“Couldn’t you wait a bit?” begged the boy; his heart began to throb within him. Then the girl laughed yet more and started up to her knees. 22
“No, no, the goat is mine,” said she, and flung her arms about its neck; then she loosed a garter and made a halter of it. Eyvind stood and looked on. She rose and began to drag the goat; it would not go with her but stretched its neck down towards Eyvind. “Ba-a-a-a!” it said. 23
But she caught hold of its fleece with one hand, pulled at the garter with the other, and said prettily: 24
“Come goatie dear, you shall come indoors and eat out of mother’s nice dish and out of my apron,” and then she sang:
Come, goat, to your sire,
Come, calf, from the byre;
Come, pussy, that mews
In your snowy-white shoes;
Come, ducklings so yellow,
Come, chickens so small,
Each soft little fellow
That can’t run at all;
Come, sweet doves of mine,
With your feathers so fine!
The turf’s wet with dew,
But the sun warms it through.
It is early, right early, in summer-time still,
But call on the autumn, and hurry it will.
25
The boy was left alone. He had played with the goat ever since it was born in the winter, and it had never occurred to him that it could be lost; but now it was done all in a moment, and he was never to see it again. 26
His mother came singing up from the waterside with some vessels she had been scouring; she saw the boy sitting crying, with his legs under him in the grass, and went to him. 27
“What are you crying for?” 28
“Oh, the goat, the goat!” 29
“Well, where is the goat?” asked his mother looking up on the roof. 30
“He’ll never come back,” said the boy. 31
“Why, what has happened to him?” 32
He would not confess at once. 33
“Has the fox taken him?” 34
“Oh, I wish it were the fox!” 35
“Are you out of your senses?” said his mother. “What has become of the goat?” 36
“Oh, oh, oh!—I’ve been so unlucky—I’ve sold him for a butter-cake!” 37
Even as he said the words he realised what it was to sell the goat for a butter-cake; he had not thought of it before. His mother said: 38