He crawled up on the broad hedge which fenced in the farm, and which was overgrown with briers and lichen. There he sat down to think about how it would go with him, if he never became a human being again. When father and mother came home from church, there would be a surprise for them. Yes, a surprise--it would be all over the land; and people would come flocking from East Vemminghög, and from Torp, and from Skerup. The whole Vemminghög township would come to stare at him. Perhaps father and mother would take him with them, and show him at the market place in Kivik. No, that was too horrible to think about. He would rather that no human being should ever see him again. His unhappiness was simply frightful! No one in all the world was so unhappy as he. He was no longer a human being--but a freak. Little by little he began to comprehend what it meant--to be no longer human. He was separated from everything now; he could no longer play with other boys, he could not take charge of the farm after his parents were gone; and certainly no girl would think of marrying _him_. He sat and looked at his home. It was a little log house, which lay as if it had been crushed down to earth, under the high, sloping roof. The outhouses were also small; and the patches of ground were so narrow that a horse could barely turn around on them. But little and poor though the place was, it was much too good for him _now_. He couldn't ask for any better place than a hole under the stable floor. It was wondrously beautiful weather! It budded, and it rippled, and it murmured, and it twittered--all around him. But he sat there with such a heavy sorrow. He should never be happy any more about anything. Never had he seen the skies as blue as they were to-day. Birds of passage came on their travels. They came from foreign lands, and had travelled over the East sea, by way of Smygahuk, and were now on their way North. They were of many different kinds; but he was only familiar with the wild geese, who came flying in two long rows, which met at an angle. Several flocks of wild geese had already flown by. They flew very high, still he could hear how they shrieked: "To the hills! Now we're off to the hills!" When the wild geese saw the tame geese, who walked about the farm, they sank nearer the earth, and called: "Come along! Come along! We're off to the hills!" The tame geese could not resist the temptation to raise their heads and listen, but they answered very sensibly: "We're pretty well off where we are. We're pretty well off where we are."