"That will do," said the old man, interrupting her.

"I know what you think of Alm-Uncle without your telling me. Go
indoors again, I can find out for myself where the mending is
wanted."

Brigitta obeyed on the spot, for Uncle had a way with him that
made few people care to oppose his will. He went on knocking
with his hammer all round the house, and then mounted the narrow
steps to the roof, and hammered away there, until he had used up
all the nails he had brought with him. Meanwhile it had been
growing dark, and he had hardly come down from the roof and
dragged the sleigh out from behind the goat-shed when Heidi
appeared outside. The grandfather wrapped her up and took her in
his arms as he had done the day before, for although he had to
drag the sleigh up the mountain after him, he feared that if the
child sat in it alone her wrappings would fall off and that she
would be nearly if not quite frozen, so he carried her warm and
safe in his arms.

So the winter went by. After many years of joyless life, the
blind grandmother had at last found something to make her happy;
her days were no longer passed in weariness and darkness, one
like the other without pleasure or change, for now she had
always something to which she could look forward. She listened
for the little tripping footstep as soon as day had come, and
when she heard the door open and knew the child was really there,
she would call out, "God be thanked, she has come again!" And
Heidi would sit by her and talk and tell her everything she knew
in so lively a manner that the grandmother never noticed how the