Heidi, Johanna Spyri [reading e books .TXT] 📗

>bluebells that still remained of the summer’s wealth of flowers,

their slender heads nodding cheerfully in the sunshine. Overhead

the great bird was flying round and round in wide circles, but today he made no sound; poised on his large wings he floated

contentedly in the blue ether. Heidi looked about her first at

one thing and then at another. The waving flowers, the blue sky,

the bright sunshine, the happy bird—everything was so

beautiful! so beautiful! Her eyes were alight with joy. And now

she turned to her friend to see if he too were enjoying the

beauty. The doctor had been sitting thoughtfully gazing around

him. As he met her glad bright eyes, “Yes, Heidi,” he responded,

“I see how lovely it all is, but tell me—if one brings a sad

heart up here, how may it be healed so that it can rejoice in all

this beauty?”

 

“Oh, but,” exclaimed Heidi, “no one is sad up here, only in

Frankfurt.”

 

The doctor smiled and then growing serious again he continued,

“But supposing one is not able to leave all the sadness behind

at Frankfurt; can you tell me anything that will help then?”

 

“When you do not know what more to do you must go and tell

everything to God,” answered Heidi with decision.

 

“Ah, that is a good thought of yours, Heidi,” said the doctor.

“But if it is God Himself who has sent the trouble, what can we

say to Him then?”

 

Heidi sat pondering for a while; she was sure in her heart that

God could help out of every trouble. She thought over her own

experiences and then found her answer.

 

“Then you must wait,” she said, “and keep on saying to yourself:

God certainly knows of some happiness for us which He is going

to bring out of the trouble, only we must have patience and not

run away. And then all at once something happens and we see

clearly ourselves that God has had some good thought in His mind

all along; but because we cannot see things beforehand, and only

know how dreadfully miserable we are, we think it is always going

to be so.”

 

“That is a beautiful faith, child, and be sure you hold it

fast,” replied the doctor. Then he sat on a while in silence,

looking at the great overshadowing mountains and the green,

sunlit valley below before he spoke again,—

 

“Can you understand, Heidi, that a man may sit here with such a

shadow over his eyes that he cannot feel and enjoy the beauty

around him, while the heart grows doubly sad knowing how

beautiful it could be? Can you understand that?”

 

A pain shot through the child’s young happy heart. The shadow

over the eyes brought to her remembrance the grandmother, who

would never again be able to see the sunlight and the beauty up

here. This was Heidi’s great sorrow, which re-awoke each time

she thought about the darkness. She did not speak for a few

minutes, for her happiness was interrupted by this sudden pang.

Then in a grave voice she said,—

 

“Yes, I can understand it. And I know this, that then one must

say one of grandmother’s hymns, which bring the light back a

little, and often make it so bright for her that she is quite

happy again. Grandmother herself told me this.”

 

“Which hymns are they, Heidi?” asked the doctor.

 

“I only know the one about the sun and the beautiful garden, and

some of the verses of the long one, which are favorites with

her, and she always likes me to read them to her two or three

times over,” replied Heidi.

 

“Well, say the verses to me then, I should like to hear them

too,” and the doctor sat up in order to listen better.

 

Heidi put her hands together and sat collecting her thoughts for

a second or two: “Shall I begin at the verse that grandmother

says gives her a feeling of hope and confidence?”

 

The doctor nodded his assent, and Heidi began,—

 

Let not your heart be troubled Nor fear your soul dismay,

There is a wise Defender And He will be your stay. Where you

have failed, He conquers, See, how the foeman flies! And all

your tribulation Is turned to glad surprise.

 

If for a while it seemeth His mercy is withdrawn, That He no

longer careth For His wandering child forlorn, Doubt not His

great compassion, His love can never tire, To those who wait

in patience He gives their heart’s desire.

 

Heidi suddenly paused; she was not sure if the doctor was still

listening. He was sitting motionless with his hand before his

eyes. She thought he had fallen asleep; when he awoke, if he

wanted to hear more verses, she would go on. There was no sound

anywhere. The doctor sat in silence, but he was certainly not

asleep. His thoughts had carried him back to a long past time:

he saw himself as a little boy standing by his dear mother’s

chair; she had her arm round his neck and was saying the very

verses to him that Heidi had just recited—words which he had not

heard now for years. He could hear his mother’s voice and see her

loving eyes resting upon him, and as Heidi ceased the old dear

voice seemed to be saying other things to him; and the words he

heard again must have carried him far, far away, for it was a

long time before he stirred or took his hand from his eyes. When

at last he roused himself he met Heidi’s eyes looking wonderingly

at him.

