HEIDI, illustrated - complete online book

The Story Of A Young Orphan In Switzerland

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254
HEIDI
uncle came back with the young boy Tobias he took the ruined house and lived in it. Since then it had stood empty most of the time, for no one without skill to stop the work of destruction to some extent and to fill up and mend the holes and gaps could stay there. The winter in Dorfli was long and cold. The wind blew in from every side through the rooms, so that the lights were blown out and the poor people shook with the cold. But the uncle knew how to manage. As soon as he had made up his mind to spend the winter in Dorfli, he took the old house again, and often during the autumn came down to mend and repair it as he liked. About the middle of October he brought Heidi down.
Entering the house from the rear, one came at once into an open room, the entire wall on one side of which, and half on the other, had fallen in. Above this an arched window was still to be seen, but the glass had long been out of it, and thick ivy crept around it and high up on the roof, which was, for the most part, still solid. It was beautifully arched, and one could easily see that it had been a chapel. There being no door, one came directly into a large hall, and here in places in the floor were still some handsome tiles between which the grass grew thick. The walls were half gone, and great pieces of the roof had given way; had it not been for two heavy pillars, the whole roof would have been gone; as it was, it looked as if it might at any moment fall on the heads of those standing under­neath.
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