hungrily beginning her bread having first spread it with the
cheese, which after being toasted was soft as butter; the two
together tasted deliciously, and the child looked the picture of
content as she sat eating, and at intervals taking further
draughts of milk. The meal being over, the grandfather went
outside to put the goat-shed in order, and Heidi watched with
interest while he first swept it out, and then put fresh straw
for the goats to sleep upon. Then he went to the little well-
shed, and there he cut some long round sticks, and a small round
board; in this he bored some holes and stuck the sticks into
them, and there, as if made by magic, was a three-legged stool
just like her grandfather's, only higher. Heidi stood and looked
at it, speechless with astonishment.
"What do you think that is?" asked her grandfather.
"It's my stool, I know, because it is such a high one; and it
was made all of a minute," said the child, still lost in wonder
and admiration.
"She understands what she sees, her eyes are in the right
place," remarked the grandfather to himself, as he continued his
way round the hut, knocking in a nail here and there, or making
fast some part of the door, and so with hammer and nails and
pieces of wood going from spot to spot, mending or clearing away
wherever work of the kind was needed. Heidi followed him step by
step, her eyes attentively taking in all that he did, and
everything that she saw was a fresh source of pleasure to her.
And so the time passed happily on till evening. Then the wind
began to roar louder than ever through the old fir trees; Heidi
listened with delight to the sound, and it filled her heart so
full of gladness that she skipped and danced round the old
trees, as if some unheard of joy had come to her. The grandfather
stood and watched her from the shed.
Suddenly a shrill whistle was heard. Heidi paused in her
dancing, and the grandfather came out. Down from the heights
above the goats came springing one after another, with Peter in
their midst. Heidi sprang forward with a cry of joy and rushed
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