Chapter XXI: How Life went on at Grandfather's

The sun had just risen above the mountains and was shedding its first golden rays over the hut and the valley below. Alm-Uncle, as was his custom, had been standing in a quiet and, devout attitude for some little while, watching the light mists gradually lifting, and the heights and valley emerging from their twilight shadows and awakening to another day.

The light morning clouds overhead grew brighter and brighter, till at last the sun shone out in its full glory, and rock and wood and hill lay bathed in golden light.

Uncle now stepped back into the hut and went softly up the ladder. Clara had just opened her eyes and was looking with wonder at the bright sunlight that shone through the round window and danced and sparkled about her bed. She could not at first think what she was looking at or where she was. Then she caught sight of Heidi sleeping beside her, and now she heard the grandfather's cheery voice asking her if she had slept well and was feeling rested. She assured him she was not tired, and that when she had once fallen asleep she had not opened her eyes again all night. The grandfather was satisfied at this and immediately began to attend upon her with so much gentleness and understanding that it seemed as if his chief calling had been to look after sick children.

Heidi now awoke and was surprised to see Clara dressed, and already in the grandfather's arms ready to be carried down. She must be up too, and she went through her toilette with lightning- like speed. She ran down the ladder and out of the hut, and there further astonishment awaited her, for grandfather had been busy the night before after they were in bed. Seeing that it was impossible to get Clara's chair through the hut-door, he had taken down two of the boards at the side of the shed and made an opening large enough to admit the chair; these he left loose so that they could be taken away and put up at pleasure. He was at this moment wheeling Clara out into the sun; he left her in front of the hut while he went to look after the goats, and Heidi ran up to her friend.

The fresh morning breeze blew round the children's faces, and every fresh puff brought a waft of fragrance from the fir trees. Clara drew it in with delight and lay back in her chair with an unaccustomed feeling of health and comfort.

It was the first time in her life that she had been out in the open country at this early hour and felt the fresh morning breeze, and the pure mountain air was so cool and refreshing that every breath she drew was a pleasure. And then the bright sweet sun, which was not hot and sultry up here, but lay soft and warm on her hands and on the grass at her feet. Clara had not imagined that it would be like this on the mountain.

"O Heidi, if only I could stay up here for ever with you," she exclaimed happily, turning in her chair from side to side that she might drink in the air and sun from all quarters.

"Now you see that it is just what I told you," replied Heidi delighted; "that it is the most beautiful thing in the world to be up here with grandfather."

The latter at that moment appeared coming from the goat shed and bringing two small foaming bowls of snow-white milk--one for Clara and one for Heidi.

"That will do the little daughter good," he said, nodding to Clara; "it is from Little Swan and will make her strong. To your health, child! drink it up."

Clara had never tasted goat's milk before; she hesitated and smelt it before putting it to her lips, but seeing how Heidi drank hers up without hesitating, and how much she seemed to like it, Clara did the same, and drank till there was not a drop left, for she too found it delicious, tasting just as if sugar and cinnamon had been mixed with it.

"To-morrow we will drink two," said the grandfather, who had looked on with satisfaction at seeing her follow Heidi's example.

Peter now arrived with the goats, and while Heidi was receiving her usual crowded morning greetings, Uncle drew Peter aside to speak to him, for the goats, bleated so loudly and continuously in their wish to express their joy and affection that no one could be heard near them.

"Attend to what I have to say," he said. "From to-day be sure you let Little Swan go where she likes. She has an instinct where to find the best food for herself, and so if she wants to climb higher, you follow her, and it will do the others no harm if they go too; on no account bring her back. A little more climbing won't hurt you, and in this matter she probably knows better than you what is good for her; I want her to give as fine milk as possible. Why are you looking over there as if you wanted to eat somebody? Nobody will interfere with you. So now be off and remember what I say."

Peter was accustomed to give immediate obedience to Uncle, and he marched off with his goats, but with a turn of the head and roll of the eye that showed he had some thought in reserve. The goats carried Heidi along with them a little way, which was what Peter wanted. "You will have to come with them," he called to her, "for I shall be obliged to follow Little Swan."

"I cannot," Heidi called back from the midst of her friends, "and I shall not be able to come for a long, long time--not as long as Clara is with me. Grandfather, however, has promised to go up the mountain with both of us one day."

Heidi had now extricated herself from the goats and she ran back to Clara. Peter doubled his fists and made threatening gestures towards the invalid on her couch, and then climbed up some distance without pause until he was out of sight, for he was afraid Uncle might have seen him, and he did not care to know what Uncle might have thought of the fists.

Clara and Heidi had made so many plans for themselves that they hardly knew where to begin. Heidi suggested that they should first write to grandmamma, to whom they had promised to send word every day, for grandmamma had not felt sure whether it would in the long run suit Clara's health to remain up the mountain, or if she would continue to enjoy herself there. With daily news of her granddaughter she could stay on without anxiety at Ragatz, and be ready to go to Clara at a moment's notice.

"Must we go indoors to write?" asked Clara, who agreed to Heidi's proposal but did not want to move from where she was, as it was so much nicer outside. Heidi was prepared to arrange everything. She ran in and brought out her school-book and writing things and her own little stool. She put her reading book and copy book on Clara's knees, to make a desk for her to write upon, and she herself took her seat on the stool and sat to the bench, and then they both began writing to grandmamma. But Clara paused after every sentence to look about her; it was too beautiful for much letter writing. The breeze had sunk a little, and now only gently fanned her face and whispered lightly through the fir trees. Little winged insects hummed and danced around her in the clear air, and a great stillness lay over the far, wide, sunny pasture lands. Lofty and silent rose the high mountain peaks above her, and below lay the whole broad valley full of quiet peace. Only now and again the call of some shepherd-boy rang out through the air, and echo answered softly from the rocks. The morning passed, the children hardly knew how, and now grandfather came with the mid-day bowls of steaming milk, for the little daughter, he said, was to remain out as long as there was a gleam of sun in the sky. The mid-day meal was set out and eaten as yesterday in the open air. Then Heidi pushed Clara's chair under the fir trees, for they had agreed to spend the afternoon under their shade and there tell each other all that had happened since Heidi left Frankfurt. If everything had gone on there as usual in a general way, there were still all kinds of particular things to tell Heidi about the various people who composed the Sesemann household, and who were all so well known to Heidi.

So they sat and chatted under the trees, and the more lively grew their conversation, the more loudly sang the birds overhead, as if wishing to take part in the children's gossip, which evidently pleased them. So the hours flew by and all at once, as it seemed, the evening had come with the returning Peter, who still scowled and looked angry.

"Good-night, Peter," called out Heidi, as she saw he had no intention of stopping to speak.

"Good-night, Peter," called out Clara in a friendly voice. Peter took no notice and went surlily on with his goats.

As Clara saw the grandfather leading away Little Swan to milk her, she was suddenly taken with a longing for another bowlful of the fragrant milk, and waited impatiently for it.

"Isn't it curious, Heidi," she said, astonished at herself, "as long as I can remember I have only eaten because I was obliged to, and everything used to seem to taste of cod liver oil, and I was always wishing there was no need to eat or drink; and now I am longing for grandfather to bring me the milk."

"Yes, I know what it feels like," replied Heidi, who remembered the many days in Frankfurt when all her food used to seem to stick in her throat. Clara, however, could not understand it; the fact was that she had never in her life before spent a whole day in the open air, much less in such high, life-giving mountain air. When grandfather at last brought her the evening milk, she drank it up so quickly that she had emptied her bowl before Heidi, and then she asked for a little more. The grandfather went inside with both the children's bowls, and when he brought them out again full he had something else to add to their supper. He had walked over that afternoon to a herdsman's house where the sweetly-tasting butter was made, and had brought home a large pat, some of which he had now spread thickly on two good slices of bread. He stood and watched with pleasure while Clara and Heidi ate their appetising meal with childish hunger and enjoyment.

That night, when Clara lay down in her bed and prepared to watch the stars, her eyes would not keep open, and she fell asleep as soon as Heidi and slept soundly all night--a thing she never remembered having done before. The following day and the day after passed in the same pleasant fashion, and the third day there came a surprise for the children. Two stout porters came up the mountain, each carrying a bed on his shoulders with bedding of all kinds and two beautiful new white coverlids. The men also had a letter with them from grandmamma, in which she said that these were for Clara and Heidi, and that Heidi in future was always to sleep in a proper bed, and when she went down to Dorfli in the winter she was to take one with her and leave the other at the hut, so that Clara might always know there was a bed ready for her when she paid a visit to the mountain. She went on to thank the children for their long letters and encouraged them to continue writing daily, so that she might be able to picture all they were doing.

So the grandfather went up and threw back the hay from Heidi's bed on to the great heap, and then with his help the beds were transported to the loft. He put them close to one another so that the children might still be able to see out of the window, for he knew what pleasure they had in the light from the sun and stars.

Meanwhile grandmamma down at Ragatz was rejoicing at the excellent news of the invalid which reached her daily from the mountain. Clara found the life more charming each day and could not say enough of the kindness and care which the grandfather lavished upon her, nor of Heidi's lively and amusing companionship, for the latter was more entertaining even than when in Frankfurt with her, and Clara's first thought when she woke each morning was, "Oh, how glad I am to be here still."

Having such fresh assurances each day that all was going well with Clara, grandmamma thought she might put off her visit to the children a little longer, for the steep ride up and down was somewhat of a fatigue to her.

The grandfather seemed to feel an especial sympathy for this little invalid charge, for he tried to think of something fresh every day to help forward her recovery. He climbed up the mountain every afternoon, higher and higher each day, and came home in the evening with a large bunch of leaves which scented the air with a mingled fragrance as of carnations and thyme, even from afar. He hung it up in the goat shed, and the goats on their return were wild to get at it, for they recognised the smell. But Uncle did not go climbing after rare plants to give the goats the pleasure of eating them without any trouble of finding them; what he gathered was for Little Swan alone, that she might give extra fine milk, and the effect of the extra feeding was shown in the way she flung her head in the air with ever-increasing frolicsomeness, and in the bright glow of her eye.

Clara had now been on the mountain for three weeks. For some days past the grandfather, each morning after carrying her down, had said, "Won't the little daughter try if she can stand for a minute or two?" And Clara had made the effort in order to please him, but had clung to him as soon as her feet touched the ground, exclaiming that it hurt her so. He let her try a little longer, however, each day.

It was many years since they had had such a splendid summer among the mountains. Day after day there were the same cloudless sky and brilliant sun; the flowers opened wide their fragrant blossoms, and everywhere the eye was greeted with a glow of color; and when the evening came the crimson light fell on mountain peaks and on the great snow-field, till at last the sun sank in a sea of golden flame.

And Heidi never tired of telling Clara of all this, for only higher up could the full glory of the colors be rightly seen; and more particularly did she dwell on the beauty of the spot on the higher slope of the mountain, where the bright golden rock- roses grew in masses, and the blue flowers were in such numbers that the very grass seemed to have turned blue, while near these were whole bushes of the brown blossoms, with their delicious scent, so that you never wanted to move again when you once sat down among them.

She had just been expatiating on the flowers as she sat with Clara under the fir trees one evening, and had been telling her again of the wonderful light from the evening sun, when such an irrepressible longing came over her to see it all once more that she jumped up and ran to her grandfather, who was in the shed, calling out almost before she was inside,--

"Grandfather, will you take us out with the goats to-morrow? Oh, it is so lovely up there now!"

"Very well," he answered, "but if I do, the little daughter must do something to please me: she must try her best again this evening to stand on her feet."

Heidi ran back with the good news to Clara, and the latter promised to try her very best as the grandfather wished, for she looked forward immensely to the next day's excursion. Heidi was so pleased and excited that she called out to Peter as soon as she caught sight of him that evening,--

"Peter, Peter, we are all coming out with you to-morrow and are going to stay up there the whole day."

Peter, cross as a bear, grumbled some reply, and lifted his stick to give Greenfinch a blow for no reason in particular, but Greenfinch saw the movement, and with a leap over Snowflake's back she got out of the way, and the stick only hit the air.

Clara and Heidi got into their two fine beds that night full of delightful anticipation of the morrow; they were so full of their plans that they agreed to keep awake all night and talk over them until they might venture to get up. But their heads had no sooner touched their soft pillows than the conversation suddenly ceased, and Clara fell into a dream of an immense field, which looked the color of the sky, so thickly inlaid was it with blue bell-shaped flowers; and Heidi heard the great bird of prey calling to her from the heights above, "Come! come! come!"

Chapter XXII: Something Unexpected Happens

Uncle went out early the next morning to see what kind of a day it was going to be. There was a reddish gold light over the higher peaks; a light breeze springing up and the branches of the fir trees moved gently to and fro the sun was on its way.

The old man stood and watched the green slopes under the higher peaks gradually growing brighter with the coming day and the dark shadows lifting from the valley, until at first a rosy light filled its hollows, and then the morning gold flooded every height and depth--the sun had risen.

Uncle wheeled the chair out of the shed ready for the coming journey, and then went in to call the children and tell them what a lovely sunrise it was.

Peter came up at this moment. The goats did not gather round him so trustfully as usual, but seemed to avoid him timidly, for Peter had reached a high pitch of anger and bitterness, and was laying about him with his stick very unnecessarily, and where it fell the blow was no light one. For weeks now he had not had Heidi all to himself as formerly. When he came up in the morning the invalid child was always already in her chair and Heidi fully occupied with her. And it was the same thing over again when he came down in the evening. She had not come out with the goats once this summer, and now to-day she was only coming in company with her friend and the chair, and would stick by the latter's side the whole time. It was the thought of this which was making him particularly cross this morning. There stood the chair on its high wheels; Peter seemed to see something proud and disdainful about it, and he glared at it as at an enemy that had done him harm and was likely to do him more still to-day. He glanced round- -there was no sound anywhere, no one to see him. He sprang forward like a wild creature, caught hold of it, and gave it a violent and angry push in the direction of the slope. The chair rolled swiftly forward and in another minute had disappeared.

Peter now sped up the mountain as if on wings, not pausing till he was well in shelter of a large blackberry bush, for he had no wish to be seen by Uncle. But he was anxious to see what had become of the chair, and his bush was well placed for that. Himself hidden, he could watch what happened below and see what Uncle did without being discovered himself. So he looked, and there he saw his enemy running faster and faster down hill, then it turned head over heels several times, and finally, after one great bound, rolled over and over to its complete destruction. The pieces flew in every direction--feet, arms, and torn fragments of the padded seat and bolster--and Peter experienced a feeling of such unbounded delight at the sight that he leapt in the air, laughing aloud and stamping for joy; then he took a run round, jumping over bushes on the way, only to return to the same spot and fall into fresh fits of laughter. He was beside himself with satisfaction, for he could see only good results for himself in this disaster to his enemy. Now Heidi's friend would be obliged to go away, for she would have no means of going about, and when Heidi was alone again she would come out with him as in the old days, and everything would go on in the proper way again. But Peter did not consider, or did not know, that when we do a wrong thing trouble is sure to follow.

Heidi now came running out of the hut and round to the shed. Grandfather was behind with Clara in his arms. The shed stood wide open, the two loose planks having been taken down, and it was quite light inside. Heidi looked into every corner and ran from one end to the other, and then stood still wondering what could have happened to the chair. Grandfather now came up.

"How is this, have you wheeled the chair away, Heidi?"

"I have been looking everywhere for it, grandfather; you said it was standing ready outside," and she again searched each corner of the shed with her eyes.

At that moment the wind, which had risen suddenly, blew open the shed door and sent it banging back against the wall.

"It must have been the wind, grandfather," exclaimed Heidi, and her eyes grew anxious at this sudden discovery. "Oh! if it has blown the chair all the way down to Dorfli we shall not get it back in time, and shall not be able to go."

"If it has rolled as far as that it will never come back, for it is in a hundred pieces by now," said the grandfather, going round the corner and looking down. "But it's a curious thing to have happened!" he added as he thought over the matter, for the chair would have had to turn a corner before starting down hill.

"Oh, I am sorry," lamented Clara, "for we shall not be able to go to-day, or perhaps any other day. I shall have to go home, I suppose, if I have no chair. Oh, I am so sorry, I am so sorry!"

But Heidi looked towards her grandfather with her usual expression of confidence.

"Grandfather, you will be able to do something, won't you, so that it need not be as Clara says, and so that she is not obliged to go home?"

"Well, for the present we will go up the mountain as we had arranged, and then later on we will see what can be done," he answered, much to the children's delight.

He went indoors, fetched out a pile of shawls, and laying them on the sunniest spot he could find set Clara down upon them. Then he fetched the children's morning milk and had out his two goats.

"Why is Peter not here yet?" thought Uncle to himself, for Peter's whistle had not been sounded that morning. The grandfather now took Clara up on one arm, and the shawls on the other.

"Now then we will start," he said; "the goats can come with us."

Heidi was pleased at this and walked on after her grandfather with an arm over either of the goats' necks, and the animals were so overjoyed to have her again that they nearly squeezed her flat between them out of sheer affection. When they reached the spot where the goats usually pastured they were surprised to find them already feeding there, climbing about the rocks, and Peter with them, lying his full length on the ground.

"I'll teach you another time to go by like that, you lazy rascal! What do you mean by it?" Uncle called to him.

Peter, recognising the voice, jumped up like a shot. "No one was up," he answered.

"Have you seen anything of the chair?" asked the grandfather.

"Of what chair?" called Peter back in answer in a morose tone of voice.

Uncle said no more. He spread the shawls on the sunny slope, and setting Clara upon them asked if she was comfortable.

"As comfortable as in my chair," she said, thanking him, "and this seems the most beautiful spot. O Heidi, it is lovely, it is lovely!" she cried, looking round her with delight.

