Heidi

18 Winter in Dörfli

The snow lay so deep on the mountain that winter, that Peter’s hut was buried in it up to the window sills. Fresh snow fell almost every night, so on most mornings he had to jump out of the living‐room window. If the frost in the night had not been enough to harden the surface, he stepped deep into soft snow and then had to battle his way out with feet and hands and even head. Then his mother handed him out a big broom, with which he cleared a path to the door. This had to be done skilfully, piling the snow well away from the entrance, so that there was no likelihood of a great mass of soft snow falling into the house when the door was opened. There was also the danger that hard frost might turn soft snow into a solid wall, and so barricade the door — and only Peter was small and agile enough to squeeze through the window.

But when it froze in the night, Peter had a grand time, for his mother used to hand him out his little sleigh, and on this he almost flew down to Dörfli — or wherever he had to go — for the whole mountainside became one wide, unbroken sleigh run.

Uncle Alp would have had to clear the snow from his hut just as carefully, but he had kept his promise and, as soon as the first snow fell, he took Heidi and the goats down to the village for the rest of the winter.

Near the church and the parsonage in Dörfli, there was a great rambling, ramshackle place, almost in ruins. It had once belonged to a soldier, who had fought bravely in Spain and acquired a considerable fortune. He had come back to Dörfli, meaning to settle down there for the rest of his life, and had built this great house, but alas, he had lost the taste for quiet living and soon went away and never returned. The house stood empty and uncared for. When he died many years later, it came into the hands of a distant relative in the valley, but by then it was in such a bad state that the new owner was not inclined to spend money on it. He let it to poor people for very little rent, but made no attempt to repair it. That was years before Uncle Alp had come to Dörfli with his son, and they had lived in it for a time. Then it stood empty again, with great holes and cracks in roof and walls, and in winter (always long and severe up there), the icy winds blew right through the place. Now, after Uncle Alp had made up his mind to pass the winter in Dörfli, he rented the old house again. Being handy with his tools, he knew he could make it habitable, and he went down often during the autumn to work on it, and in the middle of October he and Heidi went to live there.

At the back of the house there was a high vaulted building which had once been a chapel, though it had gone to rack and ruin. One whole wall and most of another had fallen down, ivy was growing through a window which had lost all its glass, and the roof looked as though it might collapse any day. The door was missing between this and the room next to it, which was also very dilapidated. Grass was growing between the stones of its paved floor, the walls were crumbling and part of the ceiling was down. The rest only held because strong pillars supported it. Uncle Alp put up some wooden partitions here and laid straw on the floor to make winter quarters for the goats. Beyond this room was a passage half in ruins, and with cracks in the outer wall so wide you could see the sky and the fields through them. But at the end of all this was a solid oak door, still fixed on its hinges, leading to a fine room, in quite good condition. It had panelled walls, and in one corner was an enormous white tiled stove, reaching nearly to the ceiling. It was decorated in blue with pictures of a huntsman with his dogs in a wood surrounding an old castle, and a fisherman dangling his rod in a calm lake beneath some oak trees. A seat was built on conveniently all round the stove, and as soon as Heidi came into the room with her grandfather, she ran straight over to it and sat down to look at the pictures. She slid along it until she reached the back of the stove, and came to a space between it and the wall, which might have been intended for storing apples, but which now held her bed. It had been brought from the loft, just as it was, with its mattress of hay, the sheet, and the heavy linen cover. Heidi was delighted to find it there.

‘Oh, Grandfather,’ she exclaimed happily, ‘my room! Isn’t it lovely? Where are you going to sleep?’

‘I thought you ought to sleep close to the stove, so that you won’t freeze,’ he told her. ‘Now come and see my room.’ She followed him into a smaller one, where he had set up his bed. There was a second door beside it, which Heidi opened and saw a huge kitchen, bigger than any she had ever seen. There was still much to be done to it, though Grandfather had patched it till the walls looked as though they were made up of a lot of little cupboards. He had mended the heavy old outer door too, with nails and screws so that it was possible now to shut it, and that was a comfort for outside lay ruins, hidden in tall weeds where beetles and spiders lurked.

Heidi liked their new home very much, and she had explored every nook and corner of it by the time Peter came to visit her next day. She took him over it, and would not let him go until he had seen all its surprises. She slept very well in her cosy corner, though at first she still thought herself back in the hayloft when she awoke in the mornings, and started up to see if the fir trees were so quiet because snow had fallen in the night. Then, remembering she was not in the hut, she used to feel almost stifled for a moment, though that went as soon as she heard her grandfather talking to the goats next door, and the goats bleating as though calling her to get up. Then, knowing that, whatever the place, she was still at home, she would jump out of bed and hurry out to the goats as quickly as she could.

