Heidi

4 A Visit to Grannie

All through that summer Heidi went up to the pasture every day with Peter and the goats, and grew brown as a berry in the mountain sunshine. She grew strong and healthy and was as happy and carefree as a bird in her new life. But when autumn came, strong winds began to blow, and her grandfather said to her, ‘Today you must stay at home. A little thing like you might easily get blown over the side of the mountain by a gust of wind.’

Peter was always very disappointed when Heidi could not go with him. He had grown so used to her company that he found it terribly dull to be by himself again, and of course he missed the good bread and cheese she always shared with him. The goats were twice as troublesome, too, when she was not there. They seemed to miss her and scattered all over the place, as though they were looking for her.

But Heidi was happy wherever she was. Of course she loved going up the mountain where there was always so much to see, but she also enjoyed going round with her grandfather, watching him at his carpentry and all the other jobs. She specially liked to see him make the goat’s milk cheese. He rolled up his sleeves and plunged his arms deep into a big pot of milk which he stirred thoroughly with his hands until in due course he produced the delicious round cheeses. But what she liked most of all was the noise the wind made in the old fir trees. She often left what she was doing to go and stand under them with her face turned up, listening and watching the swaying branches as the wind whistled and whirled through them. The wind blew right through her too, though now that the weather was cooler she wore socks and shoes and put on a dress once more. That strange music in the tree tops had a special fascination for her and she could not stay indoors when she heard it.

All at once it turned really cold and Peter arrived in the mornings blowing on his hands to warm them. Then one night it started to snow and in the morning everything was white. It snowed until there was not a single green leaf to be seen, and of course Peter didn’t bring the goats up. From the window Heidi watched with delight as the snowflakes fell, faster and faster, and the snow drifted higher and higher till the hut was buried up to the window sills and it was impossible to go out. She hoped it would go on falling until the hut was completely covered, so that they would have to light the lamp during the day, but that did not happen. Next morning her grandfather was able to dig his way out, and shovelled the snow away from the walls, throwing up great piles of it from his spade as he worked. Then in the afternoon he and Heidi sat down by the fire, each on a three‐legged stool, for of course he had long ago made one for her. They were interrupted by a great banging at the door, as though someone was kicking it. Then it was opened, and there stood Peter, knocking the snow off his boots before coming in. He had had to fight his way through high drifts and it was so cold that the snow had frozen on to him, and still clung to his clothes. But he had kept bravely on, determined to get to Heidi after not seeing her for a whole week.

‘Hullo,’ he said and went straight over to the stove. He didn’t say anything more but stood beaming at them, well pleased to be there. Heidi watched in astonishment as the heat of the stove began to thaw the snow so that it trickled off him in a steady flow.

‘Well, General,’ said the old man, ‘how are you getting on now that you’ve had to leave your army and start chewing a pencil?’

‘Chewing a pencil?’ exclaimed Heidi with interest. ‘Yes, in the winter Peter has to go to school and learn to read and write. That’s no easy matter you know, and it sometimes helps a bit to chew a pencil, doesn’t it, General?’

‘Yes it does,’ agreed Peter.

Immediately Heidi wanted to know just what he did at school. Peter always found it difficult to put his thoughts into words and Heidi had so many questions to ask that no sooner had he managed to deal with one than she was ready with two or three more, most of them needing a whole sentence in reply. His clothes were quite dry again before she was satisfied. The old man listened quietly to their chatter, smiling from time to time. As they fell silent he got up and went over to the cupboard.

‘Well, General, you’ve been under fire, now you’ll need some refreshment,’ he said.

He soon had supper ready and Heidi put chairs round the table. The hut was less bare now than when she first arrived, for Grandfather had made one bench which was fixed to the wall and other seats big enough for two people, for Heidi always liked to be close beside him. Now they could all sit down in comfort, and as Peter did so, he opened his round eyes very wide at the huge piece of dried meat Uncle Alp put on a thick slice of bread for him. It was a long time since he had had such a good meal. As soon as they had finished eating Peter got ready to go, for it was growing dark.

‘Goodbye,’ he said, ‘and thank you. I’ll come again next Sunday, and Grannie says she would like you to come and see her.’