The grandfather prepared to leave them. They would now be safe and happy together, he said, and when it was time for dinner Heidi was to go and fetch the bag from the shady hollow where he had put it; Peter was to bring them as much milk as they wanted, but Heidi was to see that it was Little Swan's milk. He would come and fetch them towards evening; he must now be off to see after the chair and ascertain what had become of it.

The sky was dark blue, and not a single cloud was to be seen from one horizon to the other. The great snow-field overhead sparkled as if set with thousands and thousands of gold and silver stars. The two grey mountains peaks lifted their lofty heads against the sky and looked solemnly down upon the valley as of old; the great bird was poised aloft in the clear blue air, and the mountain wind came over the heights and blew refreshingly around the children as they sat on the sunlit slope. It was all indescribably enjoyable to Clara and Heidi. Now and again a young goat came and lay down beside them; Snowflake came oftenest, putting her little head down near Heidi, and only moving because another goat came and drove her away. Clara had learned to know them all so well that she never mistook one for the other now, for each had an expression and ways of its own. And the goats had also grown familiar with Clara and would rub their heads against her shoulder, which was always a sign of acquaintanceship and goodwill.

Some hours went by, and Heidi began to think that she might just go over to the spot where all the flowers grew to see if they were fully blown and looking as lovely as the year before. Clara could not go until grandfather came back that evening, when the flowers probably would be already closed. The longing to go became stronger and stronger, till she felt she could not resist it.

"Would you think me unkind, Clara," she said rather hesitatingly, "if I left you for a few minutes? I should run there and back very quickly. I want so to see how the flowers are looking--but wait--" for an idea had come into Heidi's head. She ran and picked a bunch or two of green leaves, and then took hold of Snowflake and led her up to Clara.

"There, now you will not be alone," said Heidi, giving the goat a little push to show her she was to lie down near Clara, which the animal quite understood. Heidi threw the leaves into Clara's lap, and the latter told her friend to go at once to look at the flowers as she was quite happy to be left with the goat; she liked this new experience. Heidi ran off, and Clara began to hold out the leaves one by one to Snowflake, who snoozled up to her new friend in a confiding manner and slowly ate the leaves from her hand. It was easy to see that Snowflake enjoyed this peaceful and sheltered way of feeding, for when with the other goats she had much persecution to endure from the larger and stronger ones of the flock. And Clara found a strange new pleasure in sitting all alone like this on the mountain side, her only companion a little goat that looked to her for protection. She suddenly felt a great desire to be her own mistress and to be able to help others, instead of herself being always dependent as she was now. Many thoughts, unknown to her before, came crowding into her mind, and a longing to go on living in the sunshine, and to be doing something that would bring happiness to another, as now she was helping to make the goat happy. An unaccustomed feeling of joy took possession of her, as if everything she had ever known or felt became all at once more beautiful, and she seemed to see all things in a new light, and so strong was the sense of this new beauty and happiness that she threw her arms round the little goat's neck, and exclaimed, "O Snowflake, how delightful it is up here! if only I could stay on for ever with you beside me!"

Heidi had meanwhile reached her field of flowers, and as she caught sight of it she uttered a cry of joy. The whole ground in front of her was a mass of shimmering gold, where the cistus flowers spread their yellow blossoms. Above them waved whole bushes of the deep blue bell-flowers; while the fragrance that arose from the whole sunlit expanse was as if the rarest balsam had been flung over it. The scent, however, came from the small brown flowers, the little round heads of which rose modestly here and there among the yellow blossoms. Heidi stood and gazed and drew in the delicious air. Suddenly she turned round and reached Clara's side out of breath with running and excitement. "Oh, you must come," she called out as soon as she came in sight, "it is more beautiful than you can imagine, and perhaps this evening it may not be so lovely. I believe I could carry you, don't you think I could?" Clara looked at her and shook her head. "Why, Heidi, what can you be thinking of! you are smaller than I am. Oh, if only I could walk!"

Heidi looked round as if in search of something, some new idea had evidently come into her head. Peter was sitting up above looking down on the two children. He had been sitting and staring before him in the same way for hours, as if he could not make out what he saw. He had destroyed the chair so that the friend might not be able to move anywhere and that her visit might come to an end, and then a little while after she had appeared right up here under his very nose with Heidi beside her. He thought his eyes must deceive him, and yet there she was and no mistake about it.

Heidi now looked up to where he was sitting and called out in a peremptory voice, "Peter, come down here!"

"I don't wish to come," he called in reply.

"But you are to, you must; I cannot do it alone, and you must come here and help me; make haste and come down," she called again in an urgent voice.

"I shall do nothing of the kind," was the answer.

Heidi ran some way up the slope towards him, and then pausing called again, her eyes ablaze with anger, "If you don't come at once, Peter, I will do something to you that you won't like; I mean what I say."

Peter felt an inward throe at these words, and a great fear seized him. He had done something wicked which he wanted no one to know about, and so far he had thought himself safe. But now Heidi spoke exactly as if she knew everything, and whatever she did know she would tell her grandfather, and there was no one he feared so much as this latter person. Supposing he were to suspect what had happened about the chair! Peter's anguish of mind grew more acute. He stood up and went down to where Heidi was awaiting him.

"I am coming and you won't do what you said."

Peter appeared now so submissive with fear that Heidi felt quite sorry for him and answered assuringly, "No, no, of course not; come along with me, there is nothing to be afraid of in what I want you to do."

As soon as they got to Clara, Heidi gave her orders: Peter was to take hold of her under the arms on one side and she on the other, and together they were to lift her up. This first movement was successfully carried through, but then came the difficulty. As Clara could not even stand, how were they to support her and get her along? Heidi was too small for her arm to serve Clara to lean upon.

"You must put one arm well around my neck so, and put the other through Peter's and lean firmly upon it, then we shall be able to carry you."

Peter, however, had never given his arm to any one in his life. Clara put hers in his, but he kept his own hanging down straight beside him like a stick.

"That's not the way, Peter," said Heidi in an authoritative voice. "You must put your arm out in the shape of a ring, and Clara must put hers through it and lean her weight upon you, and whatever you do, don't let your arm give way; like that. I am sure we shall be able to manage."

Peter did as he was told, but still they did not get on very well. Clara was not such a light weight, and the team did not match very well in size; it was up one side and down the other, so that the supports were rather wobbly.

Clara tried to use her own feet a little, but each time drew them quickly back.

"Put your foot down firmly once," suggested Heidi, "I am sure it will hurt you less after that."

"Do you think so?" said Clara hesitatingly, but she followed Heidi's advice and ventured one firm step on the ground and then another; she called out a little as she did it; then she lifted her foot again and went on, "Oh, that was less painful already," she exclaimed joyfully.

"Try again," said Heidi encouragingly.

And Clara went on putting one foot out after another until all at once she called out, "I can do it, Heidi! look! look! I can make proper steps!" And Heidi cried out with even greater delight, "Can you really make steps, can you really walk? really walk by yourself? Oh, if only grandfather were here!" and she continued gleefully to exclaim, "You can walk now, Clara, you can walk!"

Clara still held on firmly to her supports, but with every step she felt safer on her feet, as all three became aware, and Heidi was beside herself with joy.

"Now we shall be able to come up here together every day, and go just where we like; and you will be able all your life to walk about as I do, and not have to be pushed in a chair, and you will get quite strong and well. It is the greatest happiness we could have had!"

And Clara heartily agreed, for she could think of no greater joy in the world than to be strong and able to go about like other people, and no longer to have to lie from day to day in her invalid chair.

They had not far to go to reach the field of flowers, and could already catch sight of the cistus flowers glowing gold in the sun. As they came to the bushes of the blue bell flowers, with sunny, inviting patches of warm ground between them, Clara said, "Mightn't we sit down here for a while?"

This was just what Heidi enjoyed, and so the children sat down in the midst of the flowers, Clara for the first time on the dry, warm mountain grass, and she found it indescribably delightful. Around her were the blue flowers softly waving to and fro, and beyond the gleaming patches of the cistus flowers and the red centaury, while the sweet scent of the brown blossoms and of the fragrant prunella enveloped her as she sat. Everything was so lovely! so lovely! And Heidi, who was beside her, thought she had never seen it so perfectly beautiful up here before, and she did not know herself why she felt so glad at heart that she longed to shout for joy. Then she suddenly remembered that Clara was cured; that was the crowning delight of all that made life so delightful in the midst of all this surrounding beauty. Clara sat silent, overcome with the enchantment of all that her eye rested upon, and with the anticipation of all the happiness that was now before her. There seemed hardly room in her heart for all her joyful emotions, and these and the ecstasy aroused by the sunlight and the scent of the flowers, held her dumb.

Peter also lay among the flowers without moving or speaking, for he was fast asleep. The breeze came blowing softly and caressingly from behind the sheltering rocks, and passed whisperingly through the bushes overhead. Heidi got up now and then to run about, for the flowers waving in the warm wind seemed to smell sweeter and to grow more thickly whichever way she went, and she felt she must sit down at each fresh spot to enjoy the sight and scent. So the hours went by.

It was long past noon when a small troop of goats advanced solemnly towards the plain of flowers. It was not a feeding place of theirs, for they did not care to graze on flowers. They looked like an embassy arriving, with Greenfinch as their leader. They had evidently come in search of their companions who had left them in the lurch, and who had, contrary to all custom, remained away so long, for the goats could tell the time without mistake. As soon as Greenfinch caught sight of the three missing friends amid the flowers she set up an extra loud bleat, whereupon all the others joined in a chorus of bleats, and the whole company came trotting towards the children. Peter woke up, rubbing his eyes, for he had been dreaming that he saw the chair again with its beautiful red padding standing whole and uninjured before the grandfather's door, and indeed just as he awoke he thought he was looking at the brass-headed nails that studded it all round, but it was only the bright yellow flowers beside him. He experienced again a dreadful fear of mind that he had lost in this dream of the uninjured chair. Even though Heidi had promised not to do anything, there still remained the lively dread that his deed might be found out in some other way. He allowed Heidi to do what she liked with him, for he was reduced to such a state of low spirits and meekness that he was ready to give his help to Clara without murmur or resistance.

When all three had got back to their old quarters Heidi ran and brought forward the bag, and proceeded to fulfil her promise, for her threat of the morning had been concerned with Peter's dinner. She had seen her grandfather putting in all sorts of good things, and had been pleased to think of Peter having a large share of them, and she had meant him to understand when he refused at first to help her that he would get nothing for his dinner, but Peter's conscience had put another interpretation upon her words. Heidi took the food out of the bag and divided it into three portions, and each was of such a goodly size that she thought to herself, "There will be plenty of ours left for him to have more still."

She gave the other two their dinners and sat down with her own beside Clara, and they all three ate with a good appetite after their great exertions.

It ended as Heidi had expected, and Peter got as much food again as his own share with what Clara and Heidi had over from theirs after they had both eaten as much as they wanted. Peter ate up every bit of food to the last crumb, but there was something wanting to his usual enjoyment of a good dinner, for every mouthful he swallowed seemed to choke him, and he felt something gnawing inside him.

They were so late at their dinner that they had not long to wait after they had finished before grandfather came up to fetch them. Heidi rushed forward to meet him as soon as he appeared, as she wanted to be the first to tell him the good news. She was so excited that she could hardly get her words out when she did get up to him, but he soon understood, and a look of extreme pleasure came into his face. He hastened up to where Clara was sitting and said with a cheerful smile, "So we've made the effort, have we, and won the day!"

Then he lifted her up, and putting his left arm behind her and giving her his right to lean upon, made her walk a little way, which she did with less trembling and hesitation than before now that she had such a strong arm round her.

Heidi skipped along beside her in triumphant glee, and the grandfather looked too as if some happiness had befallen him. But now he took Clara up in his arms. "We must not overdo it," he said, "and it is high time we went home," and he started off down the mountain path, for he was anxious to get her indoors that she might rest after her unusual fatigue.

When Peter got to Dorfli that evening he found a large group of people collected round a certain spot, pushing one another and looking over each other's shoulders in their eagerness to catch sight of something lying on the ground. Peter thought he should like to see too, and poked and elbowed till he made his way through.

There it lay, the thing he had wanted to see. Scattered about the grass were the remains of Clara's chair; part of the back and the middle bit, and enough of the red padding and the bright nails to show how magnificent the chair had been when it was entire.

"I was here when the men passed carrying it up," said the baker who was standing near Peter. "I'll bet any one that it was worth twenty-five pounds at least. I cannot think how such an accident could have happened."

"Uncle said the wind might perhaps have done it," remarked one of the women, who could not sufficiently admire the red upholstery.

"It's a good job that no one but the wind did it," said the baker again, "or he might smart for it! No doubt the gentleman in Frankfurt when he hears what has happened will make all inquiries about it. I am glad for myself that I have not been seen up the mountain for a good two years, as suspicion is likely to fall on any one who was about up there at the time."

Many more opinions were passed on the matter, but Peter had heard enough. He crept quietly away out of the crowd and then took to his heels and ran up home as fast as he could, as if he thought some one was after him. The baker's words had filled him with fear and trembling. He was sure now that any day a constable might come over from Frankfurt and inquire about the destruction of the chair, and then everything would come out, and he would be seized and carried off to Frankfurt and there put in prison. The whole picture of what was coming was clear before him, and his hair stood on end with terror.

He reached home in this disturbed state of mind. He would not open his mouth in reply to anything that was said to him; he would not eat his potatoes; all he did was to creep off to bed as quickly as possible and hide under the bedclothes and groan.

"Peter has been eating sorrel again, and is evidently in pain by the way he is groaning," said Brigitta.

"You must give him a little more bread to take with him; give him a bit of mine to-morrow," said the grandmother sympathisingly.

As the children lay that night in bed looking out at the stars Heidi said, "I have been thinking all day what a happy thing it is that God does not give us what we ask for, even when we pray and pray and pray, if He knows there is something better for us; have you felt like that?"

"Why do you ask me that to-night all of a sudden?" asked Clara.

"Because I prayed so hard when I was in Frankfurt that I might go home at once, and because I was not allowed to I thought God had forgotten me. And now you see, if I had come away at first when I wanted to, you would never have come here, and would never have got well."

Clara had in her turn become thoughtful. "But, Heidi," she began again, "in that case we ought never to pray for anything, as God always intends something better for us than we know or wish for."

"You must not think it is like that, Clara," replied Heidi eagerly. "We must go on praying for everything, for everything, so that God may know we do not forget that it all comes from Him. If we forget God, then He lets us go our own way and we get into trouble; grandmamma told me so. And if He does not give us what we ask for we must not think that He has not heard us and leave off praying, but we must still pray and say, I am sure, dear God, that Thou art keeping something better for me, and I will not be unhappy, for I know that Thou wilt make everything right in the end."

"How did you learn all that?" asked Clara.

"Grandmamma explained it to me first of all, and then when it all happened just as she said, I knew it myself, and I think, Clara," she went on, as she sat up in bed, "we ought certainly to thank God to-night that you can walk now, and that He has made us so happy."

"Yes, Heidi, I am sure you are right, and I am glad you reminded me; I almost forgot my prayers for very joy."

Both children said their prayers, and each thanked God in her own way for the blessing He had bestowed on Clara, who had for so long lain weak and ill.

The next morning the grandfather suggested that they should now write to the grandmamma and ask her if she would not come and pay them a visit, as they had something new to show her. But the children had another plan in their heads, for they wanted to prepare a great surprise for grandmamma. Clara was first to have more practice in walking so that she might be able to go a little way by herself; above all things grandmamma was not to have a hint of it. They asked the grandfather how long he thought this would take, and when he told them about a week or less, they immediately sat down and wrote a pressing invitation to grandmamma, asking her to come soon, but no word was said about there being anything new to see.

The following days were some of the most joyous that Clara had spent on the mountain. She awoke each morning with a happy voice within her crying, "I am well now! I am well now! I shan't have to go about in a chair, I can walk by myself like other people."

Then came the walking, and every day she found it easier and was able to go a longer distance. The movement gave her such an appetite that the grandfather cut his bread and butter a little thicker each day, and was well pleased to see it disappear. He now brought out with it a large jugful of the foaming milk and filled her little bowl over and over again. And so another week went by and the day came which was to bring grandmamma up the mountain for her second visit.

Chapter XXIII: "Good-bye Till We Meet Again"

Grandmamma wrote the day before her arrival to let the children know that they might expect her without fail. Peter brought up the letter early the following morning. Grandfather and the children were already outside and the goats were awaiting him, shaking their heads frolicsomely in the fresh morning air, while the children stroked them and wished them a pleasant journey up the mountain. Uncle stood near, looking now at the fresh faces of the children, now at his well-kept goats, with a smile on his face, evidently well pleased with the sight of both.

As Peter neared the group his steps slackened, and the instant he had handed the letter to Uncle he turned quickly away as if frightened, and as he went he gave a hasty glance behind him, as if the thing he feared was pursuing him, and then he gave a leap and ran off up the mountain.

"Grandfather," said Heidi, who had been watching him with astonished eyes, "why does Peter always behave now like the Great Turk when he thinks somebody is after him with a stick; he turns and shakes his head and goes off with a bound just like that?"

"Perhaps Peter fancies he sees the stick which he so well deserves coming after him," answered grandfather.

Peter ran up the first slope without a pause; when he was well out of sight, however, he stood still and looked suspiciously about him. Suddenly he gave a jump and looked behind him with a terrified expression, as if some one had caught hold of him by the nape of the neck; for Peter expected every minute that the police-constable from Frankfurt would leap out upon him from behind some bush or hedge. The longer his suspense lasted, the more frightened and miserable he became; he did not know a moment's peace.

Heidi now set about tidying the hut, as grandmamma must find everything clean and in good order when she arrived.

Clara looked on amused and interested to watch the busy Heidi at her work.

So the morning soon went by, and grandmamma might now be expected at any minute. The children dressed themselves and went and sat together outside on the seat ready to receive her.

