own and could hardly let her go.

"Why have you taken off your beautiful dress?" asked Brigitte.

"Because I would rather go to my grandfather without it, or he might not know me; you hardly knew me in it."

Brigitte went out of the door with Heidi, and said a few words secretly to her:—

"You can keep on the dress, he will know you; but you must take care of yourself, for Peterli says say the Alm-Uncle is always very cross now and never says a word."

Heidi said "good-night" and went on up the mountain with her basket on her arm. The evening sun shone all around on the green Alm, and now the snow ​field on Cäsaplana came into sight and gleamed in the distance.

Every few steps Heidi had to stand still and look around, for the high mountains were behind her as she climbed. Now a red glow fell over the grass at her feet; she turned around; there—she had forgotten the splendor, and never had seen it in her dreams like this—the rocky peaks on Falkniss flamed up to the sky, the broad snow field was all aglow, and rosy clouds were drifting high above. The grass all around on the Alm was golden; from all the crags it glimmered and gleamed down, and below, the far-reaching valley swam in a golden vapor.

Heidi stood in the midst of all this glory, and bright tears of joy and rapture ran down her cheeks, and she had to fold her hands, and, looking up to Heaven, thank the dear Lord aloud for bringing her back home again, and that everything, everything was still so beautiful, and even more beautiful than she had thought, and that it all was hers once more. And Heidi felt so happy and so rich in the great glory that she could not find words to express her thankfulness to the dear Lord.

Not until the light all about began to fade could Heidi move away from the place. But then she ran so fast up the mountain that it was not long before she saw the boughs of the fir trees above the roof, and then the roof itself, and then the whole hut, and on the seat beside it sat her grandfather, smoking his pipe, and over the hut the old fir trees were rocking their branches and roaring in the evening wind. Then Heidi ​ran all the faster, and before the Alm-Uncle could really see what was coming the child rushed up to him, threw her basket on the ground, and hugged the old man. In her excitement at seeing him again she was unable to say anything, except to keep exclaiming: "Grandfather! grandfather! grandfather!"

Neither did the grandfather say anything. For the first time in many years his eyes grew moist, and he had to pass his hand over them. Then he loosened Heidi's arms from his neck, took her on his knee, and looked at her for a moment.

"So you have come home again, Heidi," he said then; "how is it? You don't look particularly fine. Did they send you away?"

"Oh, no, grandfather," Heidi now began fervently to say; "you must not think that; they were all so good—Klara and the grandmamma and Herr Sesemann. But you see, grandfather, I could hardly bear to wait any longer to come home again to you, and I often thought I should stifle, it choked me so; but I really never said anything about it, because it would be ungrateful. And then suddenly one morning Herr Sesemann called me very early; but I believe the doctor was the cause of it; but perhaps it tells all about it in the letter"—whereupon Heidi jumped down on the ground, took her letter and her roll out of the basket and laid them both in her grandfather's hand.

"That belongs to you," he said, laying the roll beside him on the seat. Then he took the letter and read it through; without saying a word he put it in his pocket. ​"Do you think you can drink milk with me still, Heidi?" he then asked, while he took the child by the hand to lead her into the hut. "But take your money with you; you can buy a bed with it, and clothes enough to last you for two or three years."

"I really don't need it, grandfather," asserted Heidi; "I have a bed already; and Klara packed up so many clothes for me that I shall really never need any more."

"Take it, take it, and put it in the cupboard; you will be able to use it sometime."

Heidi obeyed and skipped after her grandfather into the hut, where, delighted to see everything again, she ran into every corner and up the ladder; but there she suddenly stood still and called down somewhat concerned:—

"Oh, grandfather, I no longer have any bed!"

"You will soon have another," sounded from below. "I didn't know that you would return; now come and get your milk!"

Heidi came down and took her seat on her high stool in the old place, and then grasped her little bowl and drank as eagerly as if she had never had anything so precious within her reach before, and when she put down her bowl, with a deep breath, she said:—

"There is nothing in all the world so good as our milk, grandfather."

A shrill whistle sounded outside. Heidi shot out of the door like lightning. There was the whole flock of goats, skipping, jumping, and leaping down from the heights above, and Peter in their midst. When he saw ​Heidi he stood perfectly still, as if rooted to the spot, and stared at her speechless. Heidi called out: "Good-evening, Peter!" and rushed in among the goats. "Schwänli! Bärli! Do you know me still?"

The goats must have recognized her voice, for they rubbed their heads against her and began to bleat passionately for joy, and Heidi called them all by name, one after the other, and they all ran like wild creatures in confusion and crowded around her. The impatient Distelfinck jumped high into the air and over two other goats, in order to get near her at once, and the timid Schneehöpli gave the big Türk a very determined thrust and pushed him aside, so that he stood looking much amazed at the impudence, and raised his beard in the air to show that it was he.

Heidi was beside herself with joy to see all her old companions once more; she threw her arms around the little affectionate Schneehöpli again and again, stroked the violent Distelfinck, and was pushed and jolted hither and thither by the fond, trusting goats until she came quite near to Peter, who remained standing in the same place.

"Come down, Peter, and say good-evening to me!" Heidi called to him.

"Are you back again?" he finally made out to say in his astonishment; and then he came forward and took Heidi's hand, which she had been offering him for some time, and asked, as he always did when he was returning home at evening:—

"Will you come with me again to-morrow?"

​"No, not to-morrow, but the day after, perhaps; for to-morrow I must go to the grandmother's."

"It is good to have you back again," said Peter, making all sorts of wry faces from huge delight; then he started homeward; but he had never before had such difficulty with his goats, for when he had at last, with coaxing and threatening, succeeded in collecting them about him, and Heidi had walked away with one arm around Schwänli's and the other about Bärli's neck, they all with one accord turned around again and ran after the three. Heidi had to go into the shed with her two goats and shut the door, or Peter would never have succeeded in getting away with his flock.

When the child came back into the hut she found her bed already made up again, wonderfully high and fragrant, for the hay had not been in long, and the grandfather had very carefully spread the clean linen sheet over it. Heidi lay down on it with great delight and had a refreshing sleep, such as she had not enjoyed for a whole long year. During the night her grandfather left his couch at least ten times, climbed the ladder and listened carefully to see if Heidi was still asleep and was not restless, and looked at the window where the moon used to shine in on Heidi's bed, to see if the hay he had stuffed into it was still there, for the moon should be kept out henceforth. But Heidi slept right on and wandered about no longer, for her great, hungry longing was satisfied; she had seen all the mountains and cliffs in the evening glow again, she had heard the fir trees roaring, she was at home again on the Alm.