[Heidi was a little Swiss girl who went to live with her grand- father up among the mountains, where she made a bed of straw in the loft. The next morning her grandfather said that she might go for the day higher up the mountain with Peter, the goat-herd.]
Heidi started joyfully for the mountain. She ran to and fro shouting with delight, for here were whole patches of delicate red primroses, and there the blue gleam of the lovely gentian, while above them all laughed and nodded the golden rock-roses. Charmed with all this waving field of bright flowers, Heidi forgot even Peter and the goats. She ran to and fro gathering whole handfuls of the flowers, which she put into her little apron. Then she sat down, surrounded by flowers, and drew in deep breaths of the scented air.
"You have enough now," said Peter. "You will stay here for ever, if you go on picking; and, if you gather all the flowers now, there will be none for to-morrow."Heidi jumped up, and climbed on up the mountain with Peter. The goats now became quieter and less troublesome. They were beginning to smell the plants they loved, whichgrew on the higher slopes, and they climbed up as fast as they could to reach them. When the children came to the foot of the high rocks, Peter put the bag which held their lunch carefully in a hollow in the ground, where the wind could not blow it away. Then he stretched himself on the warm ground and fell asleep.
As Heidi sat beside Peter, looking at all the beauty of the mountains, she suddenly heard a harsh cry overhead, and saw a large bird, with great spreading wings, wheeling round and round in wide circles, and making a piercing, croaking kind of sound. " Peter, Peter, wake up!" called Heidi. "Look at the big bird!" Peter sat up, and together they watched the bird, which rose higher and higher in the blue air, till it vanished behind the grey mountain-tops.
"Let us climb up and see where its nest is," said Heidi. "Oh, good gracious, no!" said Peter. " Why, even thegoats can"t climb so high as that; besides, your grandfathersaid that you were not to fall over the rocks."Peter now began whistling and calling so loudly that Heidi wondered what was going to happen. The goats, however, understood, for one after another they came springing down the rocks, until they had all gathered on the green patch beside the children. Heidi was delighted at the way they played and skipped about, and she ran in and out among them, joining in their frolic. Meanwhile, Peter hadopened the lunch-bag, and he called to Heidi to come. When she saw the meal spread out on the ground, she danced round it for joy.
"Leave off jumping about. It is time for dinner," said Peter. " Sit down and begin." Heidi sat down and enjoyed her delicious meal of fresh goat"s milk, bread, and cheese.
All at once Peter leapt to his feet and dashed through the flock of goats towards the edge of a steep cliff. He had caught sight of a young goat, named Greenfinch, springing towards the dangerous edge. All Peter could do was to throw himself flat on the ground, and seize one of the goat"s hind legs. Greenfinch, thus taken by surprise, began bleating furiously, angry at not being able to go on with her voyage of discovery. She struggled to break loose, and tried so hard to leap forward that Peter shouted to Heidi to come to his help.
Heidi saw at once the danger in which both Peter and the goat were. Quickly picking a bunch of sweet-smelling leaves, she held them under Greenfinch"s nose, and tried to coax her back. The young animal turned round, and began eating the leaves out of Heidi"s hand. Peter was then able to rise to his feet, and, grasping the goat by the collar, he pulled her back to safety. He was then going to beat the goat, but Heidi begged him not to do so, and Greenfinch was allowed to spring joyfully back among the other goats.
So the day passed away, and the sun began to sink behind the high mountains. "Peter! Peter!" cried Heidi suddenly. "Everything is on fire! All the rocks are burning, and the great snowy mountains, and the sky. Look, that high rock is red with flame! Oh, the beautiful, fiery snow! Stand up, Peter! See, the fire has reached the great bird"s nest! Look at the fir-trees. Everything is on fire!""It is always like that," said Peter, without looking upfrom the stick he was peeling. "" It is not really fire.""What is it, then?" asked Heidi, as she ran to look firston one side and then on the other.
"Oh, it just goes like that itself," was all Peter said. "Look," cried Heidi, "now the mountains are all turningpink. How lovely the crimson snow is! Oh, now everything is turning grey. All the colour is dying away. It"s all gone, Peter." Heidi sat down, looking as sad as if the whole world had come to an end.
" It will come again to-morrow," said Peter. "We must go home now." He whistled to the goats, and together they all started down the mountains for home.
"Shall we see it like that every day when we bring the goats up here?" asked Heidi.
"It is like that nearly every day," Peter replied.
"But will it be like that to-morrow, for certain?" she asked.
"Yes, yes, for certain," said Peter.
Heidi now felt quite happy again. Her little mind was so full of all the new things she had seen that she did not speak again until they reached the hut, where her grandfather was sitting under the firs waiting for her.
When the goats were shut in their stable, she sat upon her little stool and slowly ate her supper. And, as she ate, she told the old man all that had happened during the day, and above all how the high places had burned with a red light.
"Yes," he said; "the sun does that when he says good night to the mountains. He throws his loveliest colours across them, so that they will not forget that he is coming again in the morning."It was not long before Heidi climbed up to her little bed in the loft, and as she slept she dreamed of pink mountains covered with roses, among which white and brown goats ran and jumped.
Adapted from Heidi, by Johanna Spyri
Author.-Johanna Spyri (before her marriage Johanna Heusser), a Swiss writer of stories about child-life in her country, was born at Hirzel a village near Zurich, in 1827. Her father was a doctor. She married the town clerk of Zurich, Bernhard Spyri, and lived in that town until her death in 1901. Heidi is her best-loved book; other titles are Rico andDrawn by Mariorie Howden
"Together they watched the bird."
Wiseli, Gritli"s Children, The Little Alpine Musician, and Veronica.
General Notes.-What do you learn from this story about life in the mountains of Switzerland-flowers, scenes, animals, houses? How does farming life on Heidi"s mountain differ from farming life in Victoria?