Heidi (1899)/Part 2/Chapter 4

​

Around the Alm hut the snow lay so deep that it looked as if the windows were on a level with the ground, for not a bit of the wall was to be seen below them; moreover, the house door had completely disappeared. If the Alm-Uncle had been up there he would have had to do the same thing that Peter did every day. Every morning he had to jump out of the window, and if everything was not frozen he sank so deep in the soft snow that had fallen during the night that he had to push and struggle and kick in every direction with his hands and feet and head, until he had worked his way out. Then his mother would hand him the big broom from the window, and with this Peter would push and shove the snow before him until he reached the door. Then he had great trouble, for there all the snow had to be dug away, or if it was still soft when the door opened, the whole great mass would fall into the kitchen, or else it froze up, and then they were completely walled in, for they could not make their way through these rock-like heaps of ice, and Peter was the only one who could slip through the little window.

Freezing weather brought many conveniences to Peter. If he was going down to Dörfli, all he had to ​do was to open the window, crawl through and get out on the smooth surface of the firm snow field. Then his mother would push his little sled through the window after him, and Peter had only to seat himself on it and slide wherever he liked; in any case he went down, for the whole Alm all about was one great unbroken slope.

The uncle was not on the Alm that winter; he had kept his word. As soon as the first snow fell he had shut up the hut and shed and had gone down to Dörfli with Heidi and the goats. Near the church and the parsonage stood a spacious building, which in old times had been a great mansion. This could still be seen in many places, although now the building was more or less in ruins. A brave warrior had once lived in it; he had gone to the Spanish wars and had performed many brave deeds and gained great wealth. Then he had come home to Dörfli, and with his gains built a splendid house in which he intended to live. But he did not stay long, it was so tedious to him, for he had lived too much in the noisy world to be able to endure the quiet Dörfli. He went away again and never came back. After many, many years when it was known that he was really dead, a distant relative down in the valley took the house, but it was already tumbling to pieces, and the new owner did not care to build it up again. So poor people who had to pay little for it came into the house, and if a part of the building fell, they let it lie.

Since that time many years had passed by. When the ​uncle came back with the young boy Tobias he took the ruined house and lived in it. Since then it had stood empty most of the time, for no one without skill to stop the work of destruction to some extent and to fill up and mend the holes and gaps could stay there. The winter in Dörfli was long and cold. The wind blew in from every side through the rooms, so that the lights were blown out and the poor people shook with the cold. But the uncle knew how to manage. As soon as he had made up his mind to spend the winter in Dörffli, he took the old house again, and often during the autumn came down to mend and repair it as he liked. About the middle of October he brought Heidi down.

Entering the house from the rear, one came at once into an open room, the entire wall on one side of which, and half on the other, had fallen in. Above this an arched window was still to be seen, but the glass had long been out of it, and thick ivy crept around it and high up on the roof, which was, for the most part, still solid. It was beautifully arched, and one could easily see that it had been a chapel. There being no door, one came directly into a large hall, and here in places in the floor were still some handsome tiles between. which the grass grew thick. The walls were half gone, and great pieces of the roof had given way; had it not been for two heavy pillars, the whole roof would have been gone; as it was, it looked as if it might at any moment fall on the heads of those standing underneath.

​Here the uncle had put up a partition of boards and had covered the floor thickly with hay, for in this old hall the goats were to be housed.

Then there were all sorts of passageways, all half uncovered, so that the sky could be seen through, and sometimes the meadows and the road outside. But in the front where the heavy oaken door still hung firmly on its hinges, one came to a large spacious room which was still in good condition. The four walls were all standing, the dark wood wainscotings showed not a break, and in one corner stood a huge stove, reaching almost to the ceiling, and on the white tiles were big blue pictures. There were old castles on them, with tall trees all around, and underneath a huntsman passing with his dogs. There was also a peaceful lake, under wide-spreading oaks, with a fisherman standing by it and holding his rod far out over the water. There was a seat all around the stove so that one could sit down and study the pictures. This at once took Heidi's fancy. As soon as she came into the room with her grandfather, she ran to the stove, sat down on the bench, and began to look at the pictures. But as she moved along on the seat and came behind the stove, something new occupied her whole attention; in the quite large space between the stove and the wall four boards were placed, like a bin for apples. But there were no apples in it; there actually lay Heidi's bed exactly as it had been upon the Alm; a thick bed of hay, with the linen sheet and the bag for a coverlet. Heidi shouted:—

​"Oh, grandfather, here is my bedroom! Oh, how lovely! But where will you sleep?"

