Family -- Juvenile fiction; Switzerland -- Juvenile fiction
Mux was screaming loudly, and seemed quite beside himself. “Mama,
Mama,” he cried out, “just look at a living goat boy and a real goat!
Come down and see me!”
Mux was sitting on the seat of a lovely wicker carriage, with two reins
in one hand and a whip in the other, while a young and slender goat
was pulling him. Agnes and Cornelli were running beside the carriage
as protectors, while Dino held the goat lightly by the reins to keep
her from running off. All the children were screaming with delight at
the wonderful ride.
Matthew was standing beside the bushes to watch this trial trip, for
he thought that his help might be needed. He had built the carriage
for Cornelli and had already several times harnessed the goat so as
to teach her how to behave when Cornelli returned. When Matthew had
first shown the little conveyance to the children, Cornelli had said
right away that Mux had to take the first ride in order to realize the
scene he loved so much in his picture book.
Mux simply screamed to his mother in wild joy. To see the wonderful
spectacle from near by, she came down to the garden.
The Director also left the house, but he went another way. Not long
afterwards he went up Martha’s little stairway to the porch where the
old woman sat on her stool mending.
“Oh, Mr. Hellmut!” she called out in her surprise. Opening the door
she led her visitor into her room, for the porch was very narrow.
Mr. Hellmut entered.
“Martha,” he said in a business-like tone, “I have spoiled your business
by taking your boarder away from you forever. That requires a
compensation, and so I have just bought your little cottage from the
farmer over there, besides the little piece of ground in front of it.
Now you will have more room for your carnations, and if you manage
well, you can surely have some pleasant days from the rent which you
save. Are you satisfied?”
“Oh, Mr. Hellmut! Is this little house really my own, now, and will
I really have a garden besides? Oh, Mr. Hellmut!”
But her benefactor would not let her say any more. After heartily
shaking her hand, he hurried away.
The large raspberries were peeping out between the green leaves, and
the golden plums were dropping from the heavily laden branches. From
morning till night on these beautiful summer days Mux fairly swam in
uninterrupted bliss. Before he had even opened his eyes in the morning,
he would call out to his mother in his sleep: “Oh, mother, are we in
Iller-Stream still? Are we still here?” Then the hours of the day
began, each more lovely than the last, and Mux could not tell which
was the best.
As the boy spent most of the day in the stable, the hayloft, and the
barn, his mother had been obliged to make him a special stable costume.
The little boy loved to watch the milking of the cows, and he never
tired of admiring the horses and the goat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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