Heidi | Page 5

where an extra good place awaits me," answered Dete.
"The people I am going to were down at the Baths last summer, and it
was part of my duty to attend upon their rooms. They would have liked
then to take me away with them, but I could not leave. Now they are
there again and have repeated their offer, and I intend to go with them,
you may make up your mind to that!"
"I am glad I am not the child!" exclaimed Barbel, with a gesture of
horrified pity. "Not a creature knows anything about the old man up
there! He will have nothing to do with anybody, and never sets his foot
inside a church from one year's end to another. When he does come

down once in a while, everybody clears out of the way of him and his
big stick. The mere sight of him, with his bushy grey eyebrows and his
immense beard, is alarming enough. He looks like any old heathen or
Indian, and few would care to meet him alone."
"Well, and what of that?" said Dete, in a defiant voice, "he is the
grandfather all the same, and must look after the child. He is not likely
to do her any harm, and if he does, he will be answerable for it, not I."
"I should very much like to know," continued Barbel, in an inquiring
tone of voice, "what the old man has on his conscience that he looks as
he does, and lives up there on the mountain like a hermit, hardly ever
allowing himself to be seen. All kinds of things are said about him.
You, Dete, however, must certainly have learnt a good deal concerning
him from your sister--am I not right?"
"You are right, I did, but I am not going to repeat what I heard; if it
should come to his ears I should get into trouble about it."
Now Barbel had for long past been most anxious to ascertain
particulars about Alm-Uncle, as she could not understand why he
seemed to feel such hatred towards his fellow-creatures, and insisted on
living all alone, or why people spoke about him half in whispers, as if
afraid to say anything against him, and yet unwilling to take his Part.
Moreover, Barbel was in ignorance as to why all the people in Dorfli
called him Alm-Uncle, for he could not possibly be uncle to everybody
living there. As, however, it was the custom, she did like the rest and
called the old man Uncle. Barbel had only lived in Dorfli since her
marriage, which had taken place not long before. Previous to that her
home had been below in Prattigau, so that she was not well acquainted
with all the events that had ever taken place, and with all the people
who had ever lived in Dorfli and its neighborhood. Dete, on the
contrary, had been born in Dorfli, and had lived there with her mother
until the death of the latter the year before, and had then gone over to
the Baths at Ragatz and taken service in the large hotel there as
chambermaid. On the morning of this day she had come all the way
from Ragatz with the child, a friend having given them a lift in a
hay-cart as far as Mayenfeld. Barbel was therefore determined not to

lose this good opportunity of satisfying her curiosity. She put her arm
through Dete's in a confidential sort of way, and said: "I know I can
find out the real truth from you, and the meaning of all these tales that
are afloat about him. I believe you know the whole story. Now do just
tell me what is wrong with the old man, and if he was always shunned
as he is now, and was always such a misanthrope."
"How can I possibly tell you whether he was always the same, seeing I
am only six-and-twenty and he at least seventy years of age; so you can
hardly expect me to know much about his youth. If I was sure, however,
that what I tell you would not go the whole round of Prattigau, I could
relate all kinds of things about him; my mother came from Domleschg,
and so did he."
"Nonsense, Dete, what do you mean?" replied Barbel, somewhat
offended, "gossip has not reached such a dreadful pitch in Prattigau as
all that, and I am also quite capable of holding my tongue when it is
necessary."
"Very well then, I will tell you--but just wait a moment," said Dete in a
warning voice, and she looked back to make sure that the child was not
near enough to hear all she was going to relate; but the child was
nowhere to be seen,