NEWS FROM DISTANT FRIENDS
home. “I should so like to have seen Peter and his whole flock.”
“Dear child, let us enjoy all the beautiful things that we can see, and not think about those that we cannot,” grandmamma replied as she followed the chair which Heidi was pushing further on.
“Oh, the flowers!” exclaimed Clara. “Look at the bushes of red flowers, and all the nodding blue bells! Oh, if I could but get out and pick some!”
Heidi ran off at once and picked her a large nosegay of them.
“But these are nothing, Clara,” she said, laying the flowers on her lap. “If you could come up higher to where the goats are feeding, then you would indeed see something! Bushes on bushes of the red centaury, and ever so many more of the blue bell-flowers; and then the bright yellow rock roses, that gleam like pure gold, and all crowding together in the one spot. And then there are others with the large leaves that grandfather calls Bright Eyes, and the brown ones with little round heads that smell so delicious. Oh, it is beautiful up there, and if you sit down among them you never want to get up again, everything looks and smells so lovely!”
Heidi’s eyes sparkled with the remembrance of what she was describing; she was longing herself to see it all again, and Clara caught her enthusiasm and looked back at her with equal longing in her soft blue eyes.
“Grandmamma, do you think I could get up there? Is it possible for me to go?” she asked eagerly. “If only I could walk, climb about everywhere with you, Heidi!”
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