HEIDI
to find pleasure in such an unusual event and in watching the results. “Yes, Heidi did it,” she explained, “but quite by accident; she must on no account be punished; she jumped up in such violent haste to get away that she dragged the table-cloth along with her, and so everything went over. There were a number of vehicles passing, that is why she rushed off like that; perhaps she has never seen a carriage.”
“Is it not as I said? She has not the smallest notion about anything! not the slightest idea that she ought to sit still and listen while her lessons are going on. But where is the child who has caused all this trouble? Surely she has not run away! What would Herr Sesemann say to me?” She ran out of the room and down the stairs. There, at the bottom, standing in the open doorway, was Heidi, looking in amazement up and down the street.
“What are you doing? What are you thinking of to run away like that?” called Fräulein Rottenmeier.
“I heard the sound of the fir trees, but I cannot see where they are, and now I cannot hear them any more,” answered Heidi, looking disappointedly in the direction whence the noise of the passing carriages had reached her, and which to Heidi had seemed like the blowing of the south wind in the trees, so that in great joy of heart she had rushed out to look at them.
“Fir trees! do you suppose we are in a wood? What ridiculous ideas are these? Come upstairs and see the mischief you have done!”
Heidi turned and followed Fräulein Rottenmeier upstairs; she was quite astonished to see the disaster she had caused, for
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