"Your bedroom must be near the stove, so that you won't freeze," said her grandfather. "You may see mine too."

Heidi skipped across the big room after her grandfather, who opened a door on the other side; and this led into a little room where he had arranged his bed. Then came another door. Heidi quickly opened it and stood still in amazement, for it looked into a sort of kitchen more enormous than any she had ever seen in her life. It had given her grandfather a great deal of work, and there was still much to do; for there were holes and wide cracks in the walls on all sides, where the wind blew in, although so many had been nailed up with boards that it looked as if little cupboards had been made all around in the wall. The grandfather had also succeeded in repairing the big ancient door with wires and nails, so that it could be shut; and this was a good thing, for it opened into the most ruined part of the building, overgrown with thick briars, where multitudes of lizards and beetles had their abode.

The new dwelling-place pleased Heidi well, and on the very next day, when Peter came to see how they were getting along there, she had spied out every nook and corner so thoroughly that she was quite at home and could take Peter everywhere. She gave him no rest, until he had thoroughly seen all the wonderful things which their new house contained.

Heidi slept excellently in her chimney corner, but ​in the morning she thought she had wakened on the mountain, and that she must open the door of the hut at once to see if the reason the fir trees were not roaring was because the deep, heavy snow was lying on them and bending down their branches. So every morning at first she had to look around her for a long while until she remembered where she was, and every time she felt something stifling and pressing her heart, when she saw that she was not at home on the mountain. But when she heard her grandfather talking outside with Schwänli and Bärli, and the goats bleated so loud and merrily, as if they were calling to her, "Hurry and come out, Heidi," then she felt that she was at home after all, and jumped gaily out of bed and hurried to the big goat barn. On the fourth day Heidi said:—

"To-day I must really go up to see the grandmother; she can't be alone so long."

But her grandfather did not agree to it. "Not to-day, nor to-morrow either," he said. "The Alm is six feet deep with snow, and it keeps on snowing; stout Peter can hardly get through it. A little thing like you, Heidi, would be snowed in and covered up the first thing, and you never could be found again. Wait a little, until it freezes, then you can easily walk over the crust."

It was a grief to Heidi at first to have to wait. But the days were now so full of work that one passed away and another came unawares.

Every morning and every afternoon now Heidi went ​to school and was quick in learning all her lessons. She hardly ever saw Peter in school, for he seldom came. The teacher was a meek man and only now and then said:—

"It seems to me Peter is absent again; school would do him good; but there is a great deal of snow up there, perhaps he can't get through."

But toward evening, when school was out, Peter usually got through and paid a visit to Heidi.

After a few days the sun came out again and threw its rays over the white earth; but it went down behind the mountains again very early, as if it was not so well pleased to look down as in summer, when everything was green and in bloom. In the evening the moon rose very bright and big, and all night long shone over the vast snow fields, and the next morning the whole mountain from top to bottom glistened and glittered like a crystal. When Peter jumped out of the window into the deep snow, as he had done the day before, something happened which he had not expected. Instead of coming down into the soft snow, he struck on a surprisingly hard surface, and before he knew it, had slipped a good piece down the mountain, like an empty sled. In great surprise he finally succeeded in getting on his feet again, and then stamped with all his might on the crust, to assure himself that what had just happened was really possible. It was actually so; as he stamped and beat with his heels, he could scarcely break off the least bit of ice; the whole Alm was frozen as hard as a rock. Peter liked this; for he knew that ​this state of things was necessary for Heidi to be able to come up there again. He promptly turned back, swallowed the milk which his mother had just put on the table, tucked his piece of bread into his pocket, and said hastily:—

"I must go to school."

"Yes, do go and study hard," said his mother encouragingly.

Peter crawled through the window, for now they were shut in again on account of the heaps of ice before the door, pulled his little sled after him, sat down on it, and shot down the mountain.

