‘Why Clara, where’s your chair? What does this mean?’ But as she dismounted and came towards them, astonishment took the place of anxiety, and she exclaimed, ‘How well you look, my dear. I hardly recognize you.’
Then Heidi got up — and so did Clara, and they walked before her, Clara quite upright and with no more support than a hand on Heidi’s shoulder. Grandmamma looked on in amazement. They turned and walked towards her, and she saw their two rosy faces, aglow with happiness. Half laughing, almost crying, Grandmamma embraced first Clara, then Heidi, then Clara again, but could for the moment find no words to express her feelings. Then she noticed Uncle Alp, who had come out, and was watching with a pleased smile. She took Clara’s arm in hers, and together they went to the old man. Mrs Sesemann was greatly moved at having her granddaughter walk beside her at last, and she grasped his hands, saying warmly:
‘My dear Uncle, how can we ever thank you! It’s your care, your nursing that has done this.’
‘And God’s good sun and His mountain air,’ he added.
‘And don’t forget Daisy’s lovely milk,’ put in Clara. ‘You ought to see what a lot of it I drink, Grandmamma! It’s so good!’
‘Your rosy cheeks tell me that,’ answered her grandmother. ‘I really should not have known you. You’re quite plump, and I do believe you’re taller! I can’t take my eyes off you. It’s a miracle. I must telegraph at once to your father in Paris and tell him to come immediately. I shan’t tell him why. He’ll have the happiest surprise of his life. Now how can I send off a telegram from here, Uncle? Have the men gone yet?’
‘Yes, they have,’ said Uncle Alp, ‘but if you’re in such a hurry, I can send Peter to take it.’ And he went aside and whistled so piercingly through his fingers that the rocks above re‐echoed with the sound. Almost at once Peter came running down, white as a sheet. He knew that whistle, and feared that the awful moment had arrived, and he was about to be arrested. When he found he was only to take a piece of paper, on which Mrs Sesemann had written a message, down to the post office at Dörfli, he was much relieved and set off immediately.
The little party then sat down to dinner in front of the hut and Grandmamma was told the whole story from the beginning. ‘I can hardly believe it!’ she kept saying. ‘It’s too good to be true’ — which kept Clara and Heidi bubbling over with delight at the success of their great surprise.
As it happened, Mr Sesemann also had been planning a surprise. He finished his business in Paris earlier than he expected, and was so longing to see his daughter again that, without a word to anyone, he took train for Basle and went from there straight to Ragaz, arriving just after his mother had left. When he heard where she had gone, he hired a carriage, and drove on at once to Dörfli. From there he set out on foot, and hard going he found it, for he was not accustomed to such exercise. After a long climb, when he had not even come to the goatherd’s hut — which he knew, from Clara’s letters, lay midway between the village and Heidi’s home — he began to think he must have taken the wrong path. He looked about anxiously for someone to ask, but there was not a soul in sight, nor a sound to be heard except the humming of insects and the occasional twittering of a bird.
Mr Sesemann grew very hot, and as he stopped to fan himself, Peter came running down the path with the telegram in his hand. Mr Sesemann beckoned to him as soon as he was near enough, but the boy seemed suddenly reluctant to approach him.
‘Come along, lad,’ cried the poor traveller impatiently. ‘Can you tell me if this path leads to the hut where the old man lives with a child called Heidi, and where some people from Frankfurt are staying?’
‘The policeman!’ thought Peter, in such a panic of fright that he only uttered a little wail, and dashed off down the mountain, and in such a hurry that he tripped, and went head over heels, head over heels, just as the chair had done — but fortunately for him, he did not, like the chair, break into small pieces! But the piece of paper he had been holding, blew away and was lost.
‘Dear me!’ Mr Sesemann said to himself. ‘How shy these mountain folk are!’ for he thought that the mere sight of a stranger on his native mountain had sent the boy flying off like that. He stood watching Peter’s wild descent for a moment or two, then went on his way; and Peter went bowling on, quite unable to stop and get to his feet again, until at last he fell into a bush and lay there, trying to get over his fright. Then –
‘Hullo, here comes another one!’ said a jeering voice near by, ‘I wonder who’ll be the next to get pushed over the top and come tumbling down like a sack of potatoes.’
It was the baker who spoke. He had come out for a breath of fresh air after work. His words made Peter jump
up in fresh alarm. They sounded as though the baker knew what had really happened to the chair, and the miserable little goatherd went scrambling up the mountain again, as fast as his bruises and his guilty conscience would let him. He wished he could go home and hide under the bedclothes. That was the only place where he would have felt really safe, but the goats were still up on the pasture, and Uncle Alp had told him to hurry, so that the animals were not left alone too long. He did not dare disobey Uncle’s orders.
Mr Sesemann trudged on, and soon after leaving Peter, he reached the goatherd’s cottage and knew that he was on the right path. He went on from there with new heart, and it was not long before he saw the hut with the three fir trees a little way above him. The sight spurred him on, and he stepped out briskly, chuckling to himself at the surprise he hoped to give them up there. That was not to be, however, for he had already been observed, and the happy little party outside the hut were hastily improvising a welcome for him.
As he stepped thankfully on to the level ground on which the hut stood, he saw two people coming towards him, a tall fair girl, leaning slightly on a smaller dark one.
He stood still and stared, and suddenly his eyes filled with tears, for he was so strangely reminded of Clara’s mother who had had just such fair hair and delicate pink and white cheeks. He hardly knew whether he was awake or dreaming.
‘Don’t you know me, Papa?’ Clara cried. ‘Am I so changed?’
At that, he strode towards her and took her in his arms. ‘Changed indeed!’ he cried. ‘Is it possible? Can I believe my eyes?’
He stepped back a pace to look at her better, then drew her close again. His mother joined them, anxious not to miss a single breath of this great moment.
‘Well, what do you think of that, my son?’ she inquired, and added, ‘You thought to give us a surprise, a lovely one, but as it turns out, it is nothing to the one we were preparing for you, is it now?’ She kissed him affectionately as she spoke. ‘Now come and make the acquaintance of our good Uncle Alp to whom we owe our great joy.’
‘We do indeed,’ he replied, beaming, ‘and to our own little Heidi too. I’m glad to see you looking so well again, my dear, and so happy. Those must be Alpine roses in your cheeks.’
Heidi smiled up at him, immensely pleased that it should be here on the mountain that her good friend had found such happiness. Then Grandmamma took him over to Uncle Alp, and Mr Sesemann thanked him with all his heart for what he had done.