Grandfather joined them, that they might see the splendid bunch of blue gentians which he had been up the mountain to gather, and the children exclaimed with delight at the beauty of the flowers as they shone in the morning sun. The grandfather then carried them indoors. Heidi jumped up from time to time to see if there was any sign of grandmamma's approach.

At last she saw the procession winding up the mountain just in the order she had expected. First there was the guide, then the white horse with grandmamma mounted upon it, and last of all the porter with a heavy bundle on his back, for grandmamma would not think of going up the mountain without a full supply of wraps and rugs.

Nearer and nearer wound the procession; at last it reached the top and grandmamma was there looking down on the children from her horse. She no sooner saw them, however, sitting side by side, than she began quickly dismounting, as she cried out in a shocked tone of voice, "Why is this? why are you not lying in your chair, Clara? What are you all thinking about?" But even before she had got close to them she threw up her hands in astonishment, exclaiming further, "Is it really you, dear child? Why, your cheeks have grown quite round and rosy! I should hardly have known you again!" And she was hastening forward to embrace her, when Heidi slipped down from the seat, and Clara leaning on her shoulder, the two children began walking along quite coolly and naturally. Then indeed grandmamma was surprised, or rather alarmed, for she thought at first that it must be some unheard- of proceeding of Heidi's devising.

But no--Clara was actually walking steadily and uprightly beside Heidi--and now the two children turned and came towards her with beaming faces and rosy cheeks. Laughing and crying she ran to them and embraced first Clara and then Heidi, and then Clara again, unable to speak for joy. All at once she caught sight of Uncle standing by the seat and looking on smiling at the meeting. She took Clara's arm in hers, and with continual expressions of delight at the fact that the child could now really walk about with her, she went up to the old man, and then letting go Clara's arm she seized his hands.

"My dear Uncle! my dear Uncle! how much we have to thank you for! It is all your doing! it is your caring and nursing----"

"And God's good sun and mountain air," he interrupted her, smiling.

"Yes, and don't forget the beautiful milk I have," put in Clara. "Grandmamma, you can't think what a quantity of goat's milk I drink, and how nice it is!"

"I can see that by your cheeks, child," answered grandmamma. "I really should not have known you; you have grown quite strong and plump, and taller too; I never hoped or expected to see you look like that. I cannot take my eyes off you, for I can hardly yet believe it. But now I must telegraph without delay to my son in Paris, and tell him he must come here at once. I shall not say why; it will be the greatest happiness he has ever known. My dear Uncle, how can I send a telegram; have you dismissed the men yet?"

"They have gone," he answered, "but if you are in a hurry I will fetch Peter, and he can take it for you."

Grandmamma thanked him, for she was anxious that the good news should not be kept from her son a day longer than was possible.

So Uncle went aside a little way and blew such a resounding whistle through his fingers that he awoke a responsive echo among the rocks far overhead. He had not to wait many minutes before Peter came running down in answer, for he knew the sound of Uncle's whistle. Peter arrived, looking as white as a ghost, for he quite thought Uncle was sending for him to give him up. But as it was he only had a written paper given him with instructions to take it down at once to the post-office at Dorfli; Uncle would settle for the payment later, as it was not safe to give Peter too much to look after.

Peter went off with the paper in his hand, feeling some relief of mind for the present, for as Uncle had not whistled for him in order to give him up it was evident that no policeman had yet arrived.

So now they could all sit down in peace to their dinner round the table in front of the hut, and grandmamma was given a detailed account of all that had taken place. How grandfather had made Clara try first to stand and then to move her feet a little every day, and how they had settled for the day's excursion up the mountain and the chair had been blown away. How Clara's desire to see the flowers had induced her to take the first walk, and so by degrees one thing had led to another. The recital took some time, for grandmamma continually interrupted it with fresh exclamations of surprise and thankfulness: "It hardly seems possible! I can scarcely believe it is not all a dream! Are we really awake, and are all sitting here by the mountain hut, and is that round-faced, healthy-looking child my poor little, white, sickly Clara?"

And Clara and Heidi could not get over their delight at the success of the surprise they had so carefully arranged for grandmamma and at the latter's continued astonishment.

Meanwhile Herr Sesemann, who had finished his business in Paris, had also been preparing a surprise. Without saying a word to his mother he got into the train one sunny morning and travelled that day to Basle; the next morning he continued his journey, for a great longing had seized him to see his little daughter from whom he had been separated the whole summer. He arrived at Ragatz a few hours after his mother had left. When he heard that she had that very day started for the mountain, he immediately hired a carriage and drove off to Mayenfeld; here he found that he could if he liked drive on as far as Dorfli, which he did, as he thought the walk up from that place would be as long as he cared for.

Herr Sesemann found he was right, for the climb up the mountain, as it was, proved long and fatiguing to him. He went on and on, but still no hut came in sight, and yet he knew there was one where Peter lived half way up, for the path had been described to him over and over again.

There were traces of climbers to be seen on all sides; the narrow footpaths seemed to run in every direction, and Herr Sesemann began to wonder if he was on the right one, and whether the hut lay perhaps on the other side of the mountain. He looked round to see if any one was in sight of whom he could ask the way; but far and wide there was not a soul to be seen or a sound to be heard. Only at moments the mountain wind whistled through the air, and the insects hummed in the sunshine or a happy bird sang out from the branches of a solitary larch tree. Herr Sesemann stood still for a while to let the cool Alpine wind blow on his hot face. But now some one came running down the mountain- side--it was Peter with the telegram in his hand. He ran straight down the steep slope, not following the path on which Herr Sesemann was standing. As soon as the latter caught sight of him he beckoned to him to come. Peter advanced towards him slowly and timidly, with a sort of sidelong movement, as if he could only move one leg properly and had to drag the other after him. "Hurry up, lad," called Herr Sesemann, and when Peter was near enough, "Tell me," he said, "is this the way to the hut where the old man and the child Heidi live, and where the visitors from Frankfurt are staying?"

A low sound of fear was the only answer he received, as Peter turned to run away in such precipitous haste that he fell head over heels several times, and went rolling and bumping down the slope in involuntary bounds, just in the same way as the chair, only that Peter fortunately did not fall to pieces as that had done. Only the telegram came to grief, and that was torn into fragments and flew away.

"How extraordinarily timid these mountain dwellers are!" thought Herr Sesemann to himself, for he quite believed that it was the sight of a stranger that had made such an impression on this unsophisticated child of the mountains.

After watching Peter's violent descent towards the valley for a few minutes he continued his journey.

Peter, meanwhile, with all his efforts, could not stop himself, but went rolling on, and still tumbling head over heels at intervals in a most remarkable manner.

But this was not the most terrible part of his sufferings at the moment, for far worse was the fear and horror that possessed him, feeling sure, as he did now, that the policeman had really come over for him from Frankfurt. He had no doubt at all that the stranger who had asked him the way was the very man himself. Just as he had rolled to the edge of that last high slope above Dorfli he was caught in a bush, and at last able to keep himself from falling any farther. He lay still for a second or two to recover himself, and to think over matters.

"Well done! another of you come bumping along like this!" said a voice close to Peter, "and which of you to-morrow is the wind going to send rolling down like a badly-sewn sack of potatoes?" It was the baker, who stood there laughing. He had been strolling out to refresh himself after his hot day's work, and had watched with amusement as he saw Peter come rolling over and over in much the same way as the chair.

Peter was on his feet in a moment. He had received a fresh shock. Without once looking behind him he began hurrying up the slope again. He would have liked best to go home and creep into bed, so as to hide himself, for he felt safest when there. But he had left the goats up above, and Uncle had given him strict injunctions to make haste back so that they might not be left too long alone. And he stood more in awe of Uncle than any one, and would not have dared to disobey him on any account. There was no help for it, he had to go back, and Peter went on groaning and limping. He could run no more, for the anguish of mind he had been through, and the bumping and shaking he had received, were beginning to tell upon him. And so with lagging steps and groans he slowly made his way up the mountain.

Shortly after meeting Peter, Herr Sesemann passed the first hut, and so was satisfied that he was on the right path. He continued his climb with renewed courage, and at last, after a long and exhausting walk, he came in sight of his goal. There, only a little distance farther up, stood the grandfather's home, with the dark tops of the fir trees waving above its roof.

Herr Sesemann was delighted to have come to the last steep bit of his journey, in another minute or two he would be with his little daughter, and he pleased himself with the thought of her surprise. But the company above had seen his approaching figure and recognized who it was, and they were preparing something he little expected as a surprise on their part.

As he stepped on to the space in front of the hut two figures came towards him. One a tall girl with fair hair and pink cheeks, leaning on Heidi, whose dark eyes were dancing with joy. Herr Sesemann suddenly stopped, staring at the two children, and all at once the tears started to his eyes. What memories arose in his heart! Just so had Clara's mother looked, the fair-haired girl with the delicate pink- and-white complexion. Herr Sesemann did not know if he was awake or dreaming.

"Don't you know me, papa?" called Clara to him, her face beaming with happiness. "Am I so altered since you saw me?"

Then Herr Sesemann ran to his child and clasped her in his arms.

"Yes, you are indeed altered! How is it possible? Is it true what I see?" And the delighted father stepped back to look full at her again, and to make sure that the picture would not vanish before his eyes.

"Are you my little Clara, really my little Clara?" he kept on saying, then he clasped her in his arms again, and again put her away from him that he might look and make sure it was she who stood before him.

And now grandmamma came up, anxious for a sight of her son's happy face.

"Well, what do you say now, dear son?" she exclaimed. "You have given us a pleasant surprise, but it is nothing in comparison to what we have prepared for you, you must confess," and she gave her son an affectionate kiss as she spoke. "But now," she went on, "you must come and pay your respects to Uncle, who is our chief benefactor."

"Yes, indeed, and with the little inmate of our own house, our little Heidi, too," said Herr Sesemann, shaking Heidi by the hand. "Well? are you still well and happy in your mountain home? but I need not ask, no Alpine rose could look more blooming. I am glad, child, it is a pleasure to me to see you so."

And Heidi looked up with equal pleasure into Herr Sesemann's kind face. How good he had always been to her! And that he should find such happiness awaiting him up here on the mountain made her heart beat with gladness.

Grandmamma now led her son to introduce him to Uncle, and while the two men were shaking hands and Herr Sesemann was expressing his heartfelt thanks and boundless astonishment to the old man, grandmamma wandered round to the back to see the old fir trees again.

Here another unexpected sight met her gaze, for there, under the trees where the long branches had left a clear space on the ground, stood a great bush of the most wonderful dark blue gentians, as fresh and shining as if they were growing on the spot. She clasped her hands, enraptured with their beauty.

"How exquisite! what a lovely sight!" she exclaimed. "Heidi, dearest child, come here! Is it you who have prepared this pleasure for me? It is perfectly wonderful!"

The children ran up.

"No, no, I did not put them there," said Heidi, "but I know who did."

"They grow just like that on the mountain, grandmamma, only if anything they look more beautiful still," Clara put in; "but guess who brought those down to-day," and as she spoke she gave such a pleased smile that the grandmother thought for a moment the child herself must have gathered them. But that was hardly possible.

At this moment a slight rustling was heard behind the fir trees. It was Peter, who had just arrived. He had made a long round, having seen from the distance who it was standing beside Uncle in front of the hut, and he was trying to slip by unobserved. But grandmamma had seen and recognized him, and suddenly the thought struck her that it might be Peter who had brought the flowers and that he was now trying to get away unseen, feeling shy about it; but she could not let him go off like that, he must have some little reward.

"Come along, boy; come here, do not be afraid," she called to him.

Peter stood still, petrified with fear. After all he had gone through that day he felt he had no longer any power of resistance left. All he could think was, "It's all up with me now." Every hair of his head stood on end, and he stepped forth from behind the fir trees, his face pale and distorted with terror.

"Courage, boy," said grandmamma in her effort to dispel his shyness, "tell me now straight out without hesitation, was it you who did it?"

Peter did not lift his eyes and therefore did not see at what grandmamma was pointing. But he knew that Uncle was standing at the corner of the hut, fixing him with his grey eyes, while beside him stood the most terrible person that Peter could conceive --the police-constable from Frankfurt. Quaking in every limb, and with trembling lips he muttered a low, "Yes."

"Well, and what is there dreadful about that? said grandmamma.

"Because--because--it is all broken to pieces and no one can put it together again." Peter brought out his words with difficulty, and his knees knocked together so that he could hardly stand.

Grandmamma went up to Uncle. "Is that poor boy a little out of his mind?" she asked sympathisingly.

"Not in, the least," Uncle assured her, "it is only that he was the wind that sent the chair rolling down the slope, and he is expecting his well-deserved punishment."

Grandmamma found this hard to believe, for in her opinion Peter did not look an entirely bad boy, nor could he have any reason for destroying such a necessary thing as the chair. But Uncle had only given expression to the suspicion that he had from the moment the accident happened. The angry looks which Peter had from the beginning cast at Clara, and the other signs of his dislike to what had been taking place on the mountain, had not escaped Uncle's eye. Putting two and two together he had come to the right conclusion as to the cause of the disaster, and he therefore spoke without hesitation when he accused Peter. The lady broke into lively expostulations on hearing this.

"No, no, dear Uncle, we will not punish the poor boy any further. One must be fair to him. Here are all these strangers from Frankfurt who come and carry away Heidi, his one sole possession, and a possession well worth having too, and he is left to sit alone day after day for weeks, with nothing to do but brood over his wrongs. No, no, let us be fair to him; his anger got the upper hand and drove him an act of revenge--a foolish one, I own, but then we all behave foolishly when we are angry." And saying this she went back to Peter, who still stood frightened and trembling. She sat down on the seat under the fir trees and called him to her kindly,--

"Come here, boy, and stand in front of me, for I have something to say to you. Leave off shaking and trembling, for I want you to listen to me. You sent the chair rolling down the mountain so that it was broken to pieces. That was a very wrong thing to do, as you yourself knew very well at the time, and you also knew that you deserved to be punished for it, and in order to escape this you have been doing all you can to hide the truth from everybody. But be sure of this, Peter: that those who do wrong make a mistake when they think no one knows anything about it. For God sees and hears everything, and when the wicked doer tries to hide what he has done, then God wakes up a little watchman that He places inside us all when we are born and who sleeps on quietly till we do something wrong. And the little watchman has a small goad in his hand, And when he wakes up he keeps on pricking us with it, so that we have not a moment's peace. And the watchman torments us still further, for he keeps on calling out, 'Now you will be found out! Now they will drag you off to punishment!' And so we pass our life in fear and trouble, and never know a moment's happiness or peace. Have you not felt something like that lately, Peter?"

Peter gave a contrite nod of the head, as one who knew all about it, for grandmamma had described his own feelings exactly.

"And you calculated wrongly also in another way," continued grandmamma, "for you see the harm you intended has turned out for the best for those you wished to hurt. As Clara had no chair to go in and yet wanted so much to see the flowers, she made the effort to walk, and every day since she has been walking better and better, and if she remains up here she will in time be able to go up the mountain every day, much oftener than she would have done in her chair. So you see, Peter, God is able to bring good out of evil for those whom you meant to injure, and you who did the evil were left to suffer the unhappy consequences of it. Do you thoroughly understand all I have said to you, Peter? If so, do not forget my words, and whenever you feel inclined to do anything wrong, think of the little watchman inside you with his goad and his disagreeable voice. Will you remember all this?"

"Yes, I will," answered Peter, still very subdued, for he did not yet know how the matter was going to end, as the police constable was still standing with the Uncle.

"That's right, and now the thing is over and done for," said grandmamma. "But I should like you to have something for a pleasant reminder of the visitors from Frankfurt. Can you tell me anything that you have wished very much to have? What would you like best as a present?"

Peter lifted his head at this, and stared open-eyed at grandmamma. Up to the last minute he had been expecting something dreadful to happen, and now he might have anything that he wanted. His mind seemed all of a whirl.

"I mean what I say," went on grandmamma. "You shall choose what you would like to have as a remembrance from the Frankfurt visitors, and as a token that they will not think any more of the wrong thing you did. Now do you understand me, boy?"

The fact began at last to dawn upon Peter's mind that he had no further punishment to fear, and that the kind lady sitting in front of him had delivered him from the police constable. He suddenly felt as if the weight of a mountain had fallen off him. He had also by this time awakened to the further conviction that it was better to make a full confession at once of anything he had done wrong or had left undone, and so he said, "And I lost the paper, too."

Grandmamma had to consider a moment what he meant, but soon recalled his connection with her telegram, and answered kindly,--

"You are a good boy to tell me! Never conceal anything you have done wrong, and then all will come right again. And now what would you like me to give you?"

Peter grew almost giddy with the thought that he could have anything in the world that he wished for. He had a vision of the yearly fair at Mayenfeld with the glittering stalls and all the lovely things that he had stood gazing at for hours, without a hope of ever possessing one of them, for Peter's purse never held more than a halfpenny, and all these fascinating objects cost double that amount. There were the pretty little red whistles that he could use to call his goats, and the splendid knives with rounded handles, known as toad-strikers, with which one could do such famous work among the hazel bushes.

Peter remained pondering; he was trying to think which of these two desirable objects he should best like to have, and he found it difficult to decide. Then a bright thought occurred to him; he would then be able to think over the matter between now and next year's fair.

"A penny," answered Peter, who was no longer in doubt.

Grandmamma could not help laughing. "That is not an extravagant request. Come here then!" and she pulled out her purse and put four bright round shillings in his hand and, then laid some pennies on top of it. "We will settle our accounts at once," she continued, "and I will explain them to you. I have given you as many pennies as there are weeks in the year, and so every Sunday throughout the year you can take out a penny to spend."

"As long as I live?" said Peter quite innocently.

Grandmamma laughed more still at this, and the men hearing her, paused in their talk to listen to what was going on.

"Yes, boy, you shall have it all your life--I will put it down in my will. Do you hear, my son? and you are to put it down in yours as well: a penny a week to Peter as long as he lives."

