SURPRISES FOR THE CHILDREN
The tutor had just been shown into the study on the following morning
when there came a very loud ring at the bell. Sebastian opened the door
and there stood a ragged little boy carrying a hand-organ on his back.
"What's the meaning of this?" said Sebastian angrily. "I'll teach you
to ring bells like that! What do you want here?"
"I want to see Clara," the boy answered.
"You good-for-nothing little rascal, can't you be polite enough to say
'Miss Clara.' What do you want with her?" continued Sebastian roughly.
"She owes me ten cents," explained the boy.
"You must be out of your mind! And how do you know that any young lady
of that name lives here?"
"She owes me five for showing her the way there, and five for showing
her the way back."
"The young lady never goes out, cannot even walk; be off and get back
to where you came from, before I have to help you along."
But the boy was not to be frightened away, and said in a determined
voice, "But I saw her in the street, and can describe her to you; she
has short, curly black hair, and black eyes, and wears a brown dress,
and does not talk quite like we do."
"Oho!" thought Sebastian, laughing to himself, "the little miss has
evidently been up to more mischief." Then, drawing the boy inside he
said aloud, "I understand now, come with me and wait outside the door
till I tell you to go in. Be sure you begin playing your organ the
instant you get inside the room; the lady is very fond of music."
Sebastian knocked at the study door, and a voice said, "Come in."
"There is a boy outside who says he must speak to Miss Clara herself,"
Sebastian announced.
Clara was delighted at such an extraordinary and unexpected message.
"Let him come in at once," replied Clara.
The boy was already inside the room, and according to Sebastian's
directions immediately began to play his organ. Miss Rottermeyer
hearing the music rushed into the room and saw the ragged boy turning
away at his organ in the most energetic manner.
"Leave off! leave off at once!" she screamed. But her voice was drowned
by the music. She was making a dash for the boy, when she saw something
on the ground crawling towards her feet--a dreadful dark object--a
tortoise. At this sight she jumped higher than she had for many long
years before, shrieking with all her might, "Sebastian! Sebastian!"
"Take them all out, boy and animal! Get them away at once!" she
commanded him.
Sebastian pulled the boy away, the latter having quickly caught up his
tortoise, and when he had got him outside he put something into his
hand. "There is the ten cents from Miss Clara, and another ten cents
for the music. You did it all quite right!" and with that he shut the
front door upon him.
Quietness reigned again in the study, and lessons began once more; Miss
Rottermeyer now stayed in the study in order to prevent any further
dreadful goings-on.
[Illustration: MISS ROTTERMEYER JUMPED HIGHER THAN SHE HAD FOR
MANY LONG YEARS]
But soon another knock came to the door, and Sebastian again stepped
in, this time to say that someone had brought a large basket with
orders that it was to be given at once to Miss Clara.
"For me?" said Clara in astonishment, her curiosity very much excited,
"bring it in at once that I may see what it is like."
Sebastian carried in a large covered basket and retired.
"I think the lessons had better be finished first before the basket is
unpacked," said Miss Rottermeyer.
Clara could not conceive what was in it, and cast longing glances
towards it. In the middle of one of her declensions she suddenly broke
off and said to the tutor, "Mayn't I just give one peep inside to see
what is in it before I go on?"
"On some considerations I am for it, on others against it," he began
in answer; "for it, on the ground that if your whole attention is
directed to the basket--" but the speech remained unfinished. The cover
of the basket was loose, and at this moment one, two, three, and then
two more kittens came suddenly tumbling on to the floor and racing
about the room in every direction. They jumped over the tutor's boots,
climbed up Miss Rottermeyer's dress, rolled about her feet, sprang up
on to Clara's couch, scratching, scrambling, and mewing. Clara kept on
exclaiming, "Oh, the dear little things! how pretty they are! Look,
Heidi, at this one; look, look, at that one over there!" And Heidi in
her delight kept running after them first into one corner and then into
the other. The tutor stood up by the table not knowing what to do. Miss
Rottermeyer was unable at first to speak at all, so overcome was she
with horror, and she did not dare rise from her chair for fear that all
the dreadful little animals should jump upon her at once. At last she
found voice to call loudly, "Tinette! Tinette! Sebastian! Sebastian!"
They came in answer to her summons and gathered up the kittens; by
degrees they got them all inside the basket again and then carried them
off to put with the other two.
When Miss Rottermeyer learned that Heidi was to blame for having the
kittens brought into the house she was very angry and said:
"Adelaide, you little barbarian, you shall be put in a dark cellar with
the rats and black beetles."
Heidi listened in silence and surprise to her sentence, for she had
never seen a cellar such as was now described; the place known at her
grandfather's as the cellar, where the fresh cheeses and the new milk
were kept, was a pleasant and inviting place; neither did she know at
all what rats and black beetles were like.
But now Clara interrupted in great distress. "No, no, Miss Rottermeyer,
you must wait till papa comes; he has written to say that he will soon
be home, and then I will tell him everything, and he will say what is
to be done with Heidi."
Miss Rottermeyer could not do anything against this superior authority,
especially as the father was really expected very shortly. She rose and
said with some displeasure, "As you will, Clara, but I too shall have
something to say to Mr. Sesemann." And with that she left the room.
