Page:Zodiac stories by Blanche Mary Channing.pdf/310

 CAPRICORNUS, THE GOAT

N a forest of the Tyrol once lived a poor charcoal-burner with his wife and their only child, a boy of ten.

There were no other children near enough for Hansel to play with but he did not mind this, for he made companions of the wild flowers and the wild creatures of the wood. He liked to watch the birds, the rabbits, and the frisky red squirrels, and he listened to the sounds they made, and imitated them so well that the little wood-folk answered him, and came to his call.

None of them feared him, because he never harmed anything. As he sat on a mossy bank, they would draw nearer and 293