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 Nika, needing no advice, had long ago decided what to do. Every day as soon as the meals were over, she silently disappeared. Agnes and Cornelli bolted the door of the music room and let mysterious songs issue from behind it. Only Dino was still undecided about his task. When he was left alone with his mother and Mux one day, and all the others were busy with their preparations, he said: “Tell me what I could do, mother.”

“Draw him a picture of the beautiful goat,” Mux advised. He knew that Dino could draw animals well, and to him there was no finer animal in all the world than the goat.

“What a knowing goat boy you are, Mux,” Dino exclaimed. Despite his refusal to draw the goat, he had nevertheless gotten an idea from his little brother. “Oh, I’ll draw the two brown horses,” he called out joyously. “I’ll make one trotting and the other walking. Matthew must lead them up for me.”

So the boy ran happily to the stable, and after that day he and Matthew had many meetings in secret.

The birthday came at last.