THE VISIT TO GRANDMOTHER
home again.” Then he left her and went up the mountain, pulling his sleigh after him.
Heidi opened the door of the hut and stepped into a tiny room that looked very dark, with a fireplace and a few dishes on a wooden shelf; this was the little kitchen. She opened another door, and now found herself in another small room, for the place was not a herdsman’s hut like her grandfather’s, with one large room on the ground floor and a hay-loft above, but a very old cottage, where everything was narrow and poor and shabby. A table was close to the door, and as Heidi stepped in she saw a woman sitting at it, putting a patch on a waistcoat which Heidi recognized at once as Peter’s. In the corner sat an old woman, bent with age, spinning. Heidi was quite sure this was the grandmother, so she went up to the spinning-wheel and said, “Good-day, grandmother, I have come at last; did you think I was a long time coming?”
The woman raised her head and felt for the hand that the child held out to her, and when she found it, she passed her own over it thoughtfully for a few seconds, and then said, “Are you the child who lives up with Alm-Uncle, are you Heidi?”
“Yes, yes,” answered Heidi, “I have just come down in the sleigh with grandfather.”
“Is it possible! Why your hands are quite warm! Brigitta, did Alm-Uncle come himself with the child?”
Peter’s mother had left her work and risen from the table and now stood looking at Heidi with curiosity, scanning her from head to foot. “I do not know, mother, whether Uncle came himself; it is hardly likely, the child probably makes a mistake.”
[71]
