Clara meant to keep awake again that night, to watch the stars, but simply couldn’t keep her eyes open and fell at once into the soundest sleep she had ever known.
The next day or two passed as happily, then came a great surprise for the children. Two strong carriers arrived, each with a bed and bedding in a basket on his back. There was also a letter from Mrs Sesemann to say that the beds were for Clara and Heidi. From now on, instead of her couch of hay, Heidi was to have a proper bed, and when she went down to Dörfli in the winter, one was to be taken there, while the other remained at the hut, so that Clara would know there was always a bed for her whenever she could go to see Heidi. She thanked them for their daily letters, which she hoped would continue, so that she would know all that was going on as though she were there with them.
Uncle Alp went up to the loft and threw the hay back where it belonged, and folded the rugs away. Then he helped the two men to carry up the beds, and he put them close together so that the children could still look out of the window from their pillows.
Clara’s letters to her grandmother showed that she was enjoying life at the hut more and more every day. Uncle Alp was so kind and thoughtful, Heidi so gay and amusing — far more so than she had seemed in Frankfurt. So every morning Clara’s first thought was, ‘Oh, how lovely! I’m still here at Heidi’s!’ Mrs Sesemann was quite reassured by these promising accounts of her granddaughter, and felt there was no real need for her to make the journey up to the hut again at present, and she was not sorry for that as the steep slopes had made it rather tiring for her.
Uncle Alp grew very attached to his little guest and tried to find something new every day to make her better. He took to going off in the afternoons high up on the mountain top to look for special plants and herbs, and he hung bunches of them in the goat‐stall, where they scented the air with their fragrance. When Peter’s goats came down in the evening, they sniffed and wrinkled their noses, and tried to get into the stall, but the door was firmly shut against them. Uncle Alp had not gone scrambling about up there just to give the herd a treat. His herbs were only for Daisy, to improve her milk still more. It was easy to see that this diet agreed with her. She became very lively and tossed her head, and her eyes were very bright.
When Clara had been there a fortnight. Uncle Alp began trying to get her on her feet each morning, before putting her in her chair. ‘Won’t the little one try to stand for a minute?’ he asked gently, and to please him, she did try, but gave up very quickly because it hurt her, and she clung to him for support. But each day he persuaded her to try for a little longer.
There had not been such a beautiful summer as that on the mountain for many years. Day after day the sun shone from a cloudless sky, and the flowers had never been so gay nor so sweet before. And when evening came, snow‐fields and rocky peaks were a blaze of colour, purple, pink, and gold, but the full glory was only to be seen higher up than Uncle’s hut. Heidi told Clara all about it, and how specially lovely everything was up on the high pasture which she loved so much. One evening, as she was talking about it, she suddenly longed to see it so passionately that she ran to her grandfather, who was busy at his bench in the shed, and cried, ‘Oh Grandfather, will you take us up to the pasture tomorrow? It’ll be so lovely there now.’
‘Very well,’ he agreed, ‘if the little one will first do something for me, and try her best to stand alone this evening.’ Heidi ran back, delighted, to tell Clara the news, and Clara promised to try hard for Uncle Alp, as she too was excited at the thought of such an expedition.
Heidi was so thrilled that she called out as soon as she caught sight of Peter, ‘We’re coming up with you tomorrow, to spend the whole day on the pasture.’
In reply Peter only growled like a bear that has been teased, and hit out with his stick at Finch, who was trotting peaceably beside him. But Finch avoided it by leaping right over Snowflake’s back, and the stick fell on empty air.
Clara and Heidi went to bed so full of the plans for next day that they agreed to stay awake all night talking about them. However their heads had hardly touched the pillows, when all their chatter ceased. Clara dreamed of a great stretch of turf, covered with harebells, and Heidi of the hawk croaking away on the heights, as if he were calling, ‘Come, come, come!’
22
The Unexpected Happens
Uncle Alp was out before sunrise next morning to look at the sky and see what kind of day it was going to be. He stood watching the light come over the mountain tops, till the sun itself appeared and the shadows died away, and even the valley came to life again. Then he fetched the wheel‐chair from the shed and put it ready in front of the hut, before going to waken the children.
Peter arrived just then, and the goats were shifting rather nervously about him, for he had been hitting out at them without the slightest cause all the way up. He was feeling very sore and cross. For weeks now he had not once had Heidi to himself, for she was always with the girl in the wheel‐chair, and they stayed by the hut or just under the trees. She had not been up to the pasture with him once that summer, and she was only coming now to show it to that stranger. Peter knew just how it would be, and his resentment got too much for him. There stood the empty wheel‐chair and he glared at it, as if it were his worst enemy, and the cause of all his troubles. He looked round, and saw there was no one at hand, and no sound of anyone came from the hut. In a sudden burst of rage, he rushed at the chair, and gave it a spiteful shove which sent it rolling down the steep slope. It moved easily, gathered speed, and then plunged headlong out of sight.
He flew up the mountain as though he had wings and hid behind a big blackberry bush. He wanted to see what happened to the chair, but had no desire for Uncle Alp to catch him. With wicked glee he watched it, far below, bouncing off the rocks and leaping on until it crashed to its final destruction. He leaped for joy at the sight and laughed aloud. He told himself that now that horrid girl would go away and everything would be as before. Heidi would be free to go with him up to the pasture often, every day perhaps. The real badness of what he had done had not yet occurred to him, nor any idea of what consequences it might have.
Heidi came out almost at once, followed by her grandfather carrying Clara. The shed door was wide open and she could see that the place was empty. She ran round to the back of the hut, and came back looking puzzled.
‘What’s the matter, Heidi?’ asked her grandfather. ‘What have you done with the chair?’
‘You said it was in front of the door, but I can’t see it anywhere,’ she replied.
A strong gust of wind just at that moment sent the shed door slamming back against the wall.
‘Perhaps the wind has blown it away,’ Heidi cried, looking anxiously about. ‘Oh dear, if it has rolled right down to Dörfli, we shan’t get it back in time to go.’
‘If it has fallen as far as that, we shan’t get it back at all,’ said her grandfather. ‘It will be broken in a hundred pieces.’ He went to look over the edge, and murmured to himself, ‘That’s curious.’ He saw the chair, and realized that to fall where it had, it would have had to turn a corner on its way from the shed!
‘Oh, how dreadful!’ Clara wailed. She was really upset. ‘Now we shan’t be able to go today — I shan’t ever be able to go — because I shan’t be able to stay here without my chair. Oh, what shall I do?’