“Money.”
“I have none, but Clara has; I am sure she will give me some; how much do you want?”
“Twopence.”
“Come along then.”
They started off together along the street, and on the way 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.”
“Get along home with you and don’t try this trick on me again, or you may not come off so easily a second time,” and with that he turned and was about to shut the door. But Heidi took hold of his coat and said beseechingly, “Let me go up, just once.”
He looked around, and his mood changed as he saw her pleading eyes; he took hold of her hand and said kindly, “Well, if you really wish it so much, I will take you.”
The boy sat down on the church steps to show that he was content to wait where he was.
Hand in hand with the old man Heidi went up the many steps of the tower; they became smaller and smaller as they neared the top, and at last came one very narrow one, and there they were at the end of their climb. The old man lifted Heidi up that she might look out of the open window.
“There, now you can look down,” he said.
Heidi saw beneath her a sea of roofs, towers, and chimney-pots; she quickly drew back her head and said in a sad, disappointed voice, “It is not at all what I thought.”
“You see now, a child like you does not understand anything about a view! Come along down and don’t go ringing at my bell again!”
He lifted her down and went on before her down the narrow stairway. To the left of the turn where it grew wider stood the door of the tower-keeper’s room, and the landing ran out beside it to the edge of the steep slanting roof. At the far end of this was a large basket, in front of which sat a big grey cat, that snarled as it saw them, for she wished to warn the passers- by that they were not to meddle with her family. Heidi stood still and looked at her in astonishment, for she had never seen such a monster cat before; there were whole armies of mice, however, in the old tower, so the cat had no difficulty in catching half a dozen for her dinner every day. The old man seeing Heidi so struck with admiration said, “She will not hurt you while I am near; come, you can have a peep at the kittens.”
Heidi went up to the basket and broke out into expressions of delight.
“Oh, the sweet little things! the darling kittens,” she kept on saying, as she jumped from side to side of the basket so as, not to lose any of the droll gambols of the seven or eight little kittens that were scrambling and rolling and falling over one another.
“Would you like to have one?” said the old man, who enjoyed watching the child’s pleasure.
“For myself to keep?” said Heidi excitedly, who could hardly believe such happiness was to be hers.
“Yes, of course, more than one if you like—in short, you can take away the whole lot if you have room for them,” for the old man was only too glad to think he could get rid of his kittens without more trouble.
Heidi could hardly contain herself for joy. There would be plenty of room for them in the large house, and then how astonished and delighted Clara would be when she saw the sweet little kittens.
“But how can I take them with me?” asked Heidi, and was going quickly to see how many she could carry away in her hands, when the old cat sprang at her so fiercely that she shrank back in fear.
“I will take them for you if you will tell me where,” said the old man, stroking the cat to quiet her, for she was an old friend of his that had lived with him in the tower for many years.
“To Herr Sesemann’s, the big house where there is a gold dog’s head on the door, with a ring in its mouth,” explained Heidi.
Such full directions as these were not really needed by the old man, who had had charge of the tower for many a long year and knew every house far and near, and moreover Sebastian was an acquaintance of his.
“I know the house,” he said, “but when shall I bring them, and who shall I ask for?—you are not one of the family, I am sure.”
“No, but Clara will be so delighted when I take her the kittens.”
The old man wished now to go downstairs, but Heidi did not know how to tear herself away from the amusing spectacle.
“If I could just take one or two away with me! one for myself and one for Clara, may I?”
“Well, wait a moment,” said the man, and he drew the cat cautiously away into his room, and leaving her by a bowl of food came out again and shut the door. “Now take two of them.”
Heidi’s eyes shone with delight. She picked up a white kitten and another striped white and yellow, and put one in the right, the other in the left pocket. Then she went downstairs. The boy was still sitting outside on the steps, and as the old man shut the door of the church behind them, she said, “Which is our way to Herr Sesemann’s house?”
“I don’t know,” was the answer.
Heidi began a description of the front door and the steps and the windows, but the boy only shook his head, and was not any the wiser.
“Well, look here,” continued Heidi, “from one window you can see a very, very large grey house, and the roof runs like this—” and Heidi drew a zigzag line in the air with her forefinger.
With this the boy jumped up, he was evidently in the habit of guiding himself by similar landmarks. He ran straight off with Heidi after him, and in a very short time they had reached the door with the large dog’s head for the knocker. Heidi rang the bell. Sebastian opened it quickly, and when he saw it was Heidi, “Make haste! make haste,” he cried in a hurried voice.
Heidi sprang hastily in and Sebastian shut the door after her, leaving the boy, whom he had not noticed, standing in wonder on the steps.
“Make haste, little miss,” said Sebastian again; “go straight into the dining-room, they are already at table; Fraulein Rottenmeier looks like a loaded cannon. What could make the little miss run off like that?”
Heidi walked into the room. The lady housekeeper did not look up, Clara did not speak; there was an uncomfortable silence. Sebastian pushed her chair up for her, and when she was seated Fraulein Rottenmeier, with a severe countenance, sternly and solemnly addressed her: “I will speak with you afterwards, Adelheid, only this much will I now say, that you behaved in a most unmannerly and reprehensible way by running out of the house as you did, without asking permission, without any one knowing a word about it; and then to go wandering about till this hour; I never heard of such behavior before.”
“Mi
au!” came the answer back.
This was too much for the lady’s temper; with raised voice she exclaimed, “You dare, Adelheid, after your bad behavior, to answer me as if it were a joke?”
“I did not—” began Heidi—"Miau! miau!”
Sebastian almost dropped his dish and rushed out of the room.