Heidi was delighted at the idea of going to visit someone, for that would be something quite new, so the first thing she said next morning was ‘Grandfather, I must go and see Peter’s Grannie today. She’ll be expecting me.’

‘The snow is too deep,’ said Uncle Alp, trying to put her off.

But the idea was firmly in her head, and day after day she said at least half a dozen times that she really must go or Grannie would be tired of waiting for her. On the fourth day after Peter’s visit the snow froze hard and crackled underfoot, and the sun was shining brightly, straight on to Heidi’s face as she sat on her high chair eating her dinner. Again she said, ‘I must go and see Grannie today, or she’ll think I’m not coming.’

Her grandfather left the table and went up to the loft, from which he brought down the thick sack off her bed. ‘Come on, then,’ he said, and they went out together.

Heidi skipped delightedly into the shining white world. The branches of the fir trees were weighed down with snow which sparkled in the sunshine. Heidi had never seen anything like it.

‘Just look at the trees,’ she cried, ‘they’re all gold and silver.’

Meanwhile Grandfather had dragged a big sledge out of the shed. It had a bar along one side to hold on to, and it was steered by pressing the heels against the ground on one side or the other. To please Heidi he went round with her to look at the snow‐clad trees. Then he sat down on the sledge with her on his knees, well wrapped up in the sack to keep her warm. He held her tightly with his left arm and, taking hold of the bar with his right hand, pushed off with both feet. They went down the mountain so fast that Heidi felt as though she was flying, and screamed with delight. They stopped with a jerk just outside Peter’s hut. Grandfather set her on her feet and took off the sack.

‘Now go in,’ he said, ‘but start for home as soon as it begins to get dark.’ Then he turned back up the mountain, pulling the sledge behind him.

The door Heidi opened led into a small kitchen, in which there was a stove and some pots on a shelf. A second door opened into another low little room. Compared with Grandfather’s hut with its fine big room and the hay loft above, this place seemed wretchedly cramped. She went in and saw a woman sitting at a table mending a jacket which she recognized as Peter’s. In one corner another woman, old and bent, was spinning. Heidi went straight to her and said, ‘Hullo, Grannie, here I am at last. I expect you thought I was never coming.’

Grannie raised her head and felt for Heidi’s hand. When she had found it, she held it in her own for a while and then said, ‘Are you the child from Uncle Alp’s? Are you Heidi?’

‘Yes, and Grandfather has just brought me down on the sledge.’

‘Fancy that. And yet your hand is so warm. Bridget, did Uncle Alp really bring her himself?’

Peter’s mother left her mending to come and look at the child. ‘I don’t know, mother,’ she said, ‘it does not sound likely. She must be mistaken.’

Heidi looked her straight in the eye and said firmly, ‘I’m not mistaken. It was Grandfather. He wrapped me up in my blanket and brought me down himself.’

‘Well, well. Peter must have been right after all in what he told us about Uncle Alp,’ said Grannie. ‘We always thought he’d got it all wrong. Who would have believed it? To tell the truth, I didn’t think the child would last three weeks up there. What does she look like, Bridget?’

‘She’s thin, like her mother was, but she’s got black eyes and curly hair like Tobias and the old man. She’s really more like them, I think.’

Heidi looked about the room while the women were talking, and her sharp eyes missed nothing.

‘One of your shutters is hanging loose, Grannie,’ she remarked. ‘Grandfather would soon mend it, and it’ll break the window if nothing’s done about it. Look how it bangs to and fro.’

‘I can’t see it, my dear, but I can hear it very well, and everything else that creaks and clatters here when the wind blows through the cracks. The place is falling to pieces and at night, when the other two are asleep, I am often afraid that some time it may fall on us and kill us all. And there’s no one to do anything about it. Peter doesn’t know how.’

‘Why can’t you see the shutter?’ asked Heidi, pointing. ‘Look, there it goes again.’

‘I can’t see at all, child, it’s not only the shutter,’ said the old woman with a sigh.

‘If I go out and pull the shutter right back so that it’s really light in here, you’ll be able to see, won’t you?’

‘No, not even then, light or dark makes no difference to me.’

