‘That’s a kind thought,’ said Bridget, ‘but I’m afraid they’d be quite stale and hard by the time they got here. If I had a spare copper or two I’d get some from the baker in Dörfli, but it’s as much as I can do to buy the black bread.’
A beaming smile spread over Heidi’s face. ‘But I’ve got lots of money, Grannie,’ she exclaimed, ‘and now I know what I can do with it. You shall have a fresh roll every day and two on Sundays, and Peter can bring them up with him from the village.’
‘No, no,’ protested Grannie, ‘you mustn’t spend your money on me. You give it to Grandfather, and he’ll tell you what to do with it.’
Heidi paid no attention but pranced round the room, singing, ‘Now Grannie can have a fresh roll every day and will soon be strong again! And oh, Grannie, when you’re quite well, surely you’ll be able to see too. It’s probably only because you’re so weak that you can’t see.’
Grannie just smiled. She would not spoil the child’s happiness. As she danced around, Heidi caught sight of Grannie’s old hymn‐book, and that gave her another idea. ‘I can read now, Grannie,’ she said. ‘Would you like me to read you something out of your old book?’
‘Oh, yes,’ exclaimed Grannie, delighted. ‘Can you really read?’
Heidi climbed on a stool and took down the book, which had lain on the shelf so long that it was thick with dust. She wiped it clean and took the stool close beside the old woman. ‘What shall I read?’ she asked.
‘What you like, child,’ Grannie said, pushing her spinning‐wheel to one side and waiting eagerly for her to begin.
Heidi turned the pages, reading a line here and a line there. ‘Here’s one about the sun,’ she said at last. ‘I’ll read that.’ And she began with great enthusiasm.
Grannie sat through it with her hands folded. Heidi had never seen her look so happy, though tears were running down her cheeks. And at the end she said, ‘Read it again, Heidi. Please read it again.’
Heidi was delighted to do so for she liked the hymn very much herself.
‘Oh, that’s done me so much good,’ Grannie sighed at last. ‘It makes my old heart rejoice.’
Heidi had never seen such a peaceful expression before on Grannie’s careworn face. It looked as though she had indeed found ‘true joy and peace of mind’.
Then there came a knock on the window and Heidi saw her grandfather outside, beckoning to her. She said goodbye and promised to come again the next day. ‘I may go to the pasture with Peter and the goats in the morning,’ she added, ‘but I’ll be here in the afternoon.’ It had been pleasant to be able to give so much happiness, and Heidi wanted to do that even more than running on the mountain among the flowers with the goats.
As she was going Bridget brought out the dress and hat which Heidi had taken off and left behind the day before. Now she thought she might as well take the dress, for she was sure it would not make any difference to Grandfather, but the hat she absolutely refused. ‘You keep that,’ she told Bridget. ‘I’ll never wear it again.’
Heidi had so much to tell her grandfather that she began at once. ‘And I’d like to buy rolls for Grannie with my money,’ she told him. ‘She doesn’t want me to, but it’ll be all right, won’t it? Peter can get them in Dörfli, if I give him a penny every day, and two on Sunday.’
‘What about your bed, Heidi? It would be nice for you to have a proper one, and there would still be enough money to buy the rolls.’
‘But I sleep much better on my hay mattress than I did in that great big bed in Frankfurt. Please, please let me spend the money on rolls.’
‘Well,’ he agreed at last, ‘the money is yours. Do what you like with it. There’ll be enough to buy Grannie rolls for many a long year.’
‘Good, good! She needn’t ever eat the hard black bread again. Oh, we are having good times, Grandfather, aren’t we?’ and she skipped gaily along beside him. Then all at once she grew serious and said, ‘If God had let me come back to you at once, like I asked in my prayers, none of this would have happened. I should have brought Grannie a few rolls I had saved, but they would soon have been gone, and I wouldn’t have been able to read. God knew what was best, just as Clara’s Grandmamma said He did, and see how perfectly He arranged everything. I’ll always say my prayers after this, as Grandmamma told me to, and if God doesn’t answer them at once I shall know it’s because He’s planning something better for me, just as He did in Frankfurt. We’ll pray every day, won’t we Grandfather, and we’ll never forget God again, and He won’t forget us.’
‘And when someone does forget?’ he said softly.
‘That’s very bad,’ Heidi told him earnestly, ‘because then God lets him go his own way and then, when everything has gone wrong, no one will feel sorry for him. They’ll only say, “You didn’t bother about God, and now God has left you to yourself.”’
‘That’s true, Heidi. How did you find out?’
‘Grandmamma explained it all to me.’
The old man walked on in silence. After a while he said, half to himself, ‘If God forsakes a man, that’s final. There’s no going back then.’
‘Oh, but there is. Grandmamma said so, and everything will come right in the end, like it does in the lovely story in my book. You haven’t heard it yet, but we’ll soon be home now, and then I’ll read it to you.’ Heidi hurried as fast as she could go up the last steep slope, and when they reached the hut, she let go his hand and ran indoors. He took the basket off his back. He had packed half the contents of her trunk in it, for the whole thing would have been too heavy for him to carry so far uphill. Then he sat down on the bench outside, lost in thought, until Heidi reappeared with the book under her arm. ‘That’s good, you’re all ready,’ she said, climbing on to the seat beside him.
She had read the story so often that the book opened at the right place by itself, and she began straightaway to read about the young man with the shepherd’s crook and the fine cloak, who looked after his father’s sheep and goats in the fields. ‘One day,’ she continued, ‘he asked for his share of his father’s fortune so that he might go away and be his own master. As soon as he got it, he left home and wasted it all. When it was gone, he had to go and work for his living, and he got a job with a farmer, who had no flocks nor pastures as his father had, but only pigs. This young man had to look after them. His fine clothes were gone, and he had only rags to cover him, and only the pigs’ swill to eat, and he was very sad when he remembered how well he had been treated at home, and realized how ungrateful he had been to his father. Alone with the pigs, he wept with remorse and homesickness and thought, “I will rise up and go to my father and ask him to forgive me. I will say to him that I am no longer worthy to be treated as his son, but ask if he will let me be one of his servants.” So he set out, and when he was still a long way off, his father saw him and came running towards him.’ Heidi broke off to ask, ‘What do you suppose happens now? I expect you think his father would be angry and say, “I told you so.” Just you listen though. When his father saw him, his heart was filled with compassion for him, and he ran and met him and put his arms round him and kissed him; and his son said, “Father, I have done wrong against Heaven and against you and am no longer worthy to be your son.” But his father called to the servants, “Bring me the good robe and put it on him, and a ring for his finger and shoes for his feet. Fetch the calf we have fattened and kill it for a feast, and we will eat and be merry, for my son was dead to me and is alive again, he was lost and is found.” And they began to be merry.’