“That will do,” Fraulein Rottenmeier tried to say, but her voice was almost stifled with anger. “Get up and leave the room.”
Heidi stood up frightened, and again made an attempt to explain.
“I really did not—” “Miau! miau! miau!”
“But, Heidi,” now put in Clara, “when you see that it makes
Fraulein Rottenmeier angry, why do you keep on saying miau?”
“It isn’t I, it’s the kittens,” Heidi was at last given time to say.
“How! what! kittens!” shrieked Fraulein Rottenmeier. “Sebastian! Tinette! Find the horrid little things! take them away!” And she rose and fled into the study and locked the door, so as to make sure that she was safe from the kittens, which to her were the most horrible things in creation.
Sebastian was obliged to wait a few minutes outside the door to get over his laughter before he went into the room again. He had, while serving Heidi, caught sight of a little kitten’s head peeping out of her pocket, and guessing the scene that would follow, had been so overcome with amusement at the first miaus that he had hardly been able to finish handing the dishes. The lady’s distressed cries for help had ceased before he had sufficiently regained his composure to go back into the dining- room. It was all peace and quietness there now, Clara had the kittens on her lap, and Heidi was kneeling beside her, both laughing and playing with the tiny, graceful little animals.
“Sebastian,” exclaimed Clara as he came in, “you must help us; you must find a bed for the kittens where Fraulein Rottenmeier will not spy them out, for she is so afraid of them that she will send them away at once; but we want to keep them, and have them out whenever we are alone. Where can you put them?”
“I will see to that,” answered Sebastian willingly. “I will make a bed in a basket and put it in some place where the lady is not likely to go; you leave it to me.” He set about the work at once, sniggling to himself the while, for he guessed there would be a further rumpus about this some day, and Sebastian was not without a certain pleasure in the thought of Fraulein Rottenmeier being a little disturbed.
Not until some time had elapsed, and it was nearing the hour for going to bed, did Fraulein Rottenmeier venture to open the door a crack and call through, “Have you taken those dreadful little animals away, Sebastian?”
He assured her twice that he had done so; he had been hanging about the room in anticipation of this question, and now quickly and quietly caught up the kittens from Clara’s lap and disappeared with them.
The castigatory sermon which Fraulein Rottenmeier had held in reserve for Heidi was put off till the following day, as she felt too exhausted now after all the emotions she had gone through of irritation, anger, and fright, of which Heidi had unconsciously been the cause. She retired without speaking, Clara and Heidi following, happy in their minds at knowing that the kittens were lying in a comfortable bed.
CHAPTER VIII. THERE IS GREAT COMMOTION IN THE LARGE HOUSE
Sebastian had just shown the tutor into the study on the following morning when there came another and very loud ring at the bell, which Sebastian ran quickly to answer. “Only Herr Sesemann rings like that,” he said to himself; “he must have returned home unexpectedly.” He pulled open the door, and there in front of him he saw 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 dirty, 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 fourpence,” 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 twopence for showing her the way there, and twopence for showing her the way back.”
“See what a pack of lies you are telling! 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; he remained standing, 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; “he must come in, must he not,” she added, turning to her tutor, “if he wishes so particularly to see me?”
The boy was already inside the room, and according to Sebastian’s directions immediately began to play his organ. Fraulein Rottenmeier, wishing to escape the A B C, had retired with her work to the dining-room. All at once she stopped and listened. Did those sounds come up from the street? And yet they seemed so near! But how could there be an organ playing in the study? And yet—it surely was so. She rushed to the other end of the long dining-room and tore open the door. She could hardly believe her eyes. There, in the middle of the study, stood a ragged boy turning away at his organ in the most energetic manner. The tutor appeared to be making efforts to speak, but his voice could not be heard. Both children were listening delightedly to the music.
“Leave off! leave off at once!” screamed Fraulein Rottenmeier. 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!”
The organ-player suddenly stopped, for this time her voice had risen louder than the music. Sebastian was standing outside bent double with laughter, for he had been peeping to see what was going on. By the time he entered the room Fraulein Rottenmeier had sunk into a chair.
“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 the tortoise, and when he had got him outside he put something into his hand. “There is the fourpence from Miss Clara, and another fourpence 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; Fraulein Rottenmeier now took up her station in the study in order by her presence to prevent any further dreadful goings- on.
But soon another knock came to the door, and Sebastian again stepped in, this time to say that some one 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 Fraulein Rottenmeier.
Clara could not conceive what was in it, and cast longing glance
s 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, and again more kittens came suddenly tumbling on to the floor and racing about the room in every direction, and with such indescribable rapidity that it seemed as if the whole room was full of them. They jumped over the tutor’s boots, bit at his trousers, climbed up Fraulein Rottenmeier’s dress, rolled about her feet, sprang up on to Clara’s couch, scratching, scrambling, and mewing: it was a sad scene of confusion. Clara, meanwhile, pleased with their gambols, 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, lifting first his right foot and then his left to get it away from the scrambling, scratching kittens. Fraulein Rottenmeier 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.
To-day again there had been no opportunity for gaping. Late that evening, when Fraulein Rottenmeier had somewhat recovered from the excitement of the morning, she sent for the two servants, and examined them closely concerning the events of the morning. And then it came out that Heidi was at the bottom of them, everything being the result of her excursion of the day before. Fraulein Rottenmeier sat pale with indignation and did not know at first how to express her anger. Then she made a sign to Tinette and Sebastian to withdraw, and turning to Heidi, who was standing by Clara’s couch, quite unable to understand of what sin she had been guilty, began in a severe voice,—
The Classic Children's Literature Collection: 39 Classic Novels Page 78