‘But if you come out in the shining white snow, I’m sure you’ll see then. Come and see.’ Heidi took the old woman’s hand and tried to pull her up, for she was very upset at the thought of her never seeing anything.

‘Let me be, child. I can’t see any better even in the light of the snow. I’m always in the dark.’

‘Even in summer, Grannie?’ Heidi persisted anxiously. ‘Surely you can see the sunshine and watch it say good‐night to the mountains and make them all red like fire. Can’t you?’

‘No, child, nor that either. I shall never see them again.’

Heidi burst into tears. ‘Can’t anyone make you see?’ she sobbed. ‘Isn’t there anyone who can?’

For some time Grannie tried in vain to comfort her. Heidi hardly ever cried, but when she did it was always difficult to make her stop. The old woman got quite worried and at last she said, ‘Come here, my dear, and listen to me. I can’t see, but I can hear, and when one is blind, it is so good to hear a friendly voice, and yours I love already. Come and sit beside me and tell me what you and Grandfather do up on the mountain. I used to know him well, but I haven’t heard anything of him for years, except what Peter tells us — and that’s not much.’

Heidi dried her tears. She saw a ray of hope. ‘Just wait till I tell Grandfather about you. He’ll be able to make you see, and he’ll mend the hut too. He can do anything.’

Grannie did not contradict her, and Heidi began to chatter away telling everything she did up there, both in summer and in winter. She told how clever Grandfather was at making things, how he had made stools and chairs and new mangers for the goats, and even a bath tub, and a milk bowl, yes, and spoons — all out of wood. Grannie understood from her voice how eagerly she must have watched him at work.

‘I’d like to be able to make things like that myself one day,’ Heidi ended up.

‘Did you hear that, Bridget?’ Grannie asked her daughter. ‘Fancy Uncle doing all that!’

Suddenly the outer door banged and Peter burst into the room. He pulled up short and stared when he saw Heidi, then gave a very friendly grin as she greeted him.

‘What, back from school already?’ asked Grannie. ‘It’s years since I’ve known an afternoon pass so quickly. Well Peterkin, how are you getting on with your reading?’

‘Just the same,’ he replied.

‘Oh dear,’ she sighed, ‘I hoped you might have something different to tell me by now. You’ll be twelve in February.’

‘What to tell you? What do you mean?’ asked Heidi, all interest.

‘Only that perhaps he’d learned to read at last. There’s an old prayer book up on the shelf, with some beautiful hymns in it. I haven’t heard them for a very long time and can’t repeat them any more to myself. I keep hoping Peterkin will be able to read them to me. But he doesn’t seem able to learn. It’s too difficult for him.’

‘I think I must light the lamp,’ said Bridget, who had been darning all this while. ‘The afternoon has passed so quickly I hadn’t noticed it was getting dark.’

Heidi jumped up at that. ‘If it’s getting dark I must go,’ she cried. ‘Goodbye, Grannie.’ She said goodbye to the others and was just leaving when Grannie called anxiously, ‘Wait a minute, Heidi, you can’t go alone. Peter will come with you and see you don’t fall. And don’t stand about and let her get cold. Has she something warm to put on?’

‘No, I haven’t,’ Heidi called back, ‘but I shan’t be cold,’ and she ran off so fast that Peter could hardly keep pace with her.

‘Bridget, take my shawl and run after her,’ cried Grannie in distress, ‘she’ll freeze to death in this bitter cold,’ and Bridget took it and went after them. But the children had only gone a very little way up the mountain when they saw Uncle Alp striding towards them, and almost at once they were together.

‘Good girl, you did as you were told,’ he said. Then he wrapped her in the sack again, picked her up in his arms, and turned for home. Bridget was just in time to see what happened, and she went back indoors with Peter to describe the surprising sight to her mother.

‘Thank God the child is all right,’ exclaimed the old woman. ‘I hope Uncle Alp will let her come to see me again. Her visit has done me a deal of good. What a kind heart the little one has and how pleasantly she chatters.’ Grannie was in very good spirits. ‘I hope she comes again,’ she said several times that evening, ‘it would be something to look forward to.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ agreed Bridget each time, while Peter grinned broadly, and said, ‘Told you so.’

And out on the mountain Heidi was chattering away inside the sack to her grandfather, though he couldn’t hear a word through its eightfold thickness.

