Page:Stories and story-telling (1915).djvu/230

 laughed and clapped her hands. The boy stopped with the last bit in his mouth.

"Wait a little while?" he begged, for he loved his little goat.

The small girl got up quickly. "No, the goat is mine," she said, and she threw her arms around its neck. She loosened one of her garters and fastened it round the goat's neck and began pulling the goat after her. The goat would not follow: it stretched its neck down to see Oeyvind. "Bay-ay-ay," it said. But the girl took hold of its fleece with one hand and pulled the string with the other, and said, sweetly, "Come, little goat, you shall go into my room and eat out of my apron." And then she sang,

"Come, boy's goat, Come, mother's calf, Come, mewing cat In snow-white shoes; Come, yellow ducks, Come out of your hiding-place; Come little chickens, Who can hardly go; Come, my doves With soft feathers; See, the grass is wet, But the sun does you good: And early, early, is it in summer, But call for the autumn, and it will come."