Grandfathers -- Fiction; Mountain life -- Switzerland -- Fiction; Orphans -- Fiction; Switzerland -- History -- 19th century -- Fiction
Heidi now came running out of the hut and round to the shed.
Grandfather was behind with Clara in his arms. The shed stood
wide open, the two loose planks having been taken down, and it
was quite light inside. Heidi looked into every corner and ran
from one end to the other, and then stood still wondering what
could have happened to the chair. Grandfather now came up.
"How is this, have you wheeled the chair away, Heidi?"
"I have been looking everywhere for it, grandfather; you said it
was standing ready outside," and she again searched each corner
of the shed with her eyes.
At that moment the wind, which had risen suddenly, blew open the
shed door and sent it banging back against the wall.
"It must have been the wind, grandfather," exclaimed Heidi, and
her eyes grew anxious at this sudden discovery. "Oh! if it has
blown the chair all the way down to Dorfli we shall not get it
back in time, and shall not be able to go."
"If it has rolled as far as that it will never come back, for it
is in a hundred pieces by now," said the grandfather, going
round the corner and looking down. "But it's a curious thing to
have happened!" he added as he thought over the matter, for the
chair would have had to turn a corner before starting down hill.
"Oh, I am sorry," lamented Clara, "for we shall not be able to
go to-day, or perhaps any other day. I shall have to go home, I
suppose, if I have no chair. Oh, I am so sorry, I am so sorry!"
But Heidi looked towards her grandfather with her usual
expression of confidence.
"Grandfather, you will be able to do something, won't you, so
that it need not be as Clara says, and so that she is not
obliged to go home?"
"Well, for the present we will go up the mountain as we had
arranged, and then later on we will see what can be done," he
answered, much to the children's delight.
He went indoors, fetched out a pile of shawls, and laying them
on the sunniest spot he could find set Clara down upon them. Then
he fetched the children's morning milk and had out his two goats.
"Why is Peter not here yet?" thought Uncle to himself, for
Peter's whistle had not been sounded that morning. The
grandfather now took Clara up on one arm, and the shawls on the
other.
"Now then we will start," he said; "the goats can come with us."
Heidi was pleased at this and walked on after her grandfather
with an arm over either of the goats' necks, and the animals were
so overjoyed to have her again that they nearly squeezed her flat
between them out of sheer affection. When they reached the spot
where the goats usually pastured they were surprised to find them
already feeding there, climbing about the rocks, and Peter with
them, lying his full length on the ground.
"I'll teach you another time to go by like that, you lazy
rascal! What do you mean by it?" Uncle called to him.
Peter, recognising the voice, jumped up like a shot. "No one was
up," he answered.
"Have you seen anything of the chair?" asked the grandfather.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account