‘Wait till we’re home and then tell me,’ he said.

As soon as they were indoors and Heidi had been unwrapped she began, ‘Tomorrow we must take a hammer and some big nails down to Peter’s house, so that you can mend Grannie’s shutter and lots of other things too, because her whole house creaks and rattles.’

‘Oh, we must, must we? Who told you to say that?’

‘Nobody told me. I just know. The shutters and doors and things are all loose and bang about, and then Grannie gets very frightened and can’t sleep. She’s afraid the house will fall down on top of them. And she can’t see, and she says no one can make her better, but I’m sure you can, Grandfather. Fancy not being able to see, and being frightened too! We’ll go and help her tomorrow, won’t we?’ She was clinging to the old man and looked up at him confidently. He gazed back for a moment and then said, ‘Well, we can at least stop the banging and we’ll do that tomorrow.’

Heidi was delighted and went skipping round the hut, chanting, ‘We’ll do it tomorrow! We’ll do it tomorrow!’

Uncle Alp kept his promise. On the following afternoon they went down on the sledge again and Heidi was set down outside the cottage. ‘Go in now,’ he said, as before, ‘but come away when it begins to get dark.’ Then he laid Heidi’s sack on the sledge and disappeared round the side of the building.

Heidi had hardly set foot inside the door before Grannie called out from her corner, ‘Here she comes again!’ She stopped spinning and held out both hands. Heidi ran to her and pulled up a little stool beside her, sat down and began to chatter away. Suddenly there came a series of loud bangs on the wall which so startled Grannie that she almost knocked her spinning‐wheel over.

‘This time the place is really falling down,’ she cried tremulously. Heidi took hold of her arm and said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Grannie. That’s only Grandfather with his hammer. He’s mending everything so that you won’t be frightened any more.’

‘Is it true? God has not forgotten us after all. Can you hear it, Bridget? It really does sound like a hammer. Go out and see who it is, and if it’s Uncle Alp ask him to come in so that I can thank him.’

It was Uncle Alp of course. Bridget found him nailing a wedge‐shaped piece of wood on to the wall. ‘Good day, Uncle,’ she said. ‘Mother and I are grateful to you for helping us like this, and Mother would like to thank you herself if you’ll step inside. I’m sure no one else would have done as much for us and we won’t forget it…’

But he interrupted her roughly. ‘That’s enough,’ he said. ‘I know quite well what you really think of me. Go indoors. I can see for myself what wants doing.’ Bridget turned away, not liking to disobey him, and he went on hammering away all round the walls. Then he climbed up on to the roof and mended some holes there, till he had used up all the nails he had brought with him. By this time it was growing dark, and he took the sledge out of the goat‐stall where he had left it, just as Heidi came to find him. He wrapped her up and carried her as he had done the evening before, though he had also to drag the sledge behind him. He knew it would not be safe for her to ride up on it without him beside her, for the wind would soon have blown the coverings away and she would have been frozen.

So he pulled it after him with one hand, holding Heidi safe and warm in the other arm.

So the winter went on. Poor, blind Grannie was happy again after many sad, dark years, for now she always had something pleasant to look forward to. Every day she listened for Heidi’s light step and when the door opened and the little girl came in, she always said, ‘Praise be, here she is again.’ Then Heidi would sit down and chatter merrily away. These hours passed so quickly that Grannie never once had to ask Bridget, ‘Isn’t the day nearly over?’ Instead, after Heidi had left, she often remarked, ‘Wasn’t that a short afternoon?’ and Bridget would agree that it seemed no time since she had cleared away after dinner.

‘God keep the child safe and Uncle Alp in a good humour,’ was the old woman’s constant prayer. She often asked Bridget if the child looked well. To that Bridget was always able to reply, ‘She looks like a rosy apple.’

Heidi grew very fond of Peter’s Grannie, and when she understood that no one could make her see again, she was very sad. But as Grannie told her over and over again that she didn’t mind being blind nearly so much when Heidi was with her, she came down on the sledge with her grandfather every fine day. He always brought his hammer and nails and any other materials needed, and gradually he repaired the whole cottage, so that Grannie was no longer frightened by noises at night.