Herr Sesemann nodded his assent and joined in the laughter.

Peter looked again at the present in his hand to make sure he was not dreaming, and then said, "Thank God!"

And he went off running and leaping with more even than his usual agility, and this time managed to keep his feet, for it was not fear, but joy such as he had never known before in his life, that now sent him flying up the mountain. All trouble and trembling had disappeared, and he was to have a penny every week for life.

As later, after dinner, the party were sitting together chatting, Clara drew her father a little aside, and said with an eagerness that had been unknown to the little tired invalid,--

"O papa, if you only knew all that grandfather has done for me from day to day! I cannot reckon his kindnesses, but I shall never forget them as long as I live! And I keep on thinking what I could do for him, or what present I could make him that would give him half as much pleasure as he has given me."

"That is just what I wish most myself, Clara," replied her father, whose face grew happier each time he looked at his little daughter. "I have been also thinking how we can best show our gratitude to our good benefactor."

Herr Sesemann now went over to where Uncle and grandmamma were engaged in lively conversation. Uncle stood up as he approached, and Herr Sesemann, taking him by the hand said,--

"Dear friend, let us exchange a few words with one another. You will believe me when I tell you that I have known no real happiness for years past. What worth to me were money and property when they were unable to make my poor child well and happy? With the help of God you have made her whole and strong, and you have given new life not only to her but to me. Tell me now, in what way can I show my gratitude to you? I can never repay all you have done, but whatever is in my power to do is at your service. Speak, friend, and tell me what I can do?"

Uncle had listened to him quietly, with a smile of pleasure on his face as he looked at the happy father.

"Herr Sesemann," he replied in his dignified way, "believe me that I too have my share in the joy of your daughter's recovery, and my trouble is well repaid by it. I thank you heartily for all you have said, but I have need of nothing; I have enough for myself and the child as long as I live. One wish alone I have, and if that could be satisfied I should have no further care in life."

"Speak, dear friend, and tell me what it is," said Herr Sesemann entreatingly.

"I am growing old," Uncle went on, "and shall not be here much longer. I have nothing to leave the child when I die, and she has no relations, except one person who will always like to make what profit out of her she can. If you could promise me that Heidi shall never have to go and earn her living among strangers, then you would richly reward me for all I have done for your child."

"There could never be any question of such a thing as that, my dear friend," said Herr Sesemann quickly. "I look upon the child as our own. Ask my mother, my daughter; you may be sure that they will never allow the child to be left in any one else's care! But if it will make you happier I give you here my hand upon it. I promise you: Heidi shall never have to go and earn her living among strangers; I will make provision against this both during my life and after. But now I have something else to say. Independent of her circumstances, the child is totally unfitted to live a life away from home; we found out that when she was with us. But she has made friends, and among them I know one who is at this moment in Frankfurt; he is winding up his affairs there, that he may be free to go where he likes and take his rest. I am speaking of my friend, the doctor, who came over here in the autumn and who, having well considered your advice, intends to settle in this neighborhood, for he has never felt so well and happy anywhere as in the company of you and Heidi. So you see the child will henceforth have two protectors near her-- and may they both live long to share the task!"

"God grant it indeed may be so!" added grandmamma, shaking Uncle's hand warmly as she spoke, to show how sincerely she echoed her son's wish. Then putting her arm round Heidi, who was standing near, she drew the child to her.

"And I have a question to ask you too, dear Heidi. Tell me if there is anything you particularly wish for."

"Yes, there is," answered Heidi promptly, looking up delightedly at grandmamma.

"Then tell me at once, dear, what it is."

"I want to have the bed I slept in at Frankfurt with the high pillows and the thick coverlid, and then grandmother will not have to lie with her head down hill and hardly able to breathe, and she will be warm enough under the coverlid not to have to wear her shawl in bed to prevent her freezing to death."

In her eagerness to obtain what she had set her heart upon Heidi hardly gave herself time to get out all she had to say, and did not pause for breath till she reached the end of her sentence.

"Dearest child," answered grandmamma, moved by Heidi's speech, "what is this you tell me of grandmother! You are right to remind me. In the midst of our own happiness we forget too often that which we ought to remember before all things. When God has shown us some special mercy we should think at once of those who are denied so many things. I will telegraph to Frankfurt at once! Fraulein Rottenmeier shall pack up the bed this very day, and it will be here in two days' time. God willing, grandmother shall soon be sleeping comfortably upon it."

Heidi skipped round grandmamma in her glee, and then stopping all of a sudden, said quickly, "I must make haste down and tell grandmother, and she will be in trouble too at my not having been to see her for such a long time." For she felt she could not wait another moment before carrying the good news down to grandmother, and, moreover, the recollection came to her of the distress the old woman was in when she last saw her.

"No, no, Heidi, what can you be thinking of," said her grandfather reprovingly. "You can't be running backwards and forwards like that when you have visitors."

But grandmamma interfered on Heidi's behalf. "The child is not so far wrong, Uncle," she said, "and poor grandmother has too long been deprived of Heidi for our sakes. Let us all go down to her together. I believe my horse is waiting for me and I can ride down from there, and as soon as I get to Dorfli the message shall be sent off. What do you think of my plan, son?"

Herr Sesemann had not yet had time to speak of his travelling plans, so he begged his mother to wait a few moments that he might tell her what he proposed doing.

Herr Sesemann had been arranging that he and his mother should make a little tour in Switzerland, first ascertaining if Clara was in a fit state to go some part of the way with them. But now he would have the full enjoyment of his daughter's company, and that being so he did not want to miss any of these beautiful days of later summer, but to start at once on the journey that he now looked forward to with such additional pleasure. And so he proposed that they should spend the night in Dorfli and that next day he should come and fetch Clara, then they would all three go down to Ragatz and make that their starting point.

Clara was rather upset at first at the thought of saying good- bye like this to the mountain; she could not help being pleased, however, at the prospect of the journey, and no time was allowed her to give way to lamentation.

Grandmamma had already taken Heidi by the hand, preparatory to leading the way, when she suddenly turned. "But what is to become of Clara?" she asked, remembering all at once that the child could not yet take so long a walk. She gave a nod of satisfaction as she saw that Uncle had already taken Clara up in his arms and was following her with sturdy strides. Herr Sesemann brought up the rear, and so they all started down the mountain.

Heidi kept jumping for joy as she and grandmamma walked along side by side, and grandmamma asked all about grandmother, how she lived, and what she did, especially in the winter when it was so cold. And Heidi gave her a minute account of everything, for she knew all that went on at grandmother's, and told her how grandmother sat crouching in her corner and trembling with cold. She was able to give her exact particulars of what grandmother had and had not to eat. Grandmamma listened with interest and sympathy until they came to Grandmother's. Brigitta was just hanging out Peter's second shirt in the sun, so that he might have it ready to put on when he had worn the other long enough. As soon as she saw the company approaching she rushed indoors.

"The whole party of them are just going past, mother, evidently all returning home again," she informed the old woman. "Uncle is with them, carrying the sick child."

"Alas, is it really to be so then?" sighed the grandmother. "And you saw Heidi with them? Then they are taking her away. If only she could come and put her hand in mine again! If I could but hear her voice once more!"

At this moment the door flew open and Heidi sprang across to the corner and threw her arms round grandmother.

"Grandmother! grandmother! my bed is to be sent from Frankfurt with all the three pillows and the thick coverlid; grandmamma says it will be here in two days." Heidi could not get out her words quickly enough, for she was impatient to see grandmother's great joy at the news. The latter smiled, but said a little sadly,--

"She must indeed be a good kind lady, and I ought to be glad to think she is taking you with her, but I shall not outlive it long."

"What is this I hear? Who has been telling my good grandmother such tales?" exclaimed a kindly voice, and grandmother felt her hand taken and warmly pressed, for grandmamma had followed Heidi in and heard all that was said. "No, no, there is no thought of such a thing! Heidi is going to stay with you and make you happy. We want to see her again, but we shall come to her. We hope to pay a visit to the Alm every year, for we have good cause to offer up especial thanks to God upon this spot where so great a miracle has been wrought upon our child."

And now grandmother's face was lighted up with genuine happiness, and she pressed Frau Sesemann's hand over and over again, unable to speak her thanks, while two large tears of joy rolled down her aged cheeks. And Heidi saw the glad change come over grandmother's face, and she too now was entirely happy.

She clung to the old woman, saying, "Hasn't it all come about, grandmother, just like the hymn I read to you last time? Isn't the bed from Frankfurt sent to make you well?"

"Yes, Heidi, and many, many other good things too, which God has sent me," said the grandmother, deeply moved. "I did not think it possible that there were so many kind people, ready to trouble themselves about a poor old woman and to do so much for her. Nothing strengthens our belief in a kind heavenly Father who never forgets even the least of His creatures so much as to know that there are such people, full of goodness and pity for a poor useless creature such as I am."

"My good grandmother," said Frau Sesemann, interrupting her, "we are all equally poor and helpless in the eyes of God, and all have equal need that He should not forget us. But now we must say good-bye, but only till we meet again, for when we pay our next year's visit to the Alm you will be the first person we shall come and see; meanwhile we shall not forget you." And Frau Sesemann took grandmother's hand again and shook it in farewell.

But grandmother would not let her off even then without more words of gratitude, and without calling down on her benefactress and all belonging to her every blessing that God had to bestow.

At last Herr Sesemann and his mother were able to continue their journey downwards, while Uncle carried Clara back home, with Heidi beside him, so full of joy of what was coming for grandmother that every step was a jump.

But there were many tears shed the following morning by the departing Clara, who wept to say good-bye to the beautiful mountain home where she had been happier than ever in her life before. Heidi did her best to comfort her. "Summer will be here again in no time," she said, "and then you will come again, and it will be nicer still, for you will be able to walk about from the beginning. We can then go out every day with the goats up to where the flowers grow, and enjoy ourselves from the moment you arrive."

Herr Sesemann had come as arranged to fetch his little daughter away, and was just now standing and talking with Uncle, for they had much to say to one another. Clara felt somewhat consoled by Heidi's words, and wiped away her tears.

"Be sure you say good-bye for me to Peter and the goats, and especially to Little Swan. I wish I could give Little Swan a present, for she has helped so much to make me strong."

"Well, you can if you like," replied Heidi, "send her a little salt; you know how she likes to lick some out of grandfather's hand when she comes home at night."

Clara was delighted at this idea. "Oh, then I shall send a hundred pounds of salt from Frankfurt, for I want her to have something as a remembrance of me."

Herr Sesemann now beckoned to the children as it was time to be off. Grandmamma's white horse had been brought up for Clara, as she was no longer obliged to be carried in a chair.

Heidi ran to the far edge of the slope and continued to wave her hand to Clara until the last glimpse of horse and rider had disappeared.

And now the bed has arrived, and grandmother is sleeping so soundly all night that she is sure to grow stronger.

Grandmamma, moreover, has not forgotten how cold the winter is on the mountain. She has sent a large parcel of warm clothing of every description, so that grandmother can wrap herself round and round, and will certainly not tremble with cold now as she sits in her corner.

There is a great deal of building going on at Dorfli. The doctor has arrived, and, for the present, is occupying his old quarters. His friends have advised him to buy the old house that Uncle and Heidi live in during the winter, which had evidently, judging from the height of the rooms and the magnificent stove with its artistically-painted tiles, been a fine gentleman's place at one time. The doctor is having this part of the old house rebuilt for himself, the other part being repaired for Uncle and Heidi, for the doctor is aware that Uncle is a man of independent spirit, who likes to have a house to himself. Quite at the back a warm and well-walled stall is being put up for the two goats, and there they will pass their winter in comfort.

The doctor and Uncle are becoming better friends every day, and as they walk about the new buildings to see how they are getting on, their thoughts continually turn to Heidi, for the chief pleasure to each in connection with the house is that they will have the light-hearted little child with them there.

"Dear friend," said the doctor on one of these occasions as they were standing together, "you will see this matter in the same light as I do, I am sure. I share your happiness in the child as if, next to you, I was the one to whom she most closely belonged, but I wish also to share all responsibilities, concerning her and to do my best for the child. I shall then feel I have my rights in her, and shall look forward to her being with me and caring for me in my old age, which is the one great wish of my heart. She will have the same claims upon me as if she were my own child, and I shall provide for her as such, and so we shall be able to leave her without anxiety when the day comes that you and I must go."

Uncle did not speak, but he clasped the doctor's hand in his, and his good friend could read in the old man's eyes how greatly moved he was and how glad and grateful he felt.

Heidi and Peter were at this moment sitting with grandmother, and the one had so much to relate, and the others to listen to, that they all three got closer and closer to one another, hardly able to breathe in their eagerness not to miss a word.

And how much there was to tell of all the events that had taken place that last summer, for they had not had many opportunities of meeting since then.

And it was difficult to say which of the three looked the happiest at being together again, and at the recollection of all the wonderful things that had happened. Mother Brigitta's face was perhaps the happiest of all, as now, with the help of explanation she was able to understand for the first time the history of Peter's weekly penny for life.

Then at last the grandmother spoke, "Heidi, read me one of the hymns! I can feel I can do nothing for the remainder of my life but thank the Father in Heaven for all the mercies he has shown us!"

Preface

To our Boys and Girls:

Years ago, in a little country called Switzerland, there lived a little girl who was the daughter of a doctor. This doctor sometimes had to climb up high mountains and sometimes he had to descend slowly to the deep valleys, always on horseback, to visit the sick people who had sent for him. Of course there were no telephones, electric lights, steam trains or automobiles, and so often this doctor was away from home for two or three days attending the people who needed his help. His trips took him into little villages where there were only a few hundred poor people who made a scant living from farming and sheep raising, but he knew them so well that he became very fond of them, and he shared their sorrows and joys. When he returned home he would tell his little daughter, who was Johanna Spyri, about what he had seen and heard. She became very much interested in the people whom her father told about, and when she grew up she visited many of the places that he had told her about when she was a child.

It was not until she was quite a grown woman that she wrote any books, but the children of Switzerland and Germany loved her stories so much, that we have decided to translate the story of Erick and Sally for the children of America. The author knew children and loved them, and wrote to them and not for them. Thus, every one who reads this story will follow the sorrows and pleasures of Erick just as if he were a personal living friend.

The translator understands American boys and girls, for she has been a teacher in our schools for many years. She also has an intimate knowledge of the country described in this story for she has often visited the places mentioned. Through her knowledge and love of the country about which Madame Spyri wrote, and speaking her language, the translator, Helene H. Boll, appreciates her thoughts, and has faithfully reproduced them in this absorbing little story.

Chapter I. In the Parsonage of Upper Wood

The sun was shining so brightly through the foremost windows of the old schoolhouse in Upper Wood, that the children of the first and second classes appeared as if covered with gold. They looked at one another, all with beaming faces, partly because the sun made them appear so, and partly for joy; for when the sunshine came through the last window, then the moment approached that the closing word would be spoken, and the children could rush out into the evening sunshine. The teacher was still busy with the illuminated heads of the second class, and indeed with some zeal, for several sentences had still to be completed, before the school could be closed. The teacher was standing before a boy who looked well-fed and quite comfortable, and who was looking up into the teacher's face with eyes as round as two little balls.

"Well, Ritz, hurry, you surely must have thought of something by now. Now then! What can be made useful in a household? Do not forget to mention the three indispensable qualities of the object."

Ritz, the youngest son of the minister, was usually busy thinking of that which had just happened to him. So just now it had come to his mind, how this very morning Auntie had arrived. She was an older sister of his mother and had no home of her own; but made a home with her relatives. She was a frequent visitor at the parsonage for months at a time and would help the mother in governing the household. Ritz remembered especially, that Auntie was particularly inclined to have the children go to bed in good time--and they had to go--and he also remembered that they could not get the extra ten minutes from Mother, for Auntie was always against begging Mother. In fact, Auntie talked so much about going to bed, that Ritz felt the feared command of retiring during the whole day. So his thoughts were occupied with these experiences, and he said after some thinking: "One can make use of an aunt in a household. She must--she must--she must--"

"Well, what must she? That will be something different from a quality," the teacher interrupted the laborious speech of the boy.

"She must not always be reminding that it is time to go to bed," it now came out.

"Ritz," the teacher said now in a severe tone, "is the school the place to joke?"

But Ritz looked at the teacher with such unmistakable fright and astonishment, that the latter saw that it was an honest opinion which Ritz had made use of in his sentence. He therefore changed his mind and said more gently: "Your sentence is unfitting and incorrect, for your three qualities are not there. Do you understand that, Ritz? You will have to make three sentences at home, all alike; but do not forget the different qualities. Have you understood me?"

"Yes, teacher," answered Ritz in deepest dejection, for he already saw himself sitting alone in the evening thinking and thinking and gnawing on his slate pencil, while Sally and Edi could pursue their merry entertainments.

Now the end of school was announced. In a short time the door was opened, and the boys and girls hastened out toward the open place before the schoolhouse, where suddenly all were crowded together like a huge ball, from the midst of which came a tremendous noise and confused shoutings. Something out of the common must have happened.

"In the house of old Marianne"--"a tremendously rich lady"--"a piano, four men could not get it in, the door is too narrow"--"a small boy"--"before we went to school"--It was so confused, nothing could really be understood. Then a voice shouted: "All come along! Perhaps they are not through with it, come, all of you to the Middle Lot!" And suddenly the whole ball separated, and almost the whole crowd ran in the same direction.

Only two boys remained on the playground and looked at each other, quite perplexed. The one was stout little Ritz, who long since had forgotten his great trouble and had listened intently to the exciting, although incomprehensible story. The other was his brother Edi, a slender, tall fellow with a high forehead and serious grey eyes beneath. He was hardly two years older than his brother; but for his not quite nine years, he was tall, and appeared much older than the seven-year-old Ritz.

