Child Life in Prose Part 12

"Yes; where is the goat?" asked his mother, looking up at the roof.

"It will never come back again," said the boy.

"Dear me! how could that happen?"

He would not confess immediately.

"Has the fox taken it?"

"Ah, if it only were the fox!"

"Are you crazy?" 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 it 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 shining 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 jumped up, took it by the two fore-legs, 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 some one 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 forgetting your garter," Oeyvind called after her. She turned round, 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!"

"O, 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 every thing 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 sunshine.

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

"At evening softly shines 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 gray 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 ridge-pole, 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, his mother began to teach him to read. He had owned books a long time, and often wondered how it would seem when they also began to talk. Now the letters turned into animals, birds, and everything else; but soon they began to walk together, two and two; _a_ stood and rested under a tree, which was called _b_; then came _e_, and did the same; but when three or four came together, it seemed as if they were angry with each other, for it would not go right. And the farther along he came, the more he forgot what they were: he remembered longest _a_, which he liked best; it was a little black lamb, and was friends with everybody; but soon he forgot _a_ also: the book had no more stories, nothing but lessons.

One day his mother came in, and said to him,--

"To-morrow school begins, and then you are going up to the farm with me."

Oeyvind had heard that school was a place where many boys played together; and he had no objection. Indeed, he was much pleased. He had often been at the farm, but never when there was school there; and now he was so anxious to get there, he walked faster than his mother up over the hills. As they came up to the neighboring house, a tremendous buzzing, like that from the water-mill at home, met their ears; and he asked his mother what it was.

"That is the children reading," she answered; and he was much pleased, for that was the way he used to read, before he knew the letters. When he came in, there sat as many children round a table as he had ever seen at church; others were sitting on their luncheon-boxes, which were ranged round the walls; some stood in small groups round a large printed card; the schoolmaster, an old gray-haired man, was sitting on a stool by the chimney-corner, filling his pipe. They all looked up as Oeyvind and his mother entered, and the mill-hum ceased as if the water had suddenly been turned off. All looked at the new-comers; the mother bowed to the schoolmaster, who returned her greeting.

"Here I bring a little boy who wants to learn to read," said his mother.

"What is the fellow's name?" said the schoolmaster, diving down into his pouch after tobacco.

"Oeyvind," said his mother; "he knows his letters, and can put them together."