The ladies looked upwards, but could see no living thing. The footpath was very crooked, often passing between tall bushes and then between projecting slopes, so that from below one could see up only a very short distance. But now there suddenly appeared something alive on the slopes above, in every place where the narrow path could be seen, and louder and nearer sounded the singing. "See, see, Aunt, there! Here! See there! See there!" exclaimed Paula with great delight, and before the aunt was aware of it, three, four goats came bounding down, and more and more of them, each wearing around the neck a little bell so that the sound came from every direction. In the midst of the flock came the goat-boy leaping along, and singing his song to the very end: "And in winter I am happy, For weeping is in vain, And, besides, the glad springtime Will soon come again." Then he sounded a frightful yodel and immediately with his flock stood right before the ladies, for with his bare feet he leaped as nimbly and lightly as his little goats. "I wish you good evening!" he said as he looked gayly at the two ladies, and would have continued on his way. But the goat-boy with the merry eyes pleased the ladies. "Wait a minute," said Paula. "Are you the goat-boy of Fideris? Do the goats belong to the village below?" "Yes, to be sure!" was the reply. "Do you go up there with them every day?" "Yes, surely." "Is that so? and what is your name?" "Moni is my name--" "Will you sing me the song once more, that you have just sung? We heard only one verse." "It is too long," explained Moni; "it would be too late for the goats, they must go home." He straightened his weather-beaten cap, swung his rod in the air, and called to the goats which had already begun to nibble all around: "Home! Home!" "You will sing to me some other time, Moni, won't you?" called Paula after him. "Surely I will, and good night!" he called back, then trotted along with the goats, and in a short time the whole flock stood still below, a few steps from the Bath House by the rear building, for here Moni had to leave the goats belonging to the house, the beautiful white one and the black one with the pretty little kid. Moni treated the last with great care, for it was a delicate little creature and he loved it more than all the others. It was so attached to him that it ran after him continually all day long. He now led it very tenderly along and placed it in its shed; then he said: "There, Maeggerli, now sleep well; are you tired? It is really a long way up there, and you are still so little. Now lie right down, so, in the nice straw!" After he had put Maeggerli to bed in this way, he hurried along with his flock, first up to the hill in front of the Baths, and then down the road to the village.