The Book of Stories for the Story-teller Part 29

"Are you mad?" said his mother. "What has become of the goat?"

"Oh-h-h, I happened to--to--to sell it for a cake!"

As soon as he had uttered the word, he understood what it was to sell the goat for a cake; he had not thought of it before. His mother said:

"What do you suppose the little goat thinks of you, when you could sell him for a cake?"

And the boy thought about it, and felt sure that he could never again be happy in this world, and not even in heaven, he thought, afterwards. He felt so sorry, that he promised himself never again to do anything wrong, never to cut the thread on the spinning wheel, nor let the goats out, nor go down to the sea alone. He fell asleep where he lay, and dreamed about the goat, that he had gone to heaven; our Lord sat there with a great beard, as in the catechism, and the goat stood eating the leaves off a s.h.i.+ning tree; but Oeyvind sat alone on the roof, and could not come up.

Suddenly there came something wet close up to his ear, and he started up. "_Bay-ay-ay!_" it said; and it was the goat, who had come back again.

"What! have you got back?"

He got up, took it by the two forelegs, and danced with it as if it were a brother; he pulled its beard, and he was just going in to his mother with it, when he heard someone behind him, and, looking, saw the girl sitting on the greensward by his side. Now he understood it all, and let go the goat.

"Is it you who have come with it?"

She sat tearing the gra.s.s up with her hands, and said:

"They would not let me keep it; grandfather is sitting up there, waiting."

While the boy stood looking at her, he heard a sharp voice from the road above call out, "Now!"

Then she remembered what she was to do; she rose, went over to Oeyvind, put one of her muddy hands into his, and, turning her face away, said:

"I beg your pardon!"

But then her courage was all gone; she threw herself over the goat, and wept.

"I think you had better keep the goat," said Oeyvind, looking the other way.

"Come, make haste!" said grandpapa, up on the hill; and Marit rose, and walked with reluctant feet upwards.

"You are not forgetting your garter?" Oeyvind cried after her. She turned around, and looked first at the garter and then at him. At last she came to a great resolution, and said, in a choked voice:

"You may keep that."

He went over to her, and, taking her hand, said:

"Thank you!"

"Oh, nothing to thank for!" she answered, but drew a long sigh, and walked on.

He sat down on the gra.s.s again. The goat walked about near him, but he was no longer so pleased with it as before.

The goat was fastened to the wall; but Oeyvind walked about, looking up at the cliff. His mother came out and sat down by his side; he wanted to hear stories about what was far away, for now the goat no longer satisfied him. So she told him how once everything could talk: the mountain talked to the stream, and the stream to the river, the river to the sea, and the sea to the sky; but then he asked if the sky did not talk to any one; and the sky talked to the clouds, the clouds to the trees, the trees to the gra.s.s, the gra.s.s to the flies, the flies to the animals, the animals to the children, the children to the grown-up people; and so it went on, until it had gone round, and no one could tell where it had begun.

Oeyvind looked at the mountain, the trees, the sky, and had never really seen them before. The cat came out at that moment, and lay down on the stone before the door in the suns.h.i.+ne.

"What does the cat say?" asked Oeyvind, pointing. His mother sang:

"'At evening softly s.h.i.+nes the sun, The cat lies lazy on the stone.

Two small mice, Cream, thick, and nice, Four bits of fish, I stole behind a dish, And am so lazy and tired, Because so well I have fared,'

says the cat."

But then came the c.o.c.k, with all the hens. "What does the c.o.c.k say?"

asked Oeyvind, clapping his hands together. His mother sang:

"'The mother hen her wings doth sink, The c.o.c.k stands on one leg to think: That grey goose Steers high her course; But sure am I that never she As clever as a c.o.c.k can be.

Run in, you hens, keep under the roof to-day, For the sun has got leave to stay away,'

says the c.o.c.k."

But the little birds were sitting on the ridgepole, singing. "What do the birds say?" asked Oeyvind, laughing.

"'Dear Lord, how pleasant is life, For those who have neither toil nor strife,'

say the birds."

And she told him what they all said, down to the ant who crawled in the moss, and the worm who worked in the bark.

That same summer, one day, his mother came in and said to him, "To-morrow school begins and then you are going there with me."

Oeyvind had heard that school was a place where many children played together, and he had no objection. Indeed, he was much pleased, and he was so anxious to get there that he walked faster than his mother up over the hills.

When he came in there sat as many children around a table as he had ever seen at church. Others were sitting around the walls. They all looked up as Oeyvind and his mother entered, and as he was going to find a seat they all wanted to make room for him. He looked around a long time with his cap in his hand, and just as he was going to sit down he saw close beside him, sitting by the hearth-stone, Marit of the many names. She had covered her face with both hands, and sat peeping at him through her fingers.

"I shall sit here," said Oeyvind quickly, seating himself at her side, and then she laughed and he laughed too.

"Is it always like this here?" he whispered to Marit.

"Yes, just like this; I have a goat now," she said.

"Have you?"

"Yes; but it is not so pretty as yours."

"Why don't you come oftener up on the cliff?" said he.

"Grandpapa is afraid I shall fall over."

"But it is not so very high."

"Grandpapa won't let me, for all that."