Part 4 (1/2)
”But what is it then?” asked Heidi eagerly, gazing about her everywhere.
”It gets that way of itself,” explained Peter.
”Oh look! Everything is all rosy now! Oh, look at this mountain over there with the snow and the sharp peaks. What is its name?”
”Mountains have no names,” he answered.
”Oh, see, how beautiful! It looks as if many, many roses were growing on those cliffs. Oh, now they are getting grey. Oh dear! the fire has gone out and it is all over. What a terrible shame!” said Heidi quite despondently.
”It will be the same again tomorrow,” Peter rea.s.sured her. ”Come now, we have to go home.”
When Peter had called the goats together, they started downwards.
”Will it be like that every day when we are up?” asked Heidi, eagerly.
”It usually is,” was the reply.
”What about tomorrow?” she inquired.
”Tomorrow it will be like that, I am sure,” Peter affirmed.
That made Heidi feel happy again. She walked quietly by Peter's side, thinking over all the new things she had seen. At last, reaching the hut, they found the grandfather waiting for them on a bench under the fir-trees. Heidi ran up to him and the two goats followed, for they knew their master. Peter called to her: ”Come again tomorrow!
Good-night!”
Heidi gave him her hand, a.s.suring him that she would come, and finding herself surrounded by the goats, she hugged Snowhopper a last time.
When Peter had disappeared, Heidi returned to her grandfather. ”Oh grandfather! it was so beautiful! I saw the fire and the roses on the rocks! And see the many, many flowers I am bringing you!” With that Heidi shook them out of her ap.r.o.n. But oh, how miserable they looked!
Heidi did not even know them any more.
”What is the matter with them, grandfather? They looked so different!”
Heidi exclaimed in her fright.
”They are made to bloom in the sun and not to be shut up in an ap.r.o.n,”
said the grandfather.
”Then I shall never pick them any more! Please, grandfather, tell me why the eagle screeches so loudly,” asked Heidi.
”First go and take a bath, while I go into the shed to get your milk.
Afterwards we'll go inside together and I'll tell you all about it during supper-time.”
They did as was proposed, and when Heidi sat on her high chair before her milk, she asked the same question as before.
”Because he is sneering at the people down below, who sit in the villages and make each other angry. He calls down to them:--'If you would go apart to live up on the heights like me, you would feel much better!'” The grandfather said these last words with such a wild voice, that it reminded Heidi of the eagle's screech.
”Why do the mountains have no names, grandfather?” asked Heidi.
”They all have names, and if you tell me their shape I can name them for you.”