Heidi now went to school in Doerfli and eagerly set to work to learn all that was taught her. She hardly ever saw Peter there, for as a rule he was absent. The teacher was an easy-going man who merely remarked now and then, "Peter is not turning up today again, it seems, but there is a lot of snow up on the mountain and I daresay he cannot get along." Peter, however, always seemed able to make his way through the snow in the evening when school was over, and he then generally paid Heidi a visit. At last, after some days, when Peter climbed out of his window one morning--the door was quite blocked by the snow outside--he was taken by surprise, for instead of sinking into the snow he fell on the hard ground and went sliding some way down the mountain side like a sleigh, before he could stop himself. He picked himself up and tested the hardness of the ground by stamping on it and trying with all his might to dig his heels into it, but even then he could not break off a single little splinter of ice; the Alm was frozen hard as iron. This was just what Peter had been hoping for, as he knew now that Heidi would be able to come up to see them. He quickly got back into the house, swallowed the milk which his mother had ready for him, thrust a piece of bread in his pocket, and said, "I must be off to school," and in another minute was shooting down the mountain on his sled. He went like lightning, and when he reached Doerfli, which stood on the direct road to Mayenfeld, he made up his mind to go on further. So down he still went till he reached the level ground, where the sled came to a pause of its own accord, some little way beyond Mayenfeld. He knew it was too late to get to school now, as lessons would already have begun, and it would take him a good hour to walk back to Doerfli. So he took his time about returning, and reached Doerfli just as Heidi had got home from school and was sitting at dinner with her grandfather. Peter walked in, exclaiming as he stood still in the middle of the room, "She's got it now." "Got it? what?" asked the Uncle. "Your words sound quite warlike, general." "The frost," explained Peter. "Oh! now I can go and see grandmother!" said Heidi joyfully, for she had understood Peter's words at once. "But why were you not at school then? You could have come down on the sled," she added reproachfully, for it did not agree with Heidi's ideas of good behavior to stay away when it was possible to be there. "It carried me on too far and I was too late," Peter replied. "I call that being a deserter," said the Uncle, "and deserters get their ears pulled, as you know." Peter gave a tug to his cap in alarm, for there was no one of whom he stood in so much awe as Alm-Uncle. "And an army leader like yourself ought to be doubly ashamed of running away," continued Alm-Uncle. "What would you think of your goats if one went off this way and another that, and refused to follow and do what was good for them? What would you do then?"