 

“Heidi,” he said, taking the child’s hand in his, “that was a

beautiful hymn of yours,” and there was a happier ring in his

voice as he spoke. “We will come out here together another day,

and you will let me hear it again.”

 

Peter meanwhile had had enough to do in giving vent to his

anger. It was now some days since Heidi had been out with him,

and when at last she did come, there she sat the whole time

beside the old gentleman, and Peter could not get a word with

her. He got into a terrible temper, and at last went and stood

some way back behind the doctor, where the latter could not see

him, and doubling his fist made imaginary hits at the enemy.

Presently he doubled both fists, and the longer Heidi stayed

beside the gentleman, the more fiercely did he threaten with

them.

 

Meanwhile the sun had risen to the height which Peter knew

pointed to the dinner hour. All of a sudden he called at the top

of his voice, “It’s dinner time.”

 

Heidi was rising to fetch the dinner bag so that the doctor

might eat his where he sat. But he stopped her, telling her he

was not hungry at all, and only cared for a glass of milk, as he

wanted to climb up a little higher. Then Heidi found that she

also was not hungry and only wanted milk, and she should like,

she said, to take the doctor up to the large moss-covered rock

where Greenfinch had nearly jumped down and killed herself. So

she ran and explained matters to Peter, telling him to go and get

milk for the two. Peter seemed hardly to understand. “Who is

going to eat what is in the bag then?” he asked.

 

“You can have it,” she answered, “only first make haste and get

the milk.”

 

Peter had seldom performed any task more promptly, for he

thought of the bag and its contents, which now belonged to him.

As soon as the other two were sitting quietly drinking their

milk, he opened it, and quite trembled for joy at the sight of

the meat, and he was just putting his hand in to draw it out when

something seemed to hold him back. His conscience smote him at

the remembrance of how he had stood with his doubled fists behind

the doctor, who was now giving up to him his whole good dinner.

He felt as if he could not now enjoy it. But all at once he

jumped up and ran back to the spot where he had stood before, and

there held up his open hands as a sign that he had no longer any

wish to use them as fists, and kept them up until he felt he had

made amends for his past conduct. Then he rushed back and sat

down to the double enjoyment of a clear conscience and an

unusually satisfying meal.

 

Heidi and the doctor climbed and talked for a long while, until

the latter said it was time for him to be going back, and no

doubt Heidi would like to go and be with her goats. But Heidi

would not hear of this, as then the doctor would have to go the

whole way down the mountain alone. She insisted on accompanying

him as far as the grandfather’s hut, or even a little further.

She kept hold of her friend’s hand all the time, and the whole

way she entertained him with accounts of this thing and that,

showing him the spots where the goats loved best to feed, and

others where in summer the flowers of all colors grew in

greatest abundance. She could give them all their right names,

for her grandfather had taught her these during the summer

months. But at last the doctor insisted on her going back; so

they bid each other good-night and the doctor continued his

descent, turning now and again to look back, and each time he saw

Heidi standing on the same spot and waving her hand to him. Even

so in the old days had his own dear little daughter watched him

when he went from home.

 

It was a bright sunny autumn month. The doctor came up to the

hut every morning, and thence made excursions over the mountain.

Alm-Uncle accompanied him on some of his higher ascents, when

they climbed up to the ancient storm-beaten fir trees and often

disturbed the great bird which rose startled from its nest, with

the whirl of wings and croakings, very near their heads. The

doctor found great pleasure in his companion’s conversation, and

was astonished at his knowledge of the plants that grew on the

mountain: he knew the uses of them all, from the aromatic fir

trees and the dark pines with their scented needles, to the

curly moss that sprang up everywhere about the roots of the trees

and the smallest plant and tiniest flower. He was as well versed

also in the ways of the animals, great and small, and had many

amusing anecdotes to tell of these dwellers in caves and holes

and in the tops of the fir trees. And so the time passed

pleasantly and quickly for the doctor, who seldom said good-bye

to the old man at the end of the day without adding, “I never

leave you, friend, without having learnt something new from you.”

 

On some of the very finest days, however, the doctor would

wander out again with Heidi, and then the two would sit together

as on the first day, and the child would repeat her hymns and

tell the doctor things which she alone knew. Peter sat at a

little distance from them, but he was now quite reconciled in

spirit and gave vent to no angry pantomime.

 

September had drawn to its close, and now one morning the doctor

appeared looking less cheerful than usual. It was his last day,

he said, as he must return to Frankfurt, but he was grieved at

having to say good-bye to the mountain, which he had