Moni the Goat Boy, and Other Stories. Johanna Spyri

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CHAPTER V

       MONI SINGS ONCE MORE

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      Paula had left orders that she was to be called early in the morning. She wanted to be on hand when the goat boy came, and settle with him herself. The previous evening she had had a long interview with the landlord, coming away from his room with a look of satisfaction, as though she had made some pleasant arrangement with him.

      When Moni came up with his herd in the morning Paula called to him, "Moni, can't you sing even now?"

      He shook his head. "I can't. I keep thinking of poor little Meggy and how many days longer she will be with me. I'll never sing again as long as I live; but here is the cross." With that he gave her the parcel, which his grandmother had carefully done up for him in many wrappings.

      Paula took the jewel from its coverings and examined it closely; it was really her precious cross of sparkling stones, perfectly unharmed.

      "Well, Moni, you have made me very happy. Without you I should probably never have seen my cross again. So I want to make you happy, too. Go and get little Meggy; she belongs to you now."

      Moni stared at the Fräulein as though he could not comprehend her words. At length he stammered, "But how—how can Meggy belong to me?"

      "How?" said Paula, smiling. "Last night I bought her from the landlord, and to-day I give her to you. Can you sing now?"

      "Oh! oh! oh!" cried Moni, running to the stable like mad. He took the little goat and held her close in his arms. Then he came running back and held out his hand to the Fräulein, saying over and over again, "I thank you a thousand, thousand times! God reward you for it! If I could only do something for you!"

      "Then sing your song and let us hear whether it has the old ring," said Paula.

      So Moni lifted up his voice, and as he climbed the mountain his joyous notes rang out so clearly through the valley that every one in the hotel noticed it, and many a sleeper turned on his pillow, saying, "Good! the goat boy has sunshine once more."

      They were all glad to hear him sing again, for they liked the early notes, which were to some a sign for rising, to others leave for another nap. When Moni looked down from the first ledge and saw the Fräulein still standing before the hotel, he stepped forward and sang as loudly as he could:

      "And the sky is so blue

       I am wild with delight."

      Nothing but sounds of joy came from his lips all day, and the goats, too, seemed to feel that it was a day of gladness, and skipped and capered about as never before. The sun was so bright, the sky so blue, and after the heavy rains the grasses so green and the flowers so gay, that Moni thought he had never seen the world so beautiful. He kept his little kid beside him all day, plucked the best herbs for it, and fed it from his hand, saying again and again: "Meggy, dear little Meggy, you are not going to be killed. You are mine now, and will come up the mountain with me as long as we both live."

      With happy song and yodel Moni returned in the evening, and after he had led the black goat to her stable he took the little one on his arm; she was henceforth to go home with him. Meggy seemed very well satisfied, and cuddled up to him as though she felt herself in the best of care; for he had always treated her more tenderly than her own mother had.

      When Moni came home with the little one on his shoulder his grandmother hardly knew what to make of him. His calling out, "It is mine, grandmother; it is mine!" explained nothing to her. But Moni could not stop to explain until he had run to the stable and made a good bed for Meggy close beside their own goat, so that the little one would not be lonely.

      "There, Meggy; now sleep well in your new home. You shall always have a good bed. I will make it fresh for you every day."

      Then Moni ran in to the wondering grandmother, and while they sat at supper he told her the whole story—of his three sad, troubled days and the happy ending of it all. His grandmother listened attentively, and when he had finished she said earnestly: "Moni, this experience you must always remember. Had you done right in the first place, trusting in the good God, then everything would have gone well. Now God has helped you so much more than you deserve that you must not forget it as long as you live." And Moni was very sure that he would not forget.

      Before he went to sleep he had to go to the stable once more to make sure that the little kid really belonged to him and was there in its bed.

      Jordie got his ten francs, as promised, but that did not end the matter for him. When he went to the hotel he was taken before the landlord, who gave him a severe lecture. But the worst of it all was that whenever anything was missed after that, it was Jordie who was immediately suspected of having stolen it. He had no more peace, for he was continually in dread of being punished for something that he had never done.

      Moni's little goat throve and grew strong, and the boy continued to sing all summer. But often when he was comfortably stretched out on the Pulpit, he thought of the troubled days under the Rain Rock, and he said to himself, "It must never happen so again."

      But when he was too long absorbed in such reflections one or another of the goats would come and rouse him with a questioning bleat.