On the fourth morning there, she said, ‘Today I must go and see Grannie. She’ll be missing me.’

But grandfather would not hear of it. ‘You can’t go today nor tomorrow,’ he told her. ‘The snow is deep on the mountain and still falling. It will be as much as Peter can do to get through, and a little thing like you would be buried in no time and no one would be able to find you. You’ll have to wait until the snow freezes hard, then you’ll be able to walk over it easily.’

She did not like having to wait, but there was much to do and she hardly noticed how the days flew by. She went to school, for one thing, and worked hard to learn all she could. Peter, on the other hand, was hardly ever there, but the teacher was a kind‐hearted man, who only said, ‘So Peter’s away again. School would do him good, but I expect the snow is too deep for him to get here.’ But Peter came down easily enough in the evening to visit Heidi.

After a few days of snow the sun shone again, glistening on the white ground, but soon disappearing again behind the mountains as though it did not like the winter scene nearly as well as the grass and flowers of summer. But when it was dark, the moon shone down on the cold snow and the frost came, so that next morning the air was crisp and the whole mountainside sparkled like crystal. Then Peter, expecting to sink into soft snow as usual, jumped out of his window and found himself spinning over the frozen surface like a riderless sleigh, but he picked himself up and went stamping about to see if the snow was really hard everywhere. He was delighted to find he could not kick up more than a tiny fragment of ice here and there. The hillside was frozen hard, and at last Heidi would be able to come up to see them. He went indoors and gulped down some milk, put a piece of bread in his pocket and announced, ‘I’m going to school.’

‘That’s a good boy,’ said his mother. ‘Learn all you can.’

He got out of the window again, for the door was of course quite frozen up, pulled his little sleigh after him, and shot off on it like a streak of lightning. Right through Dörfli he sped for he could not stop, but flew on down to the valley right past Mayenfeld, before the sleigh came to a standstill. He knew where he was, and decided happily that it was too late for school. It would take him a good hour to climb up to the village again, and lessons would already have started. There was no point in hurrying, so he took his time, and reached Dörfli just as Heidi and her grandfather were sitting down to dinner. He could not wait to tell them his great news, but burst in upon them, and announced, ‘It’s happened.’

‘You sound very fierce, General! What do you mean?’ asked Uncle Alp.

‘The frost,’ said Peter.

‘Oh, now I can go and see Grannie,’ cried Heidi, understanding this cryptic remark perfectly, and added, ‘Why weren’t you at school then, Peter? You could easily have come down on your sleigh.’ It seemed to her all wrong to stay away from school without good reason.

‘I got carried too far down, and then it was too late,’ he replied.

‘That’s desertion,’ said Uncle Alp, ‘and deserters get punished.’

Peter looked slightly alarmed and stood twiddling his cap, for he had a great respect for Uncle Alp.

‘And for a commander like you, it’s even worse,’ went on the old man. ‘What would you do to your goats if they were to take it into their heads to run away and disobey your orders?’

‘Beat them.’

‘What would you say, then, if a boy who behaved like a disobedient goat got beaten for it?’

‘Serve him right.’

‘Then listen to me, General. If you ever again let your sleigh carry you off when you ought to be at school, you can come to me afterwards to get what you deserve.’

Light dawned on Peter with that last remark, and he looked cautiously round the room to see if there was a stick anywhere about that might be used for such a purpose. But Uncle Alp continued in a friendly voice:

‘Now come and have something to eat, and then Heidi can go home with you. Bring her back in the evening and you can stay and have supper with us.’

Peter grinned widely at this unexpected change of tune, and sat down. Heidi was so excited at the thought of seeing Grannie again that she couldn’t eat any more and passed him the rest of her potatoes and cheese. Uncle Alp had already given him a plate piled high with food and he attacked it all with gusto. Heidi went to the cupboard, and put on the coat which Clara had sent her. She pulled the hood over her head, and stood beside Peter, ready and impatient for him to finish eating. ‘Come on now,’ she urged, as he reached the last mouthful, and off they went. She chattered away to Peter, telling him how miserable Daisy and Dusky had been on the first day in their new stall, refusing to eat, just standing quietly, with drooping heads.

