Heidi

19 Peter Surprises Everyone

Next day Peter went to school, and arrived punctually, bringing his midday meal with him in his little satchel. The Dörfli children went home in the middle of the day for dinner, but those who lived too far away used to sit on the desks, with their feet on the benches, holding what they had brought with them on their laps. Afterwards they could do as they liked until one o’clock, when lessons started again.

Peter always went over to Uncle Alp’s to see Heidi after he had been to school and that day she had been looking out for him eagerly, and ran to him as soon as he came inside the door.

‘I’ve thought of something,’ she cried in great excitement.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘You must learn to read.’

‘I have learned,’ Peter replied.

‘I mean learn properly, so that you can read anything,’ she insisted.

‘Can’t be done,’ Peter replied promptly.

‘I don’t believe that any more,’ she told him squarely, ‘and nor does anyone else. Clara’s Grandmamma told me it wasn’t so and she was right.’

Peter looked rather taken aback at the Frankfurt lady being brought into it.

‘I’ll teach you,’ Heidi went on, ‘I know how. Then you can read a hymn to Grannie every day.’

‘Not me,’ growled Peter.

This refusal to help her to carry out the plan on which she had set her heart annoyed Heidi. Her black eyes flashed as she said threateningly, ‘I’ll tell you what will happen to you if you won’t learn. You’ll have to go to Frankfurt, like your mother said, and I know what the school there is like. Clara pointed out the great big building one day when we were out for a drive. And the boys stay there until they’re grown up. I’ve seen them myself. And you needn’t expect just one kind teacher there, like we have here. There are lots of teachers, all dressed in black as if they were going to church, and they wear tall black hats like this,’ and she measured their height from the ground with her hand. Peter felt as though a cold wind had blown down his back.

‘You’d be there with all those gentlemen,’ she continued, quite carried away, ‘and when it came to your turn, you wouldn’t be able to read, nor even say your letters properly. Then they’d all make fun of you, and that would be worse than Tinette, and she was bad enough.’

‘Oh all right, I’ll do it,’ said Peter grumpily.

At once Heidi was all smiles again. ‘That’s good. We’ll start at once,’ and she pulled him over to the table, on which a book lay ready. It was a rhyming A B C, which had come in the big parcel from Clara. Heidi liked it very much and thought it just the thing for teaching Peter. They sat down side by side, bent their heads over the book, and the lesson began. Peter had to spell out the first rhyme over and over again, for Heidi was determined he should know it thoroughly.

‘You still don’t get it right,’ she said after some time. ‘I’ll read it all through to you. If you know what it says, perhaps you’ll find it easier.’ And she read out:

‘I won’t go,’ mumbled Peter.

‘Won’t go where?’

‘Before the judge.’

‘Then hurry up and learn those three letters, so that you don’t have to,’ Heidi urged. So Peter set to and repeated them until she was satisfied.

She saw what an effect the little rhyme had had on him, and thought it would be a good idea to prepare the way for the next lessons. ‘Wait a minute,’ she said, ‘and I’ll read you the rest of the rhymes, then you’ll know what to expect.

Peter was listening so quietly that she stopped to look at him and found him staring at her with dismay, bewildered by all these threats of trouble. Heidi’s tender heart melted at sight of him, and she hastened to reassure him.

‘Don’t worry. Just come every evening, and if you go on as you’ve done today, you’ll soon know all your letters and then nothing will happen to you. But you must come every day, and not stay away, as you do from school. Even if it’s snowing, it won’t hurt you to come.’

Peter promised, for Heidi’s picture of the school at Frankfurt had taken the fight out of him. After that he did what Heidi told him and came regularly for his lessons, and soon made quite good progress with his letters, though he always found it difficult to learn the rhymes by heart. Uncle Alp often sat in the room with them, smoking his pipe and listening to the lessons, much amused by all that went on. After his exertions, Peter was usually invited to stay to supper, which quite made up for all he went through. At length they reached the letter U, and Heidi read:

‘No I won’t,’ growled Peter, but he made haste to learn the letters all the same, as if he was afraid someone might carry him off by the scruff of his neck. Next evening Heidi read:

Peter glanced round the room and said scornfully, ‘Isn’t one.’

‘No, but do you know what Grandfather has in the cupboard?’ she asked. ‘A stick almost as thick as my arm. You can just pretend that’s hanging on the wall when you say this rhyme.’