"We must run home quickly and ask whether we too may go; we must see that, Ritz, so hurry up!" With these words Edi pulled his brother along, and soon they turned round the corner and also disappeared.

Behind the schoolhouse, near the hawthorn hedge, stood the last of the crowd in animated conversation. It was Sally, the ten-year-old sister of the two boys, with her friend Kaetheli, who with great excitement seemed to describe an occurrence.

"But Kaetheli, I do not know the beginning," said Sally. "Just you begin at the beginning, from where you saw everything with your own eyes, will you?"

"Very well, I will, but this time you must pay close attention," said Kaetheli. "You know that the old blind straw-plaiter lived with the little girl Meili at old Marianne's? Well, Meili went to school at Lower Wood. Two weeks ago her father died and Meili had to go to Lower Wood to her uncle. Then Marianne cleaned the bedroom and the sitting-room terribly clean, opened all the windows, and afterwards closed them all again and put on the shutters. She herself lives in the little room above. But this morning everything was open, and yet Marianne had said nothing about it to anyone and all people in Middle Lot were surprised at that. At half-past eleven, just when we were coming out of school, we saw a wagon coming up the hill from Lower Wood, and the horse could hardly pull the load, for there was a large piano on the wagon, a bed, and lots of other things, a table and a little box, and I think that was all. Now the wagon stopped at old Marianne's cottage, and all at once there came out of the cottage old Marianne and a woman, who was quite white in the face, and behind them came a little boy, and no one had seen them come up. Then four men of Middle Lot wanted to carry the piano into the cottage but it would not go through the door because the door was too narrow and the piano too wide. And all who stood around to look said she must be a very rich woman, because she had such a large piano. But no one knew from where she came, and when anyone asked old Marianne she snarled and said: 'I haven't any time.'

"All the people around are surprised that a rich lady should come to old Marianne in the wooden cottage; my father has said long since that the cottage would tumble over one of these days. And Sally! I wish you could see the woman, you too would be surprised that she should make her home there. Just think, she wears a black silk skirt on week-days!"

"And what about the boy, how does he look?" asked Sally, who had followed her friend's story with close attention.

"I had almost forgotten him," continued Kaetheli. "Just think, he wears velvet pants, quite short black velvet pants and a velvet jacket and a cap to match. Just imagine a boy with velvet pants!"

"I should think that would be quite pretty," observed Sally, "but what does he look like otherwise?"

"I have forgotten that, I had to watch the moving of the piano. He is nothing particular to look at."

"Kaetheli, do you know what?" Sally said, "you go home with me. I want to ask whether I may go home with you for a little while. I should like to see that too, and then afterwards we will both go to old Marianne's to call, will you?"

Kaetheli was ready at once to carry out the plan, and the children ran together toward the parsonage.

It was only a little while before, that Edi and Ritz had arrived home panting for breath. In the garden on the bench under the large apple-tree, Mother and Auntie were sitting mending and conversing over the bringing-up of the children; for Auntie knew many a good advice, quite new and not worn out. Now they heard hasty running, and Edi and Ritz came rushing along.

"May we--in the Middle Lot--to the Middle Lot--people have arrived--a wagon and a piano--a terribly rich woman and a--"

Both shouted in confusion, breathlessly and incomprehensibly.

"Now," the aunt cried into the noise, "if you behave like two canary birds who suddenly have become crazy, no human being can understand a word. One is to be silent and the other may talk, or still better both be silent."

But Ritz and Edi could do neither. If Edi began to report, then Ritz had to follow. It always had been so, and to be silent at this moment of excitement, that could not be expected; therefore both began afresh and would no doubt have continued thus for some time if Sally and Kaetheli had not arrived on the scene. They made everything clear in a short time.

But the mother did not like to have her children run to the Middle Lot for the sake of staring at strange people who had arrived there, and to increase the gaping crowd who, no doubt, were standing in front of Marianne's cottage. She did not give the longed-for permission, but she invited Kaetheli to stay at the parsonage and take afternoon coffee with the children and afterwards play in the garden.

That was at least something; Sally and Ritz were satisfied, and they ran at once with Kaetheli into the house. But Edi showed a dissatisfied face, for wherever something strange could be seen or found, he had to be there.

He stood there without saying a word. He was thinking whether he dared to work on his mother to get the desired permission. He feared, however, the auxiliary troops which his aunt would lead into battle to help his mother. But before he had weighed all sides his aunt said: "Well, Edi, have you not yet swallowed the defeat? Isn't there some old Roman, or Egyptian, who also could not always do what he wanted? Just you think that over and you will see that it will help you."

That helped, indeed, for Edi was a great searcher in history, and when he happened in that field, then all other interests were pushed into the background. He at once remembered that he had not finished reading about his old Egyptian, and with a smoothed brow he ran into the house.

The sun had set and it was growing dark among the bushes in the garden, where the children, with red cheeks, were seeking each other and hiding again. All of a sudden there came a loud, penetrating call: "To bed, to bed!" Ritz had just found a fine hiding-place in the henhouse, where he had comfortably settled, secure from being discovered, when this terrible call reached him. It struck him like a thunderbolt. Yes, it took his breath away so that he turned white and hadn't the strength to rise; for, with the call came the remembrance of the three sentences which he had to write: three whole sentences and nine different qualities, and he had forgotten everything, and now all the time had gone and he had to go to bed.

"Where are you, Ritz?" It sounded into his hiding-place. "Come, crawl out. I know you are in there and will be covered with feathers from head to foot."

The aunt stood before the henhouse, and Sally and Kaetheli beside her full of expectation, for they had sought Ritz for a long time in vain. But Auntie had experience in such things. Ritz actually came crawling out of the henhouse and stood now in a lamentable condition before his aunt.

"How you do look! You ought to have been in bed an hour ago, you haven't a drop of blood in your cheeks," the aunt exclaimed. "What is the matter with you, Ritz?"

"Where is Mamma?" asked Ritz in his fright.

"She is upstairs; come, she will put you to bed at once when I have got you finally together. Come, Sally, and you, Kaetheli, go home now."

With these words she took Ritz by the hand, and drew him up the stone steps into the house, and wanted to bring him up the stairs to the bedroom. Then everything was over and no rescue from going to bed at once. Now Ritz stopped his aunt and groaned: "I must--I must--I have to write three sentences for punishment."

"There we have it." But Ritz looked so miserable that Auntie felt great pity for him. "Come in here," she said, and shoved him into the living-room, "and take out your things."

Now she sat down beside him and the whole affair proceeded finely. Not that Auntie formed the sentences, no indeed, she was not going to cheat the teacher; but she knew well what was needed to form a sentence and she pushed and spurred Ritz and brought so many things before him, and reminded him how they looked, that he had his three sentences and his nine qualities together in no time. Now there came a feeling to Ritz that he had not acted right, when he said that an aunt must not always be reminding people, and when now Auntie asked: "Ritz, why had you to write the sentences?" then the feeling grew stronger in him, for he felt that he could not tell the cause of his punishment without making his aunt angry. He stuttered, "I have--I have--the teacher has said, that I made an unfitting sentence."

"Yes, I can imagine that," said Auntie. "Now quickly to bed."

Edi and Ritz slept in the same room and that was the place where the two boys, every evening after the mother had said evening prayer with them, and they were alone, exchanged their deepest thoughts and experiences with one another and talked them over. Ritz had the greatest respect for Edi, for although the latter was only a little older, yet he was already in the fourth class, and he himself was only in the second, and in history Edi knew more than the scholars in the fifth and some in the sixth class. When now the two were well tucked in their beds, Ritz said: "Edi, was it a sin that I said Auntie must not always remind?" Edi thought a bit, such a case had never come to him. After a while he said: "You see, Ritz, it goes thus: if you have done something that is a sin, then you must go at once to Daddy and confess, there is no help for it; but if you do that, then everything comes again in order and you feel happy again, and afterwards you look out not to do the sinful thing again. I can tell you that, Ritz. But if you do not confess, then you are always full of fear when a door is slammed or a letter-carrier unexpectedly brings a letter, then you think at once: 'There now, everything will come out.' And so you are never sure nor safe and you feel a pressure in the chest. But there is another thing that presses so hard that you can think of nothing else, for example, if you have given away a rabbit, you regret it afterwards. But there is a remedy and I have tried it many a time, and it helps. You must think of something dreadful, like a large fire, when everything is burnt up, the fortress and the soldiers in it and all historical books, and--all at once you think everything backwards and you have everything; then you are so glad that you think: what difference does a rabbit make? You still have everything else. Now Ritz, try that and see if it helps you, then you can find out whether everything passes away or whether you have to tell Daddy tomorrow."

"Yes, I will try it," said Ritz somewhat indistinctly, and soon after he took such deep breaths that Edi knew what was going on. He heaved a sigh and said: "Oh, Ritz, you are asleep and I wanted to tell you so much about the old Egyptian."

A little while afterwards the whole peaceful parsonage of Upper Wood lay in deep sleep; only old 'Lizebeth went about the passage calling: "Bs, bs, bs." She wanted to get the old grey cat into the kitchen to catch the mice during the night. 'Lizebeth had been in the parsonage of Upper Wood as long as one could remember, for there had always been a son, and when the time had come, then he had become parson in Upper Wood. First 'Lizebeth had served the grandfather, then the father and now the son, and she had long since elected Edi as the future minister, and intended to look after his house when he should be the master here.

Chapter II. A Call in the Village

The friendly village Upper Wood lay on the top of the hill close by the fir wood; it had a beautiful white church with a high, slender tower. At a distance of three-quarters of an hour's walk, down in the valley, lay Lower Wood, a small community which, however, did not wish to be considered smaller. They had a new schoolhouse and a church of their own, but the church had no tower, only a little red dome. Therefore the people of Upper Wood were a little proud, because their church was much prettier and also because they learned much more in the old schoolhouse in Upper Wood than in the new one of Lower Wood; but that was the children's fault, not the teacher's. In the middle, between the two villages lay a hamlet consisting of a few farms and some small houses of little pretense. It was called the Middle Lot, and its people the Middle Lotters. They had the choice to what church and school they wished to belong, whether to Lower Wood or Upper Wood, and according to their choice they were judged by the people of Upper Wood; for whoever wanted to learn much and be decent, he must, according to the Upper Wooders, strive to belong to them. This was a fixed and general idea of the people on the top of the hill. In the Middle Lot there lived only two families who were generally respected; the Justice of Peace, who was obliged to live there because otherwise he would have to be called there, and that would have been inconvenient. This peace-making man was Kaetheli's father. And the other was old Marianne, who lived in her own house and pulled horse-hair for a living, and never did harm to anyone.

When on the next morning the three children of the parsonage passed Marianne's house on their way to school, Sally said: "It is fun to go to school to-day for the strange boy of yesterday will come too; if we only knew his name. Kaetheli described him to me; he wears velvet pants. Of course he will come to Upper Wood to school."

"Of course," said Edi with a dignified air; "who would think of going to Lower Wood to School?"

"Of course, who would go there to school?" observed Ritz.

Then the three in perfect harmony entered the schoolhouse. But no strange face was to be seen in the whole schoolroom; everything went on in the usual way to the end of the morning. Then everyone hurried away in different directions. Sally was standing there, somewhat undecided; she would like to have heard something new of the strange boy and his mother, for she loved to hear news, and now not even Kaetheli, with whom she talked things over, had been in school. But now she saw Edi soaring along like an arrow into the midst of a crowd of boys, and they all acted so strangely and they shouted so strangely that Sally thought that something particular must be in preparation there, and no doubt concerned the new-comers. Then she could hear something from Edi. She went slowly on and kept on turning round, but Edi did not come, and only after Sally had long since greeted the mother and was about to call her father out of his study for dinner, did the two brothers come running along, their faces red as fire, and breathless, for they had lingered to the last moment. The father was just leaving his study when both rushed toward him and now it began: "We have--the Middle Lotters--with the Lower Wooders--"

"Hush, hush," said the father. "First get your breath, then relate, one after the other; but before anything, first the soup." With these words the father took Ritz's hand, and Sally and Edi followed them into the dining-room. Sally pulled Edi a little back and whispered:

"Tell me quickly, what did they tell about the strange boy?"

"About him?" returned Edi in a somewhat scornful tone. "I had forgotten all about him! We have something else to do than to talk about a strange boy, of whom one does not even know whether he will come to Upper Wood to school."

This answer was somewhat unexpected to Sally and had a saddening effect; but she always could find a way out of an unpleasant situation. So she sat as still as a mouse during the whole time the soup was eaten, and her thoughts were hard at work.

Now the father turned to Edi and said: "Now you can relate your adventure, while Ritz remains quiet, and afterwards his turn will come." Ritz looked quite obedient for he had two large noodles on his plate to work with.

But Edi, in a moment, put down knife and fork and quickly began: "Just think, Papa, we have made three songs, one for each parish. First, the Lower Wooders began. The sixth class were angry because we laughed at them, that they only now have to make sentences, and we in the fourth class have begun to write them already. They made a song about us which runs:

    "'Of Upper Wood the boys
     They in their minds rejoice
     Because they think that they the cleverest are,
     But if ever they must fight
     They are in sorry plight
     And they turn round and run for ever so far.'

"How do you like that song, Papa?"

"Well, that is such as Lower Wooders would make," said the father.

"And then," Edi continued, "we have made a song for an answer, that goes thus:

    "'And of Lower Wood the crowd
     They always yell so loud
     That they never, never stay within their den,
     For all dispute and strife
     They are much alive
     For they use their fists when they ought to use their pen.'

"How do you like this one, Papa?"

"Just about the same. And who has sung about the Middle Lot?" asked the father.

"The Lower Wooders and we together; they too had to have a song, but the shortest, as it ought to be. It runs so:

    "'And they of Middle Lot
     They all together plot
     That they are striving zealously for peace,
     But with quarrelling they never cease.'

"And how do you like that, Papa?"

"They are, all three of them, kind of fighting songs, Edi," answered the father, "and I should prefer that you keep busy with your history studies, instead of taking sides in these party-fights. One never knows where one comes out, and such poetry usually ends with lumps on the heads."

Edi seemed much disappointed as he attacked his noodles with a visibly spoiled appetite.

"And what has been your experience, Sally? Why are you so pensive?" the father continued.

"Kaetheli was not at school," reported Sally, "and I had so much to talk over with her. Perhaps she is sick; may I go to see her this afternoon? We have no school, you know."

"Aha, Sally wants to see the strange boy," the sharp-witted Edi remarked.

"You may go, Sally," the mother said, answering a questioning look from the father. "But you will not go into any house where you have no business, just to look at strangers. I know you are capable of doing such things. You can start soon after dinner."

Sally was very happy. She quickly fetched her straw hat and took leave. But outside she did not run straight through the passage-way as she usually did in similar cases, but went to the kitchen door and peeped in, and when she saw 'Lizebeth at the sink, where the latter was scraping her pans, she went in very close to the old woman and said somewhat mysteriously: "'Lizebeth, does Edi or Ritz perhaps have a torn mattress on their bed?"

'Lizebeth stopped scraping and turned round. She looked at Sally from head to foot, put her hands on her hips and said very slowly and importantly: "May I ask what you mean by that question, Sally? Do you think this household is so carried on that one lies about on ragged mattresses and sleeps, until a little one, who is far from old enough to turn a mattress, thinks of coming to ask 'does not this one or that one have a ragged mattress' on his bed? Yes, Sally, what cobwebs you do have in your head."

"I do not care about the mattress, it is on account of Marianne that I ask," Sally explained. "Do you know, she now has some new people in her house and I should so much like to see them, and therefore I wanted so much to know whether you could not sacrifice a mattress so that Marianne could pull the horsehair for a mattress, for Mother will not let me go into the house without a good excuse."

"Oh, so! that is different," said 'Lizebeth quite mildly, for she had also been wondering what kind of people her old friend had taken into her home, and now, perhaps, she could learn something about them through Sally.

"I can help you, Sally," she said. "You go to Marianne and tell her that I send my greetings, and I have long since intended to come and see her, but the likes of us cannot get away when we want to; we never know what may happen if we are out of the house for five minutes; but tell her that I will surely come some fine Sunday. Now then go, and give my message."

Sally ran with a joyous heart, first through the garden, then away over the meadow and down the hill as far as the fir wood, where the dry road lay for a long stretch in the shade. Here Sally slackened her pace a little. It was so beautiful to walk along in shade of the trees, where above in their tops the wind rustled so delightfully and all the birds sang in confusion. She also had to consider how she would arrange her calls, whether she would go first to Kaetheli or to Marianne; but this time old Marianne had a stronger attraction than Kaetheli and Sally felt that she must go there first and give her message. Now her thoughts fell on the strange people and she had to imagine how they looked and what she was going to say, and what they would say when she knocked and asked for Marianne. Thus she thought everything well out, for Sally had a great power of imagining things.

In this way she came to the first houses of Middle Lot. She turned away from the road and went toward Marianne's house, which stood a little way from the road and lay almost hidden behind a hedge. As Sally had been accustomed to do, she now ran right into the house, although the house door was also the kitchen door. After entering the front door she stood in the small kitchen and was at once before another door which led into the living-room. This door stood wide open and Sally found herself suddenly in the presence of a lady dressed in black, who sat in that room sewing and who lifted her head at Sally's noisy entrance, and with large sad eyes she looked at the child in silence.

Sally grew as red as fire and in her embarrassment remained standing near the door like one rooted to the floor.

Now the lady held out her hand and said in a friendly tone, "Come here, dear child, what brings you to me?"

Sally was quite confused. She did not remember why she had come, for she had really not come to see Marianne. She had invented that--to get into the house where she had arrived now so unexpectedly. She approached the lady and wanted to say something, but nothing came out. Sally grew crimson and stood there more helpless than ever before in her life.

The lady took the child's hand and stroked her glowing cheeks.

"Come, sit down beside me, dear child," she then said, with a voice so sweet that it went deep into Sally's heart. "Come, we shall come gradually to know each other a little."

