Heidi summary for kids

Up the Mountain to Alm-Uncle

Heidi is a little orphan, raised by her Aunt Dete in the Swiss village of Mayenfeld. When Dete gets a job in the city, she carries Heidi up the mountain to the child’s grandfather, a stern old man the villagers call Alm-Uncle. He lives alone and rarely speaks to anyone, and the neighbours think he is wicked. On the way, Heidi is so hot in all her layers of clothes that she takes them off and goes on in her petticoat. Dete leaves her at the hut and hurries away.

Grandfather grumbles, but he lets Heidi stay. He makes her a bed of sweet hay in the loft, and she sleeps wonderfully, listening to the wind in the fir trees. Soon she is following Peter, the eleven-year-old goatherd, up to the high pastures with his goats. She is dazzled by the flowers, the eagles and the glowing mountains at sunset, and the old man’s hard face begins to soften.

Friends on the Mountain

Heidi grows brown and strong. Grandfather makes her a three-legged stool and later a bed, and he drinks goat’s milk with her, and she learns every goat by name. Peter lives in a tiny hut in the village below with his mother Brigitta and his blind grandmother. Heidi visits them and is shocked by how rickety the little house is. She asks Grandfather to mend the shutters, and he does, hammering the broken boards himself. Grandmother cannot see, but she loves Heidi’s chatter more than anything, and Heidi promises to bring her soft white bread one day.

Heidi spends a happy winter snug in the hut, and then a second summer on the pastures. Meanwhile the village gossip goes on, and Heidi is soon to find out that her quiet mountain life is about to change.

Off to Frankfurt

Then Aunt Dete comes back. She tells Grandfather she has found a wonderful place for Heidi, as a companion for a rich girl in Frankfurt named Clara Sesemann, who cannot walk and spends her days in a wheelchair. Grandfather is furious, but he lets Heidi go. Heidi is taken away before she can even say goodbye to Peter or to Grandmother.

In the big city house, Heidi meets Clara, who is kind and lively but lonely, and Clara’s father, Herr Sesemann, who is away on business much of the time. Their housekeeper, Fräulein Rottenmeier, is strict and sour. She is very cross with Heidi for her country ways, and she grows more cross still when Heidi brings in a pile of stray kittens. The maid Tinette looks down on her too, though the butler Sebastian is more friendly. Heidi tries to learn to read with Clara’s tutor, but she finds it hard, and she is homesick for the mountain, with its flowers and open sky.

Grandmamma and the Ghost

Clara’s grandmother, Frau Sesemann, comes to visit, and she is the first person in the house who truly understands Heidi. She is gentle and wise, and she gives Heidi a book of pictures and stories. Soon Heidi is learning to read at last. Heidi keeps getting sadder, though. She hides soft white rolls in a cupboard to take back to Peter’s grandmother, and she cannot stop thinking of the mountains.

Then the household is frightened by a strange white figure that appears at night and leaves the front door wide open. Fräulein Rottenmeier is sure it is a ghost. In truth, it is Heidi, walking in her sleep, because she is so homesick. A kind doctor, a friend of the family, quietly finds this out. He tells Herr Sesemann that Heidi will fall truly ill if she is kept away from the mountain any longer. Herr Sesemann, who has always been good to her, sends her home at once, with a basket of white rolls for Grandmother.

Home Again

Heidi runs up the mountain in a rush of joy. Grandfather welcomes her with tears in his eyes, and the first thing she does is hurry down to see Grandmother and give her the rolls. Grandmother weeps with happiness. Heidi reads her favourite hymns aloud, and Grandmother finds comfort for the first time in a long while.

Heidi also encourages Grandfather to take her to church. One Sunday in the cold weather he finally puts on his best coat and walks down with her. The whole village is astonished, and the pastor welcomes him with open arms. Grandfather, who has long been an outcast, is at last at peace with his neighbours.

Winter and Visitors

The next winter the family moves for a while to a house in the village, because Grandfather wants Heidi to go to school. She also teaches Peter to read, and he finds it much harder than she did. The kind doctor from Frankfurt visits and is delighted to see Heidi so well, and he decides he would like to settle there himself.

Clara is not yet well enough to travel, but she writes to Heidi, and her family promises she will come to the mountain one summer. When she finally arrives, with her grandmother, Heidi shows her the hut, the goats and the flowers. Peter is not so happy about it. He feels Heidi has been taken from him again, and he is very jealous.

Clara Learns to Walk

In the mountain air and with plenty of goat’s milk, Clara grows stronger every day. Grandfather has a wise plan: he coaxes her to stand a little more each day. Clara is determined, and she wants to see the flowers on the high pasture with her own eyes. But Peter, in a jealous rage, pushes her empty wheelchair down the slope, and it is smashed to pieces. Now Clara has no choice but to try to walk. Leaning on Heidi and Grandfather, she takes a few steps, and then a few more.

By the time Clara’s father and grandmother come to visit again, she is able to walk out to meet them. Herr Sesemann can hardly believe his eyes. Peter, who is sick with guilt, finally confesses, and Frau Sesemann forgives him gently, telling him that wrongdoing weighs on us all.

A Happy Ending

Herr Sesemann is so thankful that he asks Grandfather how he can repay him. Grandfather has only one wish: that Heidi will never be left to work for strangers. Herr Sesemann promises it. Frau Sesemann asks Heidi what she would like most, and Heidi asks for her old Frankfurt bed to be sent to Grandmother, so that Grandmother will sleep warm and comfortable. Grandmamma agrees at once. The Sesemanns promise to come back every year, and the kind doctor says he will make his home nearby. Heidi, who started as an unwanted little orphan, now has more people to love her than she ever dreamed of.