FRÄULEIN ROTTENMEIER
Heidi asked her companion what he was carrying on his back; it was a hand-organ, he told her, which played beautiful music when he turned the handle. All at once they found themselves in front of an old church with a high tower; the boy stood still, and said, “There it is.”
“But how shall I get inside?” asked Heidi, looking at the fast closed doors.
“I don’t know,” was the answer.
“Do you think that I can ring as they do for Sebastian?”
“I don’t know.”
Heidi had by this time caught sight of a bell in the wall which she now pulled with all her might. “If I go up you must stay down here, for I do not know the way back, and you will have to show me.”
“What will you give me then for that?”
“What do you want me to give you?”
“Another twopence.”
They heard the key turning inside, and then some one pulled open the heavy creaking door; an old man came out and at first looked with surprise and then in anger at the children, as he began scolding them: “What do you mean by ringing me down like this? Can’t you read what is written over the bell, ‘For those who wish to go up the tower’?”
The boy said nothing but pointed his finger at Heidi. The latter answered, “But I do want to go up the tower.”
“What do you want up there?” said the old man. “Has somebody sent you?”
“No,” replied Heidi, “I only wanted to go up that I might look down.”
[123]