It went like lightning, and when he came near to Dörfli, where it goes farther down toward Mayenfeld, Peter kept on, for it occurred to him that he might injure himself and his sled if he should stop suddenly. So he went on until he was down on level ground and the sled stopped of itself. Then he got up and looked around. The force of the descent had carried him somewhat beyond Mayenfeld. Then he considered that he should be too late for school, as it had begun some time before, and it would take him almost an hour to climb back there again. So he had plenty of time to go back. This he did, and reached Dörfli just as Heidi had returned from school and was sitting down to dinner with her grandfather. Peter went in, and as this time he had a definite idea to propound, it was uppermost in his mind, and he had to speak it out at once.

"We've got it," said Peter, standing still in the middle of the room.

​"Got what, general? That sounds well," said the uncle.

"The crust," replied Peter.

"Oh! oh! Now I can go up to see the grandmother!" shouted Heidi joyfully, for she had at once understood Peter's manner of expressing himself. "But why didn't you come to school, then? You could slide down well enough," she suddenly added in reproach; for it occurred to Heidi that it was not right to remain away from school if one could go as well as not.

"Went too far on my sled; 't was too late," replied Peter.

"That is called desertion," said the uncle; "and people who do that are taken by the ears! Do you hear?"

Peter pulled his cap in alarm, for there was nobody in the world for whom he had so great respect as for the Alm-Uncle.

"And, besides, a leader such as you are ought to be doubly ashamed of running away so," continued the uncle.

"What would you think if your goats should run one this way and another that, and refuse to follow you, and do what was good for them? What would you do then?"

"Beat them," replied Peter knowingly.

"And if a boy behaves like an unruly goat and is beaten a little, what would you say to that?"

"Served him right," was the answer.

"Well, now understand, goat-colonel, if you go past ​the school on your sled a single time when you ought to be in it, come here to me and get what you deserve."

Then Peter understood what the Alm-Uncle meant: that he considered the boy that played truant like an unruly goat. He was quite impressed by this likeness and looked a little anxiously into the corner to see whether he could discover what he used at such times for the goats.

The uncle then said cheerfully:—

"Come to the table now and sit down with us, then Heidi may go with you. If you bring her back home at evening, you will find your supper here."

This unexpected turn of affairs was highly delightful to Peter; his face was twisted in every way with

delight. He obeyed instantly and sat down beside Heidi. But the child had already had enough and could swallow no more, she was so delighted that she could go to see the grandmother. She pushed the big potato ​and the toasted cheese, still left on her plate, toward Peter, who had already had his plate filled from the other side by the uncle, so that he had a regular wall before him; but courage to attack it was not lacking. Heidi ran to the cupboard and brought out the little cloak Klara had given her; now she could take the journey, warmly wrapped up, with the hood over her head. She placed herself beside Peter, and as soon as he had shoved in his last mouthful she said:—

"Now come!"

Then they started along. Heidi had a great deal to tell Peter about Schwänli and Bärli: that neither of them would eat anything the first day in their new barn, and that they had hung their heads the whole day and not made a sound. She had asked her grandfather why they did so, and he had said that they felt just as she did in Frankfurt, for they had never been down from the Alm in all their lives. And Heidi added:—

"You just ought to know once what that is, Peter." The two had almost reached the end of their journey before Peter said a word, and it seemed as if he was so deeply absorbed in thought that he could not hear right, as usual. When they reached the hut, Peter stood still and said somewhat crossly:—

"There! I would rather go to school than take from the uncle what he said."

Heidi was of the same opinion and encouraged him eagerly in his decision.

In the room inside, Peter's mother was sitting alone with her mending; she said the grandmother had to ​spend the day in bed, as it was too cold for her, and besides she was not quite well. This was something new to Heidi; the grandmother had always before been sitting in her place in the corner. She ran straight to her in her room. She was lying entirely wrapped up in the gray shawl in her narrow bed with the thin covering.

"God be praised and thanked !" said the grandmother as soon as she heard Heidi running in. All the autumn long she had had a secret anxiety in her heart, and it still pursued her, especially if Heidi did not come to see her for a long time. Peter had reported how a strange gentleman from Frankfurt had been there and always went up to the pasture with them and talked with Heidi, and the grandmother believed nothing else than that the gentleman had come to take Heidi away again. After he finally went off alone, her anxiety returned lest some person should be sent from Frankfurt to take the child back. Heidi ran to her bedside and asked with concern:—

"Are you very ill, grandmother?"

"No, no, child," said the old dame soothingly, while she stroked the child's face affectionately; "the cold weather has got into my limbs a little."

"Will you be well right away, as soon as it is warm again?" asked Heidi eagerly.

