A SUMMER EVENING ON THE MOUNTAIN
“Yes, it was not that; everything in Frankfurt is as nice as it could be.”
“Then why are you running home again?”
“Only because Herr Sesemann gave me leave, or else I should not have come.”
“If they were willing to let you stay, why did you not remain where you were better off than at home?”
“Because I would a thousand times rather be with grandfather on the mountain than anywhere else in the world.”
“You will think differently perhaps when you get back there," grumbled the miller; and then to himself, “It’s strange of her, for she must know what it’s like.”
He began whistling and said no more, while Heidi looked around her and began to tremble with excitement, for she knew every tree along the way, and there overhead were the high jagged peaks of the mountain looking down on her like old friends. And Heidi nodded back to them, and grew every moment more wild with her joy and longing, feeling as if she must jump down from the cart and run with all her might till she reached the top. But she sat quite still and did not move, although inwardly in such agitation. The clock was striking five as they drove into Dörfli. A crowd of women and children immediately surrounded the cart, for the box and the child arriving with the miller had excited the curiosity of everybody in the neighborhood, inquisitive to know whence they came and whither they were going and to whom they belonged. As the miller lifted Heidi down, she said hastily, “Thank you, grandfather will send for the trunk," and was just going to run off, when first one and then another of the bystanders caught
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