THE WINTER CONTINUES
about them. Wait a second and I will run and ask him, for he is only over the way with the pastor.” And she rose and ran to the door to put her words into action, but Peter cried out in a voice of agony,—
"Stop!” for he already saw himself being carried off by Alm-Uncle and the pastor and sent straight away to the Hottentots, since as yet he did not know his last letter. His cry of fear brought Heidi back.
“What is the matter?” she asked in astonishment.
“Nothing! come back! I am going to learn my letter,” he said, stammering with fear. Heidi, however, herself wished to know where the Hottentots lived and persisted that she should ask her grandfather, but she gave in at last to Peter's despairing entreaties. She insisted on his doing something in return, and so not only had he to repeat his Z until it was so fixed in his memory that he could never forget it again, but she began teaching him to spell, and Peter really made a good start that evening. So it went on from day to day.
The frost had gone and the snow was soft again, and moreover fresh snow continually fell, so that it was quite three weeks before Heidi could go to the grandmother again. So much the more eagerly did she pursue her teaching so that Peter might compensate for her absence by reading hymns to the old woman. One evening he walked in home after leaving Heidi, and as he entered he said, “I can do it now.”
“Do what, Peter?” asked his mother.
“Read,” he answered.
“Do you really mean it? Did you hear that, grandmother?” she called out.
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