Two days now went by without further disturbance. Miss Rottermeyer,
however, could not recover her equanimity; she was perpetually reminded
by Heidi's presence of the deception that had been played upon her,
and it seemed to her that ever since the child had come into the
house everything had been topsy-turvy, and she could not bring things
into proper order again. Clara had grown much more cheerful; she no
longer found time hang heavy during the lesson hours, for Heidi was
continually making a diversion of some kind or other. She jumbled all
her letters up together and seemed quite unable to learn them, and
when the tutor tried to draw her attention to their different shapes,
and to help her by showing her that this was like a little horn,
or that like a bird's bill, she would suddenly exclaim in a joyful
voice, "That is a goat!" "That is a bird of prey!". For the tutor's
descriptions suggested all kinds of pictures to her mind, but left her
still incapable of the alphabet. In the later afternoons Heidi always
sat with Clara, and told her of the mountain and of her life upon it,
and the longing to return would become so overpowering that she always
finished with the words, "Now I must go home! tomorrow I must really
go!" But Clara would try to quiet her and tell Heidi that she must
wait till her father returned, and then they would see what was to be
done. After dinner Heidi had to sit alone in her room for a couple of
hours, for she understood now that she might not run about outside at
Frankfurt as she did on the mountain, and so she did not attempt it.
At times she could hardly contain herself for the longing to be back
home again. She remembered that Dete had told her that she could go
home whenever she liked. So it came about one day that Heidi felt she
could not bear it any longer. She tied all the rolls up in her red
shawl, put on her straw hat, and went downstairs. But just as she
reached the hall-door she met Miss Rottermeyer, just returning from a
walk, which put a stop to Heidi's journey.
"What have you dressed yourself like that for?" exclaimed Miss
Rottermeyer. "What do you mean by this? Have I not strictly forbidden
you to go running about in the streets? And here you are ready to start
off again, and going out looking like a beggar."
"I was not going to run about, I was going home," said Heidi frightened.
"What are you talking about! Going home! What would Mr. Sesemann say
if he knew! And what is the matter with his house, I should like to
know! Have you ever in your life before had such a house to live in,
such a table, or so many to wait upon you? Have you?"
"No," replied Heidi.
"I should think not, indeed!" continued the exasperated lady. "You are
an ungrateful little thing to be always thinking of what naughty thing
you can do next!"
Then Heidi's feelings got the better of her, and she poured forth her
trouble. "Indeed I only want to go home, for if I stay so long away
Snowflake will begin crying again, and grandmother is waiting for me,
and Greenfinch will get beaten, because I am not there to give Peter
any cheese, and I can never see here how the sun says good-night to the
mountains; and if the great bird were to fly over Frankfurt he would
croak louder than ever about people huddling all together and teaching
each other bad things, and not going to live up on the rocks, where it
is so much better."
"Heaven have mercy on us, the child is out of her mind!" cried Miss
Rottermeyer, and she turned and went quickly up the steps. "Go and
bring that unhappy little creature in at once," she ordered Sebastian.
"What, are you in trouble again?" said Sebastian in a pleasant voice,
as he led Heidi back up the stairs. He tried to cheer her up by telling
her he was taking good care of all the kittens. But she was too sad to
care and silently crept away to her room.
At supper that evening she sat without moving or eating; all she did
was to hastily hide her roll in her pocket.
Next day Miss Rottermeyer made up her mind that she would supplement
Heidi's clothing with various garments from Clara's wardrobe, so as to
give her a decent appearance when Mr. Sesemann returned. She confided
her intention to Clara, who was quite willing to give up any number
of dresses and hats to Heidi; so the lady went upstairs to overhaul
the child's belongings and see what was to be kept and what thrown
away. She returned, however, in the course of a few minutes with an
expression of horror upon her face.
"What is this, Adelaide, that I find in your wardrobe!" she exclaimed.
"I never heard of any one doing such a thing before! In a cupboard
meant for clothes, Adelaide, what do I see at the bottom but a heap of
rolls! Will you believe it, Clara, bread in a wardrobe! a whole pile of
bread!"
"Tinette," she called, "go upstairs and take away all those rolls out
of Adelaide's cupboard and the old straw hat on the table."
"No! no!" screamed Heidi. "I must keep the hat, and the rolls are for
grandmother," and she was rushing to stop Tinette when Miss Rottermeyer
caught hold of her: "You will stop here, and all that bread and rubbish
shall be taken to the place they belong to," she said in a determined
tone as she kept her hand on the child to prevent her running forward.
Heidi flung herself down on Clara's couch and broke into a wild fit
of weeping, sobbing out at intervals, "Now grandmother's bread is all
gone! They were all for grandmother, and now they are taken away, and
grandmother won't have one," and she wept as if her heart would break.
She could not get over her sobs for a long time; she would never have
been able to leave off crying at all if it had not been for Clara's
promise that she should have fresh, new rolls to take to grandmother
when the time came for her to go home.
When Heidi got into bed that night she found her old straw hat lying
under the counterpane. She snatched it up with delight, made it more
out of shape still in her joy, and then, after wrapping a handkerchief
round it, she stuck it in a corner of the cupboard as far back as she
could.
It was Sebastian who had hidden it there for her; he had been in the
dining-room when Tinette was called, and had heard all that went on
with the child and the latter's loud weeping. So he followed Tinette,
and when she came out of Heidi's room carrying the rolls and the hat,
he caught up the hat and said, "I will see to this old thing."