A Happy Boy | Page 2

ever, and hurriedly got up on her knees.
"No, the goat is mine," said she, and threw her arms about it, then loosening one of her garters she fastened it around its neck. Oyvind watched her. She rose to her feet and began to tug at the goat; it would not go along with her, and stretched its neck over the edge of the cliff toward Oyvind.
"Ba-a-a-a!" said the goat.
Then the little girl took hold of its hair with one hand, pulled at the garter with the other, and said prettily: "Come, now, goat, you shall go into the sitting-room and eat from mother's dish and my apron."
And then she sang,--
"Come, boy's pretty goatie, Come, calf, my delight, Come here, mewing pussie, In shoes snowy white, Yellow ducks, from your shelter, Come forth, helter-skelter. Come, doves, ever beaming, With soft feathers gleaming! The grass is still wet, But sun 't will soon get; Now call, though early 't is in the summer, And autumn will be the new-comer."[1]
[Footnote 1: Auber Forestier's translation.]
There the boy stood.
He had taken care of the goat ever since winter, when it was born, and it had never occurred to him that he could lose it; but now it was gone in an instant, and he would never see it again.
The mother came trolling up from the beach, with some wooden pails she had been scouring; she saw the boy sitting on the grass, with his legs crossed under him, crying, and went to him.
"What makes you cry?"
"Oh, my goat--my goat!"
"Why, where is the goat?" asked the mother, glancing up at the roof.
"It will never come back any more," said the boy.
"Dear me! how can that be?"
Oyvind would not confess at once.
"Has the fox carried it off?"
"Oh, I wish it were the fox!"
"You must have lost your senses!" cried the mother. "What has become of the goat?"
"Oh--oh--oh! I was so unlucky. I sold it for a twisted bun!"
The moment he uttered the words he realized what it was to sell the goat for a bun; he had not thought about it before. The mother said,--
"What do you imagine the little goat thinks of you now, since you were willing to sell it for a twisted bun?"
The boy reflected upon this himself, and felt perfectly sure that he never could know happiness more in this world--nor in heaven either, he thought, afterwards.
He was so overwhelmed with sorrow that he promised himself that he would never do anything wrong again,--neither cut the cord of the spinning-wheel, nor let the sheep loose, nor go down to the sea alone. He fell asleep lying there, and he dreamed that the goat had reached heaven. There the Lord was sitting, with a long beard, as in the Catechism, and the goat stood munching at the leaves of a shining tree; but Oyvind sat alone on the roof, and, could get no higher. Then something wet was thrust right against his ear, and he started up. "Ba-a-a-a!" he heard, and it was the goat that had returned to him.
"What! have you come back again?" With these words he sprang up, seized it by the two fore-legs, and danced about with it as if it were a brother. He pulled it by the beard, and was on the point of going in to his mother with it, when he heard some one behind him, and saw the little girl sitting on the greensward beside him. Now he understood the whole thing, and he let go of the goat.
"Is it you who have brought the goat?"
She sat tearing up the grass with her hands, and said, "I was not allowed to keep it; grandfather is up there waiting."
While the boy stood staring at her, a sharp voice from the road above called, "Well!"
Then she remembered what she had to do: she rose, walked up to Oyvind, thrust one of her dirt-covered hands into his, and, turning her face away, said, "I beg your pardon."
But then her courage forsook her, and, flinging herself on the goat, she burst into tears.
"I believe you had better keep the goat," faltered Oyvind, looking away.
"Make haste, now!" said her grandfather, from the hill; and Marit got up and walked, with hesitating feet, upward.
"You have forgotten your garter," Oyvind shouted after her. She turned and bestowed a glance, first on the garter, then on him. Finally she formed a great resolve, and replied, in a choked voice, "You may keep it."
He walked up to her, took her by the hand, and said, "I thank you!"
"Oh, there is nothing to thank me for," she answered, and, drawing a piteous sigh, went on.
Oyvind sat down on the grass again, the goat roaming about near him; but he was no longer as happy with it as before.

CHAPTER II.
The goat was tethered near the house,