Peter knew Uncle Alp’s stout hazel stick, and he bent over his book again at once, determined to master W. Next day the rhyme went:

Peter looked towards the cupboard where the bread and cheese were kept and remarked crossly, ‘I never said I was going to forget X.’

‘Good, then we can learn another letter at once, and there’ll be only one left for tomorrow.’ Peter was not keen on learning any more that day, but Heidi had already begun to read.

Peter remembered about the gentlemen in Frankfurt with their tall black hats, and he made himself study Y till he knew it with his eyes shut.

When he came again, he was inclined to be cocky, knowing he had only one more letter to learn. As usual Heidi read the couplet aloud.

‘Nobody knows where they live,’ he commented scornfully.

‘Grandfather will know,’ Heidi returned quickly, ‘and I’ll just run and ask him. He’s over with the pastor.’ She jumped up and was really starting off when Peter caught hold of her.

‘No, wait,’ he cried, for he could quite see Uncle Alp and the pastor coming over together to pack him off to the Hottentots forthwith, if he had not yet learnt Z. Of course Heidi stopped then.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

‘Nothing. Come back. I’ll learn it,’ he muttered.

But Heidi was now eager on her own account to know where the Hottentots lived, and said again that she must run and ask her grandfather about it. It was only when she saw that Peter was really worried that she gave up and came back to the table. She made Peter pay for it though, by repeating the letter Z till she felt sure he could never forget it. And then she started immediately to teach him to read whole words, which was a great step forward.

It was just about this time that it began snowing again, and continued for several days, so that the ground was covered with soft snow once more, and Heidi could not get up to Grannie’s. For nearly three weeks she did not see her, and that made her all the more anxious for Peter to be able to read to Grannie in her place. Sure enough, one evening he came up from Dörfli, and announced to his mother, ‘I can do it.’

‘Do what, Peter?’ she asked.

‘Read.’

‘Can you really? Do you hear that, Grannie?’ exclaimed Bridget.

Grannie had indeed heard, and was wondering how it could possibly have come about.

‘I am to read a hymn to you now,’ he said. ‘Heidi told me to.’

His mother fetched the book, and Grannie composed herself to listen. Peter sat down at the table and really began to read. At the end of each verse, his mother exclaimed, ‘Well, would you believe it!’ Grannie did not speak, but listened closely.

At school in the village next day Peter’s class had a reading lesson as usual, and when it came to his turn, the teacher said:

‘I suppose we must pass you over again, Peter, or will you just try, not perhaps to read, but just to pick out a word or two?’

Peter took the book and read three lines without a mistake. The teacher stared at him in silent amazement. Finally he said:

‘Is this a miracle? I have spent hours, weeks, years, trying to teach you, and you’ve never even been able to say your letters. Now, when I’d practically given you up as hopeless, you suddenly get up and read quite fluently. How has this come to pass?’

‘It was Heidi,’ Peter replied.

The teacher glanced across at Heidi, sitting quietly in her place and looking very innocent.

‘Well, I have noticed a great improvement in you lately, Peter. You used to stay away from school for weeks on end, now you never miss a day. Who is responsible for that?’

‘Uncle Alp,’ was the answer.

This surprised the teacher even more. ‘Just let me hear you read again,’ he said cautiously, and Peter continued for another three lines. There was no mistake about it. He could read.

As soon as school was over, the teacher went across to the pastor to tell him the news, and they talked about the good influence that Heidi and her grandfather were having in the village.

After that when he got home each evening, Peter read one hymn aloud — one only. He could not be persuaded to try a second, nor did Grannie press him. It was a never failing source of wonder to Bridget, and sometimes after he had gone to bed, she would say to Grannie, ‘Now Peter has learnt to read, there’s no knowing what he may do!’

Once Grannie replied to her, ‘Yes, I’m glad for his sake that he has learnt something. But I shall be thankful when the spring is here, and Heidi can come again. They are somehow not the same hymns when Peter reads them, and I keep trying to fill in the gaps, and so I miss what comes next. So they don’t do me as much good as when Heidi reads them.’

The truth was that Peter made things as easy as possible for himself. When he came to a difficult word, he just left it out, thinking that a few words less among so many would make no difference to Grannie. Consequently there was sometimes little sense in what he read.