Moni the Goat-Boy | Page 7

deep valley below.
"But what are you now, J?rgli, if you are no longer goat-boy?" began Moni. "You must be something."
"Surely I am something, and something very good," replied J?rgli, "I am egg-boy. Every day I carry eggs to all the hotels, as far as I can go; I come up here to the Bath House, too. Yesterday I was there."
Moni shook his head. "That's nothing. I wouldn't be an egg-boy; I would a thousand times rather be goat-boy, it is much finer."
"But why?"
"Eggs are not alive, you can't speak a word to them, and they don't run after you like the goats which are glad to see you when you come, and are fond of you, and understand every word you say to them; you can't have any pleasure with eggs as you can with the goats up here."
"Yes, and you," interrupted J?rgli, "what great pleasure do you have up here? Just now you have had to get up six times while we were eating, just on account of that silly kid, to prevent it from falling down below--is that a pleasure?"
"Yes, I like to do that! Isn't it so, M?ggerli? Come! Come here!" Moni jumped up and ran after the kid, for it was making dangerous leaps for sheer joy. When he sat down again, J?rgli said:
"There is another way to keep the young goats from falling over the rocks, without having to be always jumping after them, as you do."
"What is it?" asked Moni.
"Drive a stick firmly into the ground and fasten the goat by the leg to it; she will kick furiously, but she can't get away."
"You needn't think I would do any such thing to the little kid!" said Moni quite angrily and drew M?ggerli to him and held her fast, as if to protect her from any such treatment.
"You really won't have to take care of that one much longer," began J?rgli again. "It won't come up here many times more."
"What? What? What did you say, J?rgli?" demanded Moni.
"Bah, don't you know about it? The landlord will not raise her, she is too weak; there never was a more feeble goat. He wanted to sell her to my father, but he wouldn't have her either; now the landlord is going to have her killed next week, and then he will buy our spotted one."
Moni had become quite pale from terror. At first he couldn't speak a word; but now he broke out and complained aloud over the little kid:
"No, no, that shall not be done, M?ggerli, it shall not be done. They shall not slay you, I can't bear that. Oh, I would rather die with you; no, that cannot be!"
"Don't do so," said J?rgli, angrily, and pulled Moni up, for in his grief he had thrown himself face down on the ground. "Stand up, you know the kid really belongs to the landlord and he can do what he likes with her. Think no more about it! Come, I know something. See! See!" Whereupon J?rgli held out one hand to Moni, and with the other almost covered the object, which Moni was to admire; it sparkled wonderfully in his hand, for the sun shone straight into it.
"What is it?" asked Moni, when it sparkled again, lighted up by a sunbeam.
"Guess!"
"A ring?"
"No, but something like that."
"Who gave it to you?"
"Gave it to me? Nobody. I found it myself."
"Then it does not belong to you, J?rgli."
"Why not? I didn't take it from anybody. I almost stepped on it with my foot, then it would have been broken; so I can just as well keep it."
"Where did you find it?"
"Down by the Bath House, yesterday evening."
"Then some one from the house below lost it. You must tell the landlord, and if you don't, I will do it this evening."
"No, no, Moni, don't do that," said J?rgli, beseechingly. "See, I will show you what it is, and I will sell it to a maid in one of the hotels, but she will surely have to give me four francs; then I will give you one or two, and nobody will know anything about it."
"I will not take it! I will not take it!" interrupted Moni, hotly, "and the dear Lord has heard everything you have said."
[Illustration: "_J?rgli had opened his band. In it lay a cross set with a large number of stones_."]
J?rgli looked up to the sky: "Oh, so far away," he said skeptically; but he immediately began to speak more softly.
"He hears you still," said Moni, confidently.
It was no longer J?rgli's secret. If he didn't know how to bring Moni to his side, all would be lost. He thought and thought.
"Moni," he said suddenly, "I will promise you something that will delight you, if you will not say anything to a human being about what I