Now there came from out of a corner a quick noise of moving; Sally did not know what it was, for until now she had not dared to look around the room, but now she looked up.

A boy, a little taller than she, was carrying a small easy chair and placed it before Sally. He looked at her with such a merry face as the restrained laughter came so visibly out of his eyes, that the sight brought a complete reversion in Sally's feelings, and she, all at once, laughed right out; upon which, the boy too, relieved his feelings by a bright peal of laughter, for the rushing in and then the confusion of the unexpected guest had long since tempted him to laugh; but he was too well trained to dare to break out.

"Well, my child," said the mother with that winning voice, "and what has brought you to me?"

"I have--I ought to--I wanted," Sally began hesitatingly, "I wanted to give a message to Marianne--" Sally could not stop at half the truth. The sad, friendly eyes of the lady were penetratingly resting on hers, so everything had to come out as it was.

"That is lovely and friendly of you, that you want to see us, dear little girl. How did you hear of us?" asked the lady, and took off Sally's straw hat, while she put the question to the child. She placed the hat on the table and smoothed her hair with a mother's touch.

Now Sally related all in full confidence how it had happened, and that she and her two brothers had wanted to come yesterday to find out who was coming to live with Marianne, and to find out how the piano and all the other things could find room in the little house. Sally now, for the first time, looked around the room and she had to wonder a little, for she saw only the piano and four bare walls, and then there were the two easy chairs on which she and the lady were sitting, and the small table. She knew that besides this room there was a very small bedroom, where two beds could hardly find room. Sally could not set herself to rights; all was so different from what she had imagined. She had expected to see strange and foreign things standing about everywhere and now she saw nothing besides an old piano. And yet the lady who sat before her in a black silken dress looked more aristocratic than Sally could ever have imagined; and the boy in his velvet suit looked quite like the old knights in Edi's beautiful picture book, and he had brought her a seat without anyone telling him, and was more refined and courteous than she had ever before seen a boy.

When Sally turned her surprised eyes again to the lady, she saw such a painful expression in her face that it came involuntarily into her mind how the mother had said, that of course "she would not go there for the sake of staring at the people," and she felt that she was doing something very much like it. Sally rose. All at once she remembered to whom she really wanted to go, so she said hastily: "I must go to Kaetheli; she may be sick." With these words she quickly offered her hand to the lady.

The lady, too, had risen; she took the proffered hand, held it between both of hers, and looked once more so lovingly into the child's eyes, that her little heart was moved. Then she kissed her forehead and said: "You dear child, you were a friendly picture in our quiet room."

Then she let go of her hand, and Sally went through the open door into the small kitchen. The boy, meanwhile, had opened the house door and now he stood outside quite courteously, like a doorkeeper, to bid Sally good-bye.

"Are you not coming to school tomorrow?"

"Yes, indeed," was the answer.

That pleased Sally very much and she at once decided that he must become Edi's friend, for she had taken a great liking to the boy and when he was Edi's friend then he would be hers too, and he must come every Sunday afternoon and spend it with them and they would teach him all kinds of games; and many undertakings passed through her brain, for with this friend everything could be carried out; he was so entirely different from other boys and girls in the school. "Then you are coming to-morrow?" she asked with happy expectation.

"Where shall I come?" he questioned in return.

"To school, of course."

"Yes, indeed, I'll come to school."

"Well, then, good-bye," said Sally, giving her hand, "but I do not know your name."

"Erick--and yours?"

"Sally."

Now they shook hands, and Erick remained standing in the doorway until Sally had turned round the hedge, then he shut the door and Sally ran toward the house of the Justice of Peace. Before she reached it, old Marianne met her, panting under the large bundle of horsehair which she was carrying on her head. Sally was delighted to see her, for she had just remembered that she had not given 'Lizebeth's message. She rushed so quickly toward the old woman and with such force, that the latter went back some steps and almost lost her balance, and Sally cried out: "Marianne, you have such nice people in your rooms. Do you talk much with them? Do you cook for them? Do you buy the things they need? Have they no maid? Do you make their beds?"

"Gently, gently," said Marianne, who had recovered her balance, "else I lose my breath. But tell me, how did you get into the people's room? I hope you know how I am to be found."

Sally told her that she, for the shorter way, had not gone round the house, where, in the woodshed, a narrow stair went up to Marianne's small room; but that she had wanted to run in the front way, through the kitchen, and out the back door; but that she had stood suddenly before the open door of the room and under the eyes of the lady.

"You must never do that again," Marianne interrupted Sally, raising her finger warningly. "Do you hear that, Sally? Never do that again. They are not people into whose home you can rush, as if they were living on the highway."

"But the lady was quite friendly, Marianne," soothed Sally, "she was not at all offended."

"That makes no difference, she is always so, she could not be otherwise, and just on that account, and on account of many other things, do you hear, Sally? Promise that you never again go that way when you want to come to me. Will you promise?"

"Yes, indeed I will. I do not intend to do it again. Good night, Marianne! Now I have forgotten the main thing: 'Lizebeth sends her greetings and she will come to see you on a fine Sunday."

The last words came from some distance, for Sally had already started on a run while she gave the message, and when Marianne wanted to send her greetings, Sally was already far away. After a few more jumps Sally arrived at the house of the Justice of Peace, in front of which stood a large apple tree which shaded the stone well. Here stood Kaetheli who did not look sick at all, but splashed with two fat, red arms about the water in which she seemed to clean some object eagerly.

"Then you are not sick. Why didn't you come to school then?" Sally called out when she saw her.

"Oh, it is you? Good evening! I could not make out who was jumping about, and I hadn't the time to look," Kaetheli said with some importance. "That is also the reason why I did not go to school. I hadn't the time, for Mother has gone away today to see sick Grandmother, and then we got young chickens, twelve quite small ones, and that is why I have to wash a stocking, for I have run after the chicks everywhere and near the barn I stepped in the dirt quite deep. But come, I will show you the chickens. Never mind if I have only one stocking on."

But Sally had only very little time left and besides, her head was full of quite different things and she wanted to hear Kaetheli tell of something else than the new chickens, so she said quite decisively: "No, Kaetheli, I haven't time enough to see the chickens. I only wanted to know whether you were ill and I want to tell you something. I have seen the strange lady and the boy whom you know. He does look nice. Do you know his name?"

"He?" said Kaetheli, shrugging her shoulders. "Of course I know. His name is Erick and just think, he goes to school at Lower Wood; I have seen him myself today, with his school sack, going there."

That was a blow for Sally. He went to school at Lower Wood. What was now to come of her beautiful plans? Of all the planned Sundays which were to be so full of joy and delight, and the whole friendship with the prepossessing Erick? For how could Edi ever be brought to making friends with a fellow who went to Lower Wood to school, when he just as well might have gone to Upper Wood? Sally was very downcast, but she did not easily give up a pleasant intention. On the way home she wanted to think what could be done, therefore she stretched out her hand to the astonished Kaetheli, and this time the invitation, to at least come into the room and eat a piece of bread and butter, was not accepted; nor would she go with Kaetheli behind the barn where they could fetch down ripe cherries from the large cherry tree--it was all of no use.

"Another time, Kaetheli, it is already so late I must go home," and Sally ran away. Kaetheli stood there much surprised and looked after her, and in her bright mind she thought: "Sally has something new in her head, else I could have brought her to the cherry tree, for she is not always so anxious to go home; but I will find out what it is."

Meanwhile Sally ran for a long stretch, then she began to walk slower, for she had to think over so many things and she was so lost in her plans that she forgot when she arrived at the garden which stretched from her home far into the meadows. Ritz stood on the low wall and beckoned with wild gestures, for Sally had not seen him at first.

"Do come a little quicker so that you can tell something, else we will have to go to bed, for Auntie has already looked twice at her watch. Were you in the barn at Kaetheli's? How many cows are in it? Have you seen the young goat?"

But Sally had different things in her head. She hastily stepped into the house, while Ritz followed. The rest of the family were in the living-room. Mother and Auntie were mending stockings; Father was reading a large church paper. Edi, his head supported on both hands, sat lost in his history book. Sally had hardly opened the door when she cried out with much excitement: "Oh, Mother, you ought to have seen how friendly the lady was, and she is so beautiful and so gentle and so good, and quite an aristocratic lady; and Erick in his velvet suit is like a knight, and so fine and polite. Edi could not find a nicer friend."

They all looked surprised at Sally, and a pause followed this outburst. Sally had quite forgotten that she was not to go to the strange people, and that she had given, as the object of her walk, the call on Kaetheli. She now remembered everything and she grew very red.

"But, dear child," said the mother, "did you really, in spite of opposition from me, press into the home of the strange people? How could you enter the house without an excuse?"

"Not without an excuse, Mamma," said Sally, somewhat embarrassed. "'Lizebeth had given me a message for old Marianne."

"Which the inquisitive Sally fetched in the kitchen for the purpose of carrying out her plan, that is clear," remarked Auntie. When the whole truth lay open to the light of day, Sally felt relieved and she returned with new zeal to her communication. She had much to describe: the empty room and the silk dress of the lady, and her sad glances, and then the knightly Erick with his joyous laughter and the merry eyes; but she could not describe it all so attractively as it seemed to her.

"So," said Edi, looking up from his book, "now you have another friend. It will go, no doubt, with him as with little Leopold!" After giving her this fling he bent again over his book and read on, taking no notice of anything.

Sally did not find the desired sympathy. She was so full of her impressions that she felt Mother and Aunt should be all afire and aflame for her new friendship. Instead of that, the two kept on mending the stockings; Father did not even look up from his paper and Edi had only a satirical remark for sympathy. Sally had rather a bad reputation for making friendships. Almost every week she saw some one who appealed to her so much, that she must make a friendship at once; but the friendships were mostly of short duration, for she had imagined something else than she often found on looking closer. This made her quite unhappy at the time, but the next week she had already found some one else who filled her thoughts.

The last unfortunate friendship had brought forth Edi's satire to a greater degree. The tailor of Upper Wood had three sons, and since the father on his wanderings had spent some time in Vienna he gave his sons, in remembrance of the beautiful days which he spent there, the names of three Austrian grand dukes. It was this strange name that had first attracted Sally; to that was added that Leopold, the oldest of the sons, who had lived with his grandfather until now, but had come recently to Upper Wood, always wore elegant jackets and pants after the latest cut. Leopold had entered Sally's class and his appearance had at once inspired her. But he was so small and dainty that he received the name Leopoldy from the whole school. The rumor had preceded Leopold, that he had staid three years in the same class in the town where his grandfather lived. So Edi looked down on Leopoldy from an elevation of a fourth class boy and noticed with scorn how Sally found pleasure in the little fellow and befriended him. But that did not last long for, after a trial of a week, Leopoldy was set back two classes, since he had been put in the fifth class on account of his years, but not his deserts. In these eight days Sally had discovered, with sorrow, that Leopoldy was unusually silly, and Sally was glad that the enormous gap that lies between the fifth and third class, made easier the rupture of this friendship which could not continue, for nothing could be done with Leopoldy. So it happened that no one listened with sympathy to the enthusiastic description which Sally gave of her new friends, for each one remembered Leopoldy, and that was not inspiring.

This general coolness angered Sally very much. She knew her new friends if they would only believe her. All ought to be so interested in this mother and her Erick, that they would want to know everything possible about them, and now no one asked a question and they hardly listened to her communication. That was too much; Sally had to relieve her tension. She suddenly broke forth to Edi, who was entirely lost in his book: "Although you read a thousand books one after the other, and act as if one did not tell anything, and you think that one must have no friendship with any human being on this earth but only for the thousand-thousand-year-old Egyptians, yet you might be glad to have a friend like Erick."

Edi must have just read something that made him solemn, for he looked quite restrainedly up from his book and said quite seriously: "You see, Sally, you do not at all know what friendship is, for you believe that one can have a new friend every week. But one ought to have only one friend for the whole life, and one must drag his enemy three times around the walls of Troy."

"Then he will have to make a nice journey if he comes from Upper Wood," remarked Sally quickly.

The mother meanwhile had left the room, and Aunt rose from her work.

"You will get quite barbaric from pure historical research," she said, turning to Edi, "but now it is high time to go to bed, quick! But where is Ritz?"

Ritz had withdrawn behind the stove a full hour ago in the hope of there escaping his fate for some time. But sleep had overcome him in the dark corner.

"Now we have the trouble," the aunt cried, when the sleeper had been discovered, and only with the greatest difficulty she woke him.

While Auntie was pushing and shaking the sleepy Ritz, Edi had tried several times to get near her, but she had always escaped him. Now a quiet moment came. Ritz was at last awake. Edi quickly stepped up to his aunt and said: "I did not mean alive, only after his death, like Achilles did."

"Now he too is talking in his sleep and says all kinds of nonsense," the aunt cried quite excitedly, for she had long since forgotten Edi's judgment on the enemy and she did not know what he was talking about. "No, no, it cannot go on like this, children must go to bed in good time, else the whole household gets out of joint."

Edi wanted to explain once more, only to make it clear to her, and not to have to go to bed misunderstood, so he had followed her about, and now a greater misunderstanding had arisen. There was no more chance for explanation. Ritz and Edi were shoved into their room, the light put on the table, the door was closed, and away went Auntie.

"I am sure Mother will come to us. I must explain everything to her," Edi said to himself, for to be so misunderstood disquieted the thinking Edi exceedingly. And the mother came as she did every evening, and she promised to make everything clear to Auntie, so he could be pacified and find the sleep which Ritz long since had found again.

Chapter III. 'Lizebeth on the Warpath

On the following morning 'Lizebeth stood full of expectation at the kitchen door, and made all kinds of signs when Sally came rushing into the living-room from breakfast. The signs were indeed understood by the child but she had no time to go to the kitchen. She waved her school-bag and shouted in rushing by 'Lizebeth: "When I come from school; it is too late now!" Followed by Edi and Ritz she continued her run.

Something very particular must be in preparation, for after school all the scholars were standing again in a dense circle, beating their hands in the air and shouting as loud as they could, to have their views heard. Sally, who had waited a few moments for her brothers, went on home for she knew how long such meetings were apt to last and that her brothers would only arrive home when the soup was being served. Sally stepped into the house and with her school-bag in her hand she went straight to the kitchen.

"Now I will tell you everything that happened yesterday, 'Lizebeth," she said.

'Lizebeth nodded encouragingly and Sally began, and became more and more excited the longer she talked. She was most excited when she came to telling about the lady and her little boy, describing the way she talked, how she and the boy were dressed, and her aristocratic way. But all at once 'Lizebeth jumped as if a wasp had stung her and she called out, "What do you say, Sally? This woman wears a silk dress in the middle of the week? Silk? And she lives at Marianne's? And the boy wears velvet pants and a jacket all of velvet? Well, well! I have lived ten years with your great-grandfather and thirty with your grandfather and twelve with your father, and I have seen your father grow up from the first day of his life and your little brothers. And I have known them since they were babies and none of them ever had velvet pants on their body, and yet they were all ministers, your great-grandfather, your grandfather, your father, and the little ones will be ministers too, and none of them ever had even a piece of velvet on them and this woman in the middle of the week walks about in silk, yes indeed! And then taking rooms at Marianne's and living where the basket mender has lived, I tell you, Sally, there is something behind that! But it has to come out, and if Marianne wants to help a hundred times to cover it up, I tell you, Sally, I will bring out what is behind it all. Yes, indeed, velvet pants? I wonder what we shall hear next!"

Sally stood quite astounded before the anger-spouting 'Lizebeth, and could not understand the cause of this outbreak. But she had enough of it, so she turned round and hastened into the sitting-room, where, according to her expectations, at the very last moment, just when 'Lizebeth came into the room with the soup tureen, the brothers appeared, in a peculiar way. At each side of 'Lizebeth one crawled into the room, then shot straight across the room, like the birds before a storm shoot through the air so that one fears they will run their heads against something. Fortunately the two boys did not run their heads against anything, but each landed quite safely on his chair, and at once 'Lizebeth placed the soup on the table; but so decidedly and with such an angry face, as if she wanted to say: "There! If you had to put up with what I have to, then you would not trouble about your soup."

When she was again out of the room the father said, looking at his wife: "There will be a thunder storm, sure signs are visible." Then turning to his sons he continued: "But what do boys deserve, who come so late to table and from pure bad conscience almost knock it over?"

Ritz looked crestfallen into his plate, and from there in a somewhat roundabout way past his mother's plate, slyly across to his aunt, to see whether it looked like an order to go to bed at once. And it was so beautiful today, how beautiful the running about this evening after school would be!

There was no order, for the general attention was claimed by 'Lizebeth, who with the same signs of snorting anger threw more than placed the rest of the meal on the table and then grumbled herself out again.

As soon as dinner was over the father put on his little velvet cap and went in perfect silence out into the garden. For the storms in the house were more unpleasant to him than those that come from the sky. As soon as he had left the room 'Lizebeth stood in the doorway, both arms akimbo and looking quite warlike; she said: "I should think it would make no difference if I were to make a call on Marianne. I should think it is fully four years since I went to see her in the Middle Lot."

The pastor's wife had listened with astonishment to this speech, which sounded very reproachful. Now she said soothingly: "But, 'Lizebeth, I should hope that you do not think that I would oppose your going to Marianne or anywhere else; or that I ever have done so. Do go as soon as you feel like it."

"Just as if nothing had to be done, and as if I were and had been on a visit in the parsonage at Upper Wood for fifty years and more," was the answer. "No, no, I know what has to be done if no one else does. I can wait until Sunday afternoon; that is a time when the likes of me may go out, and if it suits the lady then, then I go, and shall not stay away very long. Why? I know why if no one else knows it."