"Yes, yes, God willing, even before that, so that I can get to my spinning-wheel. I even thought to-day that I would try it; to-morrow it will surely be going again," said the grandmother, for she had already noticed that the child was alarmed.

​Her words soothed Heidi, who was very much troubled, for she had never found the grandmother sick in bed before. She looked at her a little while in surprise, and then said:—

"In Frankfurt they put on a shawl to go outdoors in. Did you think you ought to put it on when you go to bed, grandmother?"

"Do you know, Heidi," she replied, "I wrap the shawl around me so in bed in order not to freeze. I am so glad to have it, for the bed covering is rather thin."

"But, grandmother," Heidi began again, "your head goes down hill, where it ought to go up; a bed ought not to be like that."

"I know it, child, I realize it well enough"; and the grandmother tried to find a better place for the pillow, that lay like a thin board under her head. "You see the pillow was never thick, and now I have slept so many years on it that I have made it rather flat."

"Oh, if only I had asked Klara when I was in Frankfurt to let me take my bed home with me!" exclaimed Heidi; "it had three big, thick pillows, one on top of another, so that I could n't sleep, and always slipped down where it was flat, and then I had to move up again because I ought n't to sleep so. Could you sleep so, grandmother?"

"Yes, indeed; it would make me warm, and I could breathe so easily if I could lie with my head high," said the grandmother, lifting her as if to find a higher place for it. head rather wearily, "But we won't talk ​about that, for I have to thank the dear Lord for so much that other sick old people do not have the nice rolls that I have all the time, and the nice warm shawl here, and your coming to see me, Heidi. Will you read something to me again to-day, Heidi?"

Heidi ran out and brought back the old hymn book. Then she found one beautiful song after another, for she knew them well now, and enjoyed them herself, and it was many days since she had heard all the verses she was so fond of.

The grandmother lay with folded hands, and on her face, which at first had looked so troubled, now rested a happy smile, as if a great good fortune had come to her. Suddenly Heidi stopped.

"Grandmother, are you well again already?"

"I'm feeling much better, Heidi. What you have read to me has done me good. Finish it, will you?"

The child read the hymn to the end, and when she came to the last words,—

the grandmother repeated them over and over, and an expression of very joyful expectation came over her face. Heidi felt so happy to see it. All the sunny day of her journey home rose before her, and she exclaimed with delight:—

"Grandmother, I know already how it seems to be on the way home."

​The grandmother did not answer, but she had heard the words perfectly, and the expression which had pleased Heidi remained on her face.

After a while the child said:—

"It is growing dark now, grandmother; I must go back; but I am so glad that you are happy again."

The grandmother took the child's hand in hers and held it fast; then she said:—

"Yes, I am so happy again; if I must stay lying here, I am content. You see, nobody who has not been through it knows what it is to have to lie for days and days all alone, and not hear a word from another human being, and not be able to see—not see even a single sunbeam. Then such gloomy thoughts come to one that it often seems as if it never could be bright again and. one could not bear it any longer. But when I hear the words which you have read to me, it is as if a light arose in my heart, and that makes me happy again."

Then the grandmother let go Heidi's hand, and after she had said good-night, Heidi ran back into the other room and hurriedly drew Peter out, for it had already grown late. However, outside the moon was in the sky and shone as brightly on the white snow as if the daylight had come back. Peter arranged his sled, sat down on it in front, with Heidi behind, and away they shot down the Alm, exactly as if they were two birds rushing through the air.

Later, when Heidi was lying in her lovely, deep bed of hay, she began to think about the grandmother again, and how uncomfortably her head lay; and then she ​remembered all that she had said, and the light the words kindled in her heart. And she thought if the grandmother only could hear the words every day, then she would feel well all the time. But she knew that now a whole week, or perhaps even two, must pass before she could go up to her again. This seemed so sad to Heidi that she kept thinking harder and harder what she could do to have the grandmother hear the words every day. Suddenly help came to her, and she was so glad about it that it seemed to her she could hardly wait for the morning to come so that she might carry out her plan. All at once Heidi sat straight up in bed, for she had been so deep in thought that she had not sent up her evening prayer to the dear Lord, and she would never forget that again.

When she had prayed straight from her heart for herself and her grandfather and the grandmother, she fell back at once into her soft hay and slept very soundly and peacefully until the bright morning.