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Updated: May 6, 2025
"Who? who? where to, Peter, where to?" asked the grandmother, growing still more agitated; but even as she spoke she guessed what had happened, for Brigitta had told her shortly before that she had seen Dete going up to Alm-Uncle.
Again questions came raining down upon her from all sides, for every one knew Dete, as well as all particulars of the birth and former history of the child, and all wondered what she had done with it. From every door and window came voices calling: "Where is the child?" "Where have you left the child, Dete?" and more and more reluctantly Dete made answer, "Up there with Alm-Uncle!"
"That's right, eat what you can!" exclaimed Uncle. "It's the mountain air which makes up for the deficiencies of the kitchen." And so the meal went on. Grandmamma and Alm-Uncle got on very well together, and their conversation became more and more lively. They were so thoroughly agreed in their opinions of men and things and the world in general that they might have been taken for old cronies.
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!
Alm-Uncle, on his side, greatly regretted the departure of his guest, and Heidi had been now accustomed for so long to see her good friend every day that she could hardly believe the time had suddenly come to separate. She looked up at him in doubt, taken by surprise, but there was no help, he must go.
"It carried me on too far and I was too late," Peter replied. "I call that being a deserter," said the Uncle, "and deserters get their ears pulled, as you know." Peter gave a tug to his cap in alarm, for there was no one of whom he stood in so much awe as Alm-Uncle. "And an army leader like yourself ought to be doubly ashamed of running away," continued Alm-Uncle.
Now, as I listen, I can tell it is a hammer; go outside, Brigitta, and if it is Alm-Uncle, tell him he must come inside a moment that I may thank him." Brigitta went outside and found Alm-Uncle in the act of fastening some heavy pieces of new wood along the wall.
"With Alm-Uncle, have I not told you so already?" Then the women began to hurl reproaches at her; first one cried out, "How could you do such a thing!" then another, "To think of leaving a helpless little thing up there," while again and again came the words, "The poor mite! the poor mite!" pursuing her as she went along.
Brigitta went with her to the door, and there said in rather a mysterious voice, "You might have kept on your dress, he would have known you all right; but you must be careful, for Peter tells me that Alm-Uncle is always now in a bad temper and never speaks." Heidi bid her good-night and continued her way up the mountain, her basket on her arm.
A large hall came next, which lay open, without doors, to the square outside. Here also walls and roof only partially remained, and indeed what was left of the roof looked as if it might fall at any minute had it not been for two stout pillars that supported it. Alm-Uncle had here put up a wooden partition and covered the floor with straw, for this was to be the goats' house.
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