"Of course that suits me, too," the lady pacified again, "do just what you think best." She did not say more for she had already noticed that a fire of anger was kindled in 'Lizebeth which would blaze up if another word fell in it. She could not imagine what had struck 'Lizebeth, but she found it more advisable not to touch on it. So 'Lizebeth grumbled for a little while, then she went away, since no further chance for outbreaks was offered. But there was no peace during the whole week; all noticed that, and each went carefully by 'Lizebeth as if she were a powder magazine which, at a careless touch, might fly up in the air at any moment. At last Sunday came. 'Lizebeth, after dinner, rushed about the kitchen with such a great noise, one could notice that many thoughts were working in her which she tried to give vent to. But she went into her room only after everything was bright and in its place.

She dressed herself in her Sunday-best and entered the sitting-room to take leave, just as though she was going on a long journey, for it was an event for 'Lizebeth to leave the parsonage for several hours. Now she wandered with slow steps along the road and looked to the right and left on the way to see what was growing in the field belonging to this or that neighbor. But her thoughts began again to work in her; one could see that, for she began to walk quicker and quicker and to talk half aloud to herself. Now she had arrived. Marianne had seen her from her little window and was surprised that this time 'Lizebeth was so soon keeping her promise. For years she had promised, had sent the messages that she would soon come; but she had never come and now she was there after the message had been brought only three days ago. Marianne went to meet her friend with a pleasant smile and welcomed her near the hedge before the cottage; then she conducted her guest around the cottage and up the narrow, wooden stairs. 'Lizebeth did not like this way and before she had reached the top of the stairs she had to speak out.

"Listen, Marianne," she said, "formerly one dared to come in the front door and through the kitchen, but now your oldest friends have to come by the back way, which, no doubt, is on account of the strange people whom you have taken into your house. I have heard much of them and now I see for myself that they, from pure pride, do not know what to order next, that you dare not go through your own house."

"Dear me, 'Lizebeth, what queer thoughts you do have," said Marianne, quite frightened. "That is not true, no one has forbidden me anything. And the people are so good and not a bit proud, and so friendly, and so kind and humble."

"Catch your breath, Marianne," 'Lizebeth interrupted her; "with all your excitement you cannot prove that white is black, and when such people come along, no one knows whence, and take a living-room and a bedroom in such a hut, so hidden as yours is, Marianne, where they pay next to nothing, and the woman struts about in a silk skirt and her little son in velvet; then there is something behind it all, and if she has silk skirts then she must have other things too, and she must know why she hides all these things in a hut which really does not look larger than a large henhouse. I wanted only to warn you, Marianne; you surely will be the loser with such a crowd."

"'Lizebeth," Marianne said now more emphatically than she had ever been known to speak, "it would be well, if all people were as this woman is, and you and I could thank God if we were like her. I have never in this world seen a better and a more patient and a more amiable human being. And in regard to the silk skirt, please be still and do not talk about it, 'Lizebeth; many a thing looks different to what it really is, and it would be better for you, if you would not load your conscience with wrong against a suffering woman on whom God has His eye."

Marianne did not wish to tell what she knew, that the lady had only the one skirt and no other whatsoever, and so, of course, was obliged to wear it. She did not want to tell that to 'Lizebeth now she heard how the latter judged.

"I do not think of loading my conscience with anything," 'Lizebeth continued, "and that much is not as it looks, that I know; but when a little boy of whom no one knows from where he came, wears velvet pants on bright week-days and even a velvet jacket, then they are velvet pants and do not only look so, that is certain. There is something behind that and it will come out and it will not look the best. Yes indeed, wearing velvet pants, such a little tramp of whom no one knows from where he comes, yes indeed."

"Do not sin against the dear boy," Marianne said seriously. "Look at him and you will see that he looks like a little angel, and he is one."

"So, that too," 'Lizebeth continued, "and pray when did you see an angel, Marianne, that you know he looks just like them? I should like to know! But I have served over fifty years in a respectable house, and I have helped to bring up the old parson, and the present one and his two sons; but we have never known anything of velvet pants, no, never, and we were, I should think, different people from these. That is what I wanted to tell you, Marianne, and that is the main reason why I came to you, so that you should know what one is forced to think. And with regard to the angels, I can tell you that we have a little boy that looks exactly like the angels that blow the trumpets in the picture; such fat, firm, red cheeks has our Moritzli, like painted, and such round arms and legs."

"Yes, it is true, little Ritz was always a splendid little fellow, I should like to see him again," Marianne answered good-naturedly.

This reconciled 'Lizebeth a little; in a much friendlier tone she said: "Then come again to Upper Wood, you will have time, more than I. Then you can look at the other, too, and can see what a pretty, straight nose he has, that no angel could have a prettier one, and in the whole school he is by far the brightest,--that the teacher himself says of Eduardi."

'Lizebeth always called the boys by their full names, for the shortening of the names, Ritz and Edi, seemed to her a degrading of their names and an injustice to her favorites.

"Yes, yes, I believe you. What a delight it must be to see such a well-ordered household and all so happy together and so joyous," Marianne said with a sigh, and she threw a glance at the room of the stranger, and now 'Lizebeth was completely pacified, for she felt the parsonage again on the top.

"What is the matter with the people?" she asked with compassion.

"I do not know what to say," was the answer, "I do not understand it all myself."

"I thought as much, with such strangers one is never secure."

"No, no, I did not mean anything like that," Marianne opposed. "I tell you they are the best people one could find. I would do anything for the woman."

Marianne did not like to tell her friend what she knew and to consult with her about things she could not comprehend, for 'Lizebeth had evidently no love for the two and was full of distrust, and Marianne had taken them both into her heart so that she could not bear sharp remarks about them even from her good friend. She therefore was silent and 'Lizebeth could get nothing more out of her concerning her lodgers.

During this long talk a good deal of time had passed. 'Lizebeth rose from the wooden bench behind the table where she and Marianne had been sitting and was about to bid good-bye. But Marianne would not allow that, for the friend must first drink a cup of coffee; then she was going to walk with her. So they did, and as the two friends wandered together through the evening, they had much to tell each other and were very talkative; only when 'Lizebeth began to talk about the strangers in Marianne's house, was the latter silent and hardly spoke. Where the road went into the woods, they parted, and Marianne had to promise to return the call as soon as possible. Then 'Lizebeth stepped out vigorously and arrived at home in such good spirits that the parson's wife resolved to send her often to Marianne on a visit.

When Marianne on her return came near her cottage, she heard lovely singing; she well knew the song. Every evening at twilight the stranger sat down at the piano and sang, and she sang so beautifully and with a voice that came from such depths that it touched Marianne's heart so that she could not tear herself away when she heard the song, until it was ended. But there was one song in particular which Marianne loved to hear and which the woman sang every day, either at the beginning or the end of her songs. It always seemed as if a great joy came into her voice and as if she wanted to make this joy appeal to all who listened. And yet this song touched Marianne's heart so deeply that she wept every time she heard it. So it happened this evening. There was a log lying before the house-door which served her for a resting-place when, in the evening, she wanted to get a little fresh air. She rolled it under the window so that she might look for a moment into the room. There sat the lady, and her large blue eyes looked up to the evening sky so seriously and sorrowfully, and yet there was something which sounded again like a great joy in the beautiful song she was singing. The little boy sat on a footstool beside her and looked at his mother with his joyful, bright eyes, and listened to the singing.

Marianne could not look long. A strange feeling came over her, and she stepped down from the log, put her apron to her eyes and wept and wept, until the singing had died away.

Chapter IV. The Same Night in Two Houses

When on this evening Edi and Ritz were lying in their bed and Mother had finished saying evening prayer with them and had closed the door after her, Edi began: "Have you noticed, Ritz, that Father is almost like God? He already knows the thing before one has told half of it."

"No, I have never noticed that," Ritz replied. "But it is all right, for then he can do everything he wants to and also make fine weather."

"Oh, Ritz, you only look at the profit! but just look at the other side." Here Edi rose up in bed from pure zeal and continued: "Do you remember, not long ago I recited our songs, which we made about the others, to Papa; then he knew at once that we were preparing a big fight and has forbidden us to take part in it. And this evening they all have talked it over that I should lead the boys of Upper Wood into battle, and I have thought it all over and prepared ahead. Then I would be Fabius Cunctator, and would lead my troops above on the hill round and round it and would not attack, for you must know that is much safer, and so Hannibal could do nothing and could not attack me."

"Is Hannibal still living then?" asked Ritz serenely.

"Oh, Ritz, how indescribably ignorant you are!" Edi remarked compassionately. "He died more than a thousand years ago. But big Churi, the leader of the Middle Lotters, our enemies, is Hannibal. But you see, I just remember something: Churi is not a real Hannibal, for he was a great and noble general, and Churi cannot represent him; but do you know what, we can take the strange boy Erick, for Hannibal!--he looks quite different from Churi,--shall we?"

"That is all the same to me since we cannot be in the fight," remarked Ritz.

"That is true, we dare not, I had quite forgotten that," lamented Edi. "If I only knew what we could do to be in this fight and yet not do anything that is forbidden."

"Don't you know an example in the world's history?" asked Ritz, to whom his brother presented so often, in cases of need, examples out of this rich fountain.

"No. If we only lived like the old Greeks," Edi answered with a deep sigh. "When they wanted to know anything of which no one knew the answer, they quickly drove to Delphi to the oracle and asked advice. Then there was an answer at once and they knew what was to be done. But now there are no more oracles, not even in Greece. Isn't that too bad?"

"Yes, that is too bad," said Ritz rather sleepily, "but I am sure you will think of another example."

Edi began at once to think, but however much he thought, and groped in his memory and upheaved what he had stored away in his brain, he could not find in the whole history of the world one single case where some one had carried out something that the father had forbidden, and yet stood afterwards with honor before him. For that was what Edi was trying to find; and he was sitting straight up in his bed in the dark, and in spite of all his endeavors he could find no way out. And when he now heard the deep breathing of the sweetly sleeping Ritz, he became too discouraged to try any more. He lay down on his pillow and was soon dreaming about the uniform of Fabius Cunctator.

Soon after this Marianne too lay down on her couch, but for a long time sleep would not come. The singing of the lady downstairs had made her very, very sad; this voice had never before touched her so deeply as it had done this evening, and she still heard the sound of weeping and rejoicing in confusion. So Marianne heard the old clock on the wall strike eleven, then twelve, and yet she could not go to sleep. Now it seemed to her as if she heard a gentle knocking below in the house. Who could want anything of her so late in the night? She must be mistaken, she said to herself. But no, she now heard it quite plainly, somebody was knocking somewhere. She quickly dressed herself and hastened down to the kitchen. She opened the front door--no one was there. But the knocking came again and now Marianne thought that it came from the sleeping room of her boarders. Softly she opened the door of the room. Within the pale lady sat on her bed, but she was much paler than usual, so that Marianne stepped quickly into the room, and much frightened, she exclaimed: "Dear me! What is the matter? Oh how bad you do look!"

"Yes, I feel very ill, my good Marianne," the lady answered with her friendly voice. "I am so sorry that I frightened you so in the middle of the night; but I had no rest, I was obliged to call you. I have a few things to tell you and it might have been too late."

"Dear, dear! what do you mean?" lamented Marianne. "I will get the doctor at once from Lower Wood,--he is the nearest."

"No, Marianne, I thank you, I know my condition," said the sick woman soothingly, "it is a cramp in my heart, which often comes and this time more terribly than usual, and so, my good Marianne, I wanted to tell you that if I am no longer here tomorrow, will you give this," (and she gave a small paper to Marianne), "to him who has to prepare for my last resting-place. It is the only thing that I leave, and which I have saved for a long time, so that I need not be buried in a pauper's grave. That must not be, for my father's sake," she added, very softly.

"Dear, dear Lord!" Marianne lamented, "grant that it may not be that! Do think of the dear little boy! Dear Mrs. Dorn, do not take it amiss, I have never before asked anything at all, but if you leave nothing, what have I to do with the dear boy? Has he no relatives? Has he no father?"

The mother looked at the sleeping Erick, who, with his golden curls encircling his rosy face, lay there so peacefully and so carefree. She put her hand on his forehead--for his narrow bed stood quite close to hers--and said softly: "On earth you have no father any more, my child, but above in heaven there lives a Father who will not forsake you. I have given you long since to Him. I know He will care for you and protect you, so I can go quietly and joyfully. Yes, my good Marianne," she turned again to the latter, "I have done a great wrong; I have hurt deeply the best of fathers through disobedience and selfishness. For that I have suffered much; but in my suffering it was permitted me to learn how great the love and compassion of our Father in heaven is for His children, and since then a song of deepest gratitude sounds ever and ever in my heart:

    "'I lay in heaviest fetters,
     Thou com'st and set'st me free;
     I stood in shame and sorrow,
     Thou callest me to Thee;
     And lift'st me up to honor
     And giv'st me heavenly joys
     Which cannot be diminished
     By earthly scorn and noise.'"

The sick woman had folded her hands while she spoke, and in her eyes there was a wonderful light; but now she sank back on her pillows, exhausted and pale. Marianne stood there quietly and now and then had to wipe her eyes.

"But now I must run to the doctor,--it is high time," she said, frightened. "Mrs. Dorn, can I give you anything?"

"No, I thank you," the sick woman answered softly. "I thank you for everything, my good Marianne."

The latter now hastily left the house and ran as fast as she could through the silent night toward Lower Wood. From time to time she had to stop to get her breath. Then she looked up to the bright star-covered sky and prayed: "Dear God, help us all." She had great difficulty in awakening the doctor in Lower Wood at two o'clock in the night; but at last he heard her knocking and followed her soon after on the road to her house. When they entered together the room of the sick woman, the light had burned down and threw a faint light on the quiet, pale face. The mother had stretched out her arm upon the bed of her child. The boy had encircled her slender, white hand with both his plump hands, and held it firmly. The doctor approached and looked closer at the sleeper; he bent over her for some moments.

"Marianne," he said, "loosen the hand out of the little boy's. The woman is sleeping her eternal sleep, she will nevermore awaken on this earth. She must have died suddenly from heart failure, while you were away to fetch me."

The doctor left the quiet house at once, and Marianne did as he had told her. She folded the hands of the departed one on her breast, then she sat down on Erick's bed, looking now at the serious face of the dead mother, now at the care-free sleeping boy, and wept quietly, until the rays of the morning sun fell into the quiet room and roused Marianne to the consciousness that a new, sad day had begun--a day on which Erick had to be told that he never again on this earth could take hold of the loving hand of his mother.

Chapter V. Disturbance in School and Home

Never before had the schoolmaster of Upper Wood had such hard work with his schoolchildren as on the morning after this night. Of course there were times that some were more restless and more dense than usual; but there were usually a good many with whom he could work successfully. But today it seemed as though a crowd of excited spirits had taken possession of the children. All the boys cast uncanny, warlike glances at each other, even suppressed threatenings were thrust hither and thither, and when the teacher turned his back such threatening gestures were made to those who faced him, that they, one and all, rolled their eyes with wrath and gave the most ridiculous answers. They all were so eager for the battle, that they could no longer distinguish between friend and foe, and each shook his clenched fist at the other.

Sally and Kaetheli, those model scholars, kept putting their heads together and whispered continuously like the ripple of a brook. Yes, indeed, Kaetheli was so brim full of news that she even kept on whispering to Sally while the latter had to answer questions in arithmetic and of course got into the most inexplicable confusion. Even Edi, the very best scholar, forgot his studies and was staring sadly before him. For just now had come before his mind's eye, during the rest-period, the great bravery of his troops who, from want of a real enemy, had put each other in a sorry shape. And he was not allowed to lead these courageous soldiers against the boasting Churi, and to show this fellow how a great general does his work! The teacher was just standing before him and called on him, continuing in the geography lesson: "Edi, will you tell me the most important productions of Upper Italy?"

Italy! At the sound of that name, the whole war operation stood before Edi's eyes, for he had studied the minutest details of that region where the Romans had met their enemies, and Churi, as Hannibal, stood triumphant before him. Edi, heaving a deep sigh, answered nothing for the present.

"Edi," the master said when no answer came, "I cannot understand what sadness can be found in our topic, nor what can burden your mind, but one thing I can see, that today you all are like a herd of thoughtless sheep with whom nothing can be done. Kaetheli, you magpie, can you stop a moment and listen to what I am saying? You all are going home. I have had enough, and everyone--do you understand?--everyone takes home some home-work for punishment. As you go out, come to my desk, one after the other, and each will receive his special task."

So it was done, and at once the whole crowd rushed with joyous hearts into the open. For the home-work did not at all suppress the joy that school had closed a whole half-hour early. Outside on the playground, the groups who had common interests at once crowded together. The largest throng pressed around Edi, to listen with much shouting and noise to his battle plans.

At once after leaving the schoolroom Kaetheli took Sally by the hand and said: "I will go with you for a while, then I can finish telling you what Marianne told Mother this morning." With this Kaetheli continued her story, which she had begun in school, and told Sally everything that had happened last night in Marianne's cottage. Sally listened very quietly and never said a word. When they arrived at the garden, Kaetheli had just finished her sad tale; she stood still for a moment and was surprised that Sally did not say anything; then she said, "Good-bye!" and ran away.

At the noon meal Ritz related faithfully all that had happened in school: for now, since Sally and even Edi had received home-tasks, he found that to be more remarkable than sorrowful. Edi seemed somewhat dejected. When now the small, golden, roasted apples were placed on the table, Ritz stopped his report and applied himself thoroughly to the work of eating them. When he had cleared his plate, which was done very quickly, he looked slyly at the plates of his brother and sister, for he knew that the second supply of the things on the table came only after all three had finished their first. When he looked at Sally, his eyes stayed on her, and after he had watched her attentively for some time, he said: "Sally, you keep on swallowing as much as you can, but you see, nothing can go down, because you have put nothing into your mouth, and your plate stays filled."

Now Sally could not restrain her tears longer, for she had with great difficulty swallowed them, and had been very quiet. Now she burst out into loud sobbing and said through her tears: "Poor Erick, too, cannot eat today. Now he has neither father nor mother and is all alone in the world."