‘Grandfather said they were feeling like I did in Frankfurt,’ she told him, ‘because they’d never left the high pasture before, and you don’t know what that’s like, Peter.’

Peter hadn’t been listening properly. He was deep in thought and he didn’t say a word until they reached the cottage, then he announced gloomily, ‘I’d rather go to school than have Uncle do what he said.’ Heidi thought he was quite right, and said so.

They found Bridget alone, mending. ‘Grannie’s in bed,’ she told them. ‘She isn’t very well, and feels the cold badly.’

This was something new in Heidi’s experience. She had always before found Grannie in her corner seat. She ran quickly into the next room, where the old woman lay on her narrow bed, covered with only a single thin blanket, but wrapped in her warm grey shawl.

‘Thank God,’ said Grannie, as she heard Heidi’s step. All through the autumn she had been worrying secretly during the time when Heidi had not been able to visit her, for Peter had told her all about the visitor from Frankfurt, who had spent so much time with Heidi, and she had been sure he must be going to take her away. Even after he had gone back, she still expected to see someone come from Frankfurt and carry her off.

‘Are you very ill, Grannie?’ asked Heidi, standing close beside her.

‘No, no,’ said the old woman, stroking her fondly. ‘It’s only the frost which has got into my old bones.’

‘Will you be well when it turns warm again?’ Heidi persisted anxiously.

‘Oh, I’ll be back at my spinning‐wheel long before that, God willing,’ Grannie assured her. ‘I really meant to get up today, and I’ll be all right again tomorrow I’m sure.’

Heidi looked relieved, and as her bright eyes took more in, she remarked, ‘In Frankfurt, people put on a shawl when they go for a walk. Did you think it was meant to wear in bed, Grannie?’

‘I put it on to keep me warm,’ Grannie replied. ‘My blanket’s rather thin, and I’m thankful to have it.’

‘Your bed slopes down at the head instead of up,’ Heidi next observed. ‘That’s not right.’

‘I know, child,’ said Grannie. ‘It’s not very comfortable,’ and she tried to find a soft place for her head on the pillow, which was not much better than a piece of wood. ‘It was never very thick, and my old head, resting on it for so many years, has worn it thinner still.’

‘I wish I’d asked Clara if I could bring the bed I had at Frankfurt with me. It had three fat pillows, one on top of the other, and I kept slipping down the bed, away from them — but I had to get back on them again before morning because that was the proper way to go to sleep in. Would you be able to sleep like that?’

‘Yes, indeed, it would be very cosy. It’s easier to breathe, well propped up with pillows,’ Grannie sighed, trying to raise her head a little. ‘But we won’t talk about that. I’ve so much to be thankful for, more than many old sick people — the lovely rolls every day, this fine warm shawl, and now you to visit me. Will you read to me today?’

Heidi fetched the old book and read her several hymns. They were all familiar ones, and she enjoyed the sound of them afresh after the long interval. Grannie lay with her hands folded, and a happy look spread over her thin old face. Suddenly Heidi stopped reading to ask, ‘Are you better now, Grannie?’

‘Yes, that’s done me a lot of good, my dear. Please go on.’

Heidi did so and when she came to the last verse of the hymn, Grannie repeated it several times.

She found the words very comforting, and Heidi liked them too, for they made her think of that sunny day when she had come back to the mountains. ‘I know how lovely it is to get home,’ she exclaimed.

Soon after that she got up to go, for it was getting dark. ‘I’m so glad you’re better,’ she said, as Grannie took her hand and held it tight.

‘Yes, I’m happier now. Even if I have to go on lying here, I shan’t worry any more. You don’t know what it means to lie for days on end in darkness, and most of the time in silence. Sometimes I’m ready to give up, knowing I shall never see the sunshine again. But when you come and read me these wonderful words, my heart looks up again, and I’m comforted.’

Heidi said goodnight then and went outside with Peter. The moon shining on the snow made it as light as day. Peter got on his sleigh, with Heidi behind him, and they skimmed down the hill like a couple of birds.

Lying in her comfortable bed behind the stove that night, Heidi thought about Grannie’s poor thin pillow, and how much good the hymns had done her. If she could go and read to her every day, Grannie might get better, but it would probably be a week or even longer before she could go up again. She wondered what could be done about it, then suddenly had an idea which pleased her so much she could hardly wait for morning, to carry it out. She had been so occupied with these things that she had forgotten her prayers, and now she never finished a day without them. So she sat up and prayed for Grannie and Grandfather, as well as for herself. After that she lay back on the soft hay and slept soundly till morning.