Sally's weeping grew louder and louder, for she could not stop, since she had restrained herself so long. Ritz looked, surprised and startled, from one to the other; he did not quite understand whether he was to blame for this. The mother rose, took Sally by the hand, and led her out of the room.

This incident caused a great disturbance at the midday meal. The father was annoyed and sat without saying a word. The aunt, with great animation, tried to point out to him with this proof, how excitable children become when they do not go to bed in good time. Edi, too, sat quite ill-humoredly before his plate, as if he had to swallow sorrel instead of little golden apples; for he felt much troubled that his father had heard of his inattention in the school. Ritz had expected a kind of admonishing speech from him, because the outburst had taken place right after he had spoken to Sally. Since it did not come and no one seemed to trouble about him, he settled himself firmly in his seat and ate everything that was on Sally's and his mother's plates.

When the father went out in the garden soon after, the mother followed him and led him to the small bench under the apple tree. Seated there she told him what Sally, continuously interrupted by loud sobbing, had told her: what had happened during the past night in Marianne's cottage. And she now asked her husband whether he did not think that some enquiries ought to be made about these strangers, and whether one ought not to do something for the little boy who, as it seemed, was standing all alone in the world. But the pastor was not of her opinion, and said that these people had turned to Lower Wood for school and church, therefore he could not interfere at present. His colleague in Lower Wood would no doubt take everything in hand and see what could be done with the boy. He was sure that the pastor in Lower Wood would find some relations of the boy, and he perhaps knew already more about the strangers, than was suspected. The woman, no doubt, had confided in his colleague about herself, since she would have had to do that as she had sent her boy to Lower Wood to school, and perhaps also to Sunday school. One could not possibly give in to Sally in all her manifold emotions and pay attention to them. The child had too vivid an imagination and was yet too young to have the gift of discrimination, and if one should give in to her fancies one soon would fill the house with Leopoldys and other creatures, who soon would be turned out of the house or, at least, be pushed aside by the same Sally, as soon as she saw that the good people were not as she had imagined them.

"I have to take Sally's part somewhat, dear husband," said the mother. "You are right, she feels very strongly, and she shows these feelings to everyone whom she meets; but I do not find that wrong, for, wherever she meets with a response, there she remains faithful to her feelings, and she loves her friends warmly and constantly. With what devotion has she adhered to Kaetheli from babyhood! And I much prefer that she go through life with her warm heart, and expect to find a friend in every human being, than that she should pass people indifferently, and have no conception of friendship, although she may meet with many a disappointment and many a condemnation through this trait."

"Both will be her share, in plenty," said the father. "In this direction we therefore will do our share in saving her from these things as much as she can be saved."

So the mother saw that the best that could be done was to pacify Sally and to explain to her that nothing could be done at present but something would be done later from another source.

When it became known that the strange woman had died, there was a great deal of talk, especially among the Middle Lotters, in whose midst the woman had lived, but had never been seen--a fact which had always caused suspicion. Since no one knew anything about her past life, then everyone had the more to say about who she might have been. At any rate, nothing very good, in that they all agreed, else she would have been friendly with them and would not have kept herself so apart. When now no relations appeared and she had to be buried without any mourners, then a number of stories began to circulate which became more and more mysterious. For the official of the community had said that, no doubt, she had been an exile, and the Justice of Peace had added that then she must have committed very great political crimes. 'Lizebeth was not loath to bring these stories to the pastor and his wife, for she had never been able to overcome the thought of the velvet pants. The pastor's wife shook her head incredulously and forbade 'Lizebeth to carry the stories further. The pastor said: "There must have been something crooked, but the woman is now buried, and we will say nothing more about it."

Marianne alone stood opposed to all and told them to their faces that it was an injustice and wickedness to talk as they did; none of them had known the woman, else they would know that there was nothing bad about her, but that she had been an angel of goodness, gentleness and kindly deeds. And although the lady had appeared as aristocratic as a princess, she had been more friendly with humble folk, such as Marianne, than many a Middle Lotter who ran about in torn stockings. But if Marianne was asked if she had known the woman well, who she was, and why not a single relative enquired after her, although the notice of her death was put into all the papers; then she too could give no explanation, since she did not know anything.

A few wicked people then said: "No doubt Marianne will have had her profit from it." But she had not, and never had looked for it. The woman had paid the low rent in advance for the month, which had just ended; it had been the month of August. When now, immediately after the funeral of the poor woman, the officials came and looked to see what the inheritance of the little boy would be, then it was found that there was nothing but the piano and the black silk skirt. The officials decided to give the latter to Marianne, since she had rendered her the last services and put her in her last bed.

The dress had once been very beautiful, for the material was heavy and costly, but it was much worn, and yet Marianne thought: "It is too handsome for me. I will not wear it but it is a dear remembrance," for she had only seen the dear woman in that one dress. While they were still talking over what should be done with the piano, the landlord of the Krone in Lower Wood drove up with an empty wagon and took the piano, the beds, the table and the two easy chairs, for everything had been hired from him; but he had been paid in advance up to this time.

So nothing was left for the little boy but the velvet suit that he wore. Now they began to talk about what was to be done with the boy, and some propositions were made as to how he could be cared for. At this point Marianne stepped forth and said that she would keep the little boy until she was leaving. In three weeks she was going to move down to Oakwood to her cousin's, for her house was as good as sold. The officials were greatly pleased with this offer; many things could turn up in three weeks, and for the time being the little waif was cared for. So they parted from one another satisfied with their work.

Chapter VI. A Lost Hymn

The next morning, when the mother lay still and pale on her bed, Erick woke up; Marianne, who had watched for his wakening, came to his couch and said:

"Dear Erick, your mother has gone, last night, to heaven, and now she feels very happy, and looks down on you and watches to see whether you stay good and honest so that sometime you may come to her."

First he had answered quite quietly: "Yes, I know, Mother has told me that it would come so." But when he went to his mother and looked at her for a long, long time and she did not open her eyes, then he sat down on a footstool and cried quietly. As long as his mother lay there he could not be made to leave her, and when she was carried out, then he sat down in the spot where she always had sat, and did not go away the whole day. But he was quite still, and although he wept, he did it so quietly that no sound could be heard.

The day after the officials had been there and Marianne had taken Erick from the empty room upstairs to her little home, she thought that it would be best if he were to go to school and again come in contact with other children, so that he might become happy again and make a little noise with them; for this quiet weeping seemed sadder to Marianne than if he had sobbed aloud. So she told him on that morning, that it would be best for him if he were to go to school. In an instant Erick obeyed, took out his books, packed them in his bag and started on his way to school. So it went on from day to day, and gradually it seemed to Marianne that Erick grew more and more as he used to be; but the sunny, joyous face which he used to have had not yet returned, and something like shyness had come to him, which never before had been noticed in him. It seemed as if a safe, strong wall, which formerly had protected him, had fallen down, and as though he looked for the first time on things and people which surrounded him and which were strange to him. The safe wall had been the great love of his mother, which had encircled him everywhere.

Two weeks had passed since Erick had again gone to school. When lessons were over, he had never waited until the scholars of the Middle Lot had gathered to make a noisy journey home, but he had run away at once and had walked the long way alone. When he came home, he found his piece of bread and his cup of milk ready on the table if Marianne was not there to give it to him. When she was there, she often said: "Go out a little to play with the children, Erick, it will be good for you and you will have time afterwards to do your lessons." Erick had always gone out, as far as the hedge before the house, and had stopped and watched how here and there the children were running about and playing all kinds of games; but he had never joined them.

So also today, he stood there and looked with surprised eyes across at the freshly mown meadow, where a crowd of Middle Lot children were playing with much noise "Catch me if you can." Big Churi was running after Kaetheli and as she knew what heavy blows from those big fists would fall upon her back if she should be caught, she rushed over the field toward the hedge and into Marianne's little garden, almost throwing down Erick on her way. At this instant the quick-running Churi would have caught Kaetheli; but quick as a deer, Erick rushed forth, opened his arms wide and so stopped Churi until Kaetheli had shot around the cottage, fleet as an arrow, and again to her goal on the meadow, where she could get her breath without fear of being caught.

Churi grumbled: "Another time you leave me alone, or--" With this he shook his fist at Erick and then ran away, for he hoped to catch Kaetheli before she should reach her goal. When the latter had rested a little she came running back again, for she indeed had felt Erick's chivalrous service and she was very grateful to him. She therefore could not see him standing so alone, but ran up to him and said cheeringly: "Come and play with us, you must not always stand so alone, that is lonesome."

"No," said Erick, "I cannot play with you. I do not want to shout so terribly."

"You need not scream, that does not belong to the game. Come along!" Saying this, Kaetheli took Erick's hand firmly in hers and pulled him along.

Erick played with the rest, and now he had begun he played with all his might. They had stopped the game of "Catch" and were playing a circle game. The children had formed a large circle and held each other's hands. In the middle of the circle stood the excluded child. This child had to strike someone's hand at random and then there was a race around the circle to see who would first get in the open space inside. This game was played with the greatest zeal; but suddenly Erick pulled his hands away from his neighbors' and ran away, so that great confusion arose.

"We will not let him play any more," cried Churi, much angered.

"Indeed we will," maintained Kaetheli firmly, "perhaps a wasp has stung him, or perhaps they play the same game where he used to live. When he returns he can take my hand. Now we will go on."

So it was done, and soon after they were playing again with great glee, and Erick was forgotten.

Not far from their playground stood a blind man with a barrel-organ playing his melodies. When Erick had heard the first notes, he had freed himself and had run away. Now he stood at a little distance from the organ grinder and listened with strained attention to all the melodies. When the man left, the boy went quietly toward the cottage, and when Marianne saw him come, she said to herself: "I had hoped that the children would make him merry again, and now it seems to me that he is sadder than he was before."

From that time on Kaetheli looked every evening, when the games began, to see whether Erick was standing near the hedge, and when she saw him there she ran to get him. Erick now played every day with the children and when he was in the spirit of the game, he looked quite happy. But almost every evening the same thing occurred as on the first. In the midst of the game Erick stopped, ran away and did not return. Once a number of wandering journeymen had passed by; they had sung loud and joyously their wander-songs, one after the other. Away was Erick, and one could see him far away, quietly following the singing men. Once trumpet blasts sounded across the meadow to the playing children--for one of Middle Lot was with the players in the army and was practising his marches--at once Erick ran away in the direction of the sounds. Another time a boy with a harmonica had approached the playing children; it was Erick's turn just then to seek the hiders, but threatenings and pleadings were of no avail, he did not seek any more. He placed himself in front of the boy and listened to him; there he remained standing and did not stir.

Churi in his hiding-place was about to burst with anger because Erick stopped seeking. He had hoped that Erick would exhaust himself looking for him, for Churi had climbed up the high pear-tree which stood in the centre of their playground, and from there he could overlook Erick's inactivity and his stubborn resistance to being moved. Kaetheli too had become impatient, for in the farthest corner of the goat-shed, whither she had crawled, she felt herself secure from being found, and now, all at once, she discovered that there was no more seeking, and she could easily guess the cause. With a good deal of trouble she crawled out again, with many signs of her hiding-place on her dress for she had been obliged to sit crouched. She ran to Erick, who was still in the same spot, near the harmonica player.

"I should like to know what is the matter with you," she called out. "Every evening, just when we have the greatest fun, all at once you run away like a hare, or you stand there like a statue and let everything go as it will. But that will not do! Come and seek us. But first I must hide again."

The tones of the harmonica had just stopped and the boy had gone. Erick took a deep breath and said: "I cannot play any more. I must go home."

He turned away and went; but that annoyed Kaetheli. She ran after him and talked angrily at him. "That is not nice of you, Erick; you need not have done that. You have spoiled the game now four or five times--that is surely not kind of you, do you think it is?" They had by this time arrived at Marianne's cottage. Erick stopped at the hedge and turned round. He said, quite friendly: "Do not be angry, Kaetheli, you see I have to act so."

"Yes, but why? Tell me now, what you do and why you have to spoil everything?" demanded Kaetheli, rather huffed, for she could not yet get over the fact that she had crawled all for nothing into the incomparable hiding-place in the goat-shed.

"I will tell you, Kaetheli, for you must not think that I purposely spoil everything for you. I did not think of that," said Erick, excusing himself. "Do you see, there is a beautiful song which my mother sang every day, and also on the last day, and I should so much like to hear that song again. But no one sings it, and I may listen wherever I like, I hear only other things. Oh, if I could only hear that song again, just once!"

Now Kaetheli saw how Erick's eyes filled with big tears, and in an instant her anger turned into pity. "You must not be sad on that account, for I can help you," she said readily. "I know so many songs; tell me what the name of yours is, then I will say it to you right away."

"I try to remember it all the time, but I cannot get the words together; but I remember well the melody. Do you think you could guess the words, if I sing the melody?"

"Of course I can, you just sing on," encouraged Kaetheli, with confidence.

Erick sang a line, and then another, and still a bit, then he could not go further. Kaetheli, surprised, shook her head. "I never have heard that song, but perhaps we sing it, only a little differently. I am sure I shall find it. Tell me what it is about, about people or animals?"

"At the beginning about flowers, green trees, you know, with those beautiful branches and--"

"Stop, I know all," Kaetheli interrupted him; "now I am going to sing it to you." And with a firm voice and full tones Kaetheli began seriously:

     "'Three roses in the garden,
     Three birds are in the wood,
     In summer it is lovely
     In winter it is good.'

"Is that it?" she now asked, full of confidence that it must be it. But Erick shook his head decidedly, and said:

"No, no, that is not my song, there is no similarity between it and what you sing."

Kaetheli was much surprised. "But the flowers and the trees are in the song," she said, "or perhaps, Erick, you have forgotten the song and do not know how it goes?"

"Indeed, indeed I know," the latter assured her. "You see, first there is a great feast, where they all come and throw down many flowers and wreaths because a great lord is coming and--"

"Perhaps a count," Kaetheli interposed.

"Perhaps so."

"Oh! now I know it! If you only had spoke of the count right away; now listen!" And again Kaetheli began with full tones:

     "'I stood on a high mountain
     And looked into a vale,
     A little ship came swimming
     Three counts did hoist the sail.'

"Well, Erick?"

But Erick shook his head even more and said sadly: "Not at all, not a bit like it! Perhaps the song is lost and no one knows anything about it."

"I know something else to help you," said helpful Kaetheli, whose tender heart was filled with compassion. "To be sure, it is a little late, but I can still do it."

Then she ran away, and Erick looked after her with great surprise, and wondered where she was going to look for the song.

Running all the way, Kaetheli had reached the bottom of the hill in a quarter of an hour. On the garden wall stood Ritz. "Get Sally, Ritz, but be quick," Kaetheli called up to him. That just suited Ritz, for he hoped that something particular was in store, and before Kaetheli reached the wall, Sally was brought out.

Breathlessly Kaetheli told her what she wanted and now expected, since Sally knew so many songs that she would bring out the desired one on the spot. But it was not accomplished so quickly and there followed a long explanation, for Sally must know all that was to be found in the song, whether it was joyous or sad, and then she began to guess and to try whether it could be this one or that, but none seemed to fit according to the descriptions, and suddenly Kaetheli jumped up and exclaimed: "The evening bells are ringing; I have to go home. I am afraid that father will be at supper before me and then he'll scold. I thought you would know it much quicker, Sally, such a simple song! Think it over and bring it to me at school, but sure, for else Erick will be sad again. Good night!"

Kaetheli was away like a shot, and Sally went thoughtfully back to the house. Very soon the sitting-room was lighted up, where mother and aunt were seated at the table, and now the father also sat down. Edi had long since waited with his book to see whether the lamp would be lighted in the room, for his mother had forbidden him to read in the twilight. Ritz sat down to finish, with many a sigh, a delayed arithmetic lesson. Now Sally entered the room; under each arm she carried four or five books of different sizes and makeup. Panting under the heavy load she threw them on the table.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," cried Auntie, frightened, "now Sally will turn into a historical searcheress."

"No, no," cried Sally, "only give me a little room, I am obliged to look for something." She sat down at once behind the heap of books and began her work in earnest. But she did not remain undisturbed for long, for the large amount of reading material which she had brought in attracted the eyes of all, and all at once the father, who had looked at the books from over his paper, said:

"Sally, I see a book which is little suited for you to read. Where did you get the Niebelungen song?"

"I was just going to ask," said the mother, "what you intended to do with A.M. Arndt's war songs?"

Sally had taken along from all tables and book-cases what seemed to her a collection of songs. These two books she had found in her father's study and now she explained that she had to find Erick's lost song, and what Kaetheli had told her about what was in it.

"Aha," said Edi, and giggled a little, "on that account you took that book from the piano. Erick will be pleased with the words you will get from this."

He held the book before his sister and pointed with his finger to the title: "Songs Without Words". Sally was not as thorough in her thinking as her brother was. She had, in the zeal of her intention, thought that these were some particular kind of songs, and she now looked with some confusion at the book in which only black notes were to be found. Ritz, too, was now roused to interest in the doings. He too had taken up a book and read rather laboriously: "Battle Sonnets" from--

"What! You have also been to my table, Sally?" the aunt interrupted the reader. "You children are really terrible! At any rate you ought to have been in bed long ago; it is high time, pack together."

But this time Sally showed herself unusually obstinate. She assured them that she could not sleep, not for the whole night, if she had not found the song. She must bring it to Kaetheli, as she had promised to do so, and from fear that she should not find the song Sally worked herself into such a state of excitement that the mother interfered. She explained to the child that they were not the kind of books where such a song could be found, and that the descriptions which Kaetheli had given were much too uncertain to find any song. Sally herself should speak with Erick about what he still knew of his song, and then they would search for it together, for she too would gladly help the poor boy to keep in memory the song his mother had loved.

These words pacified Sally and so she willingly packed together her books and put each in its place.