Paula had given orders to be wakened early the next morning, for she wanted to be on the spot when the goat-boy came. She was anxious to deal with him herself. That evening she had held a long conversation with the landlord, and had then come out of his room quite happy; so she must have planned something delightful1 with him.
When the goat-boy came along with his flock in the morning, Paula was already standing2 in front of the house, and she called out:
"Moni, can't you sing even now?"
He shook his head. "No, I can't. I am always wondering how much longer Mäggerli will go with me. I never can sing any more as long as I live, and here is the cross." Whereupon he handed her a little package, for the grandmother had wrapped it carefully for him in three or four papers.
Paula took out the cross from the wrappings and examined it closely. It really was her beautiful cross with the sparkling stones, and quite unharmed. "Well, Moni," she said now very kindly3, "you have given me a great pleasure, for if it had not been for you, I might never have seen my cross again. Now, I am going to give you a pleasure. Go take Mäggerli there out of the shed, she belongs to you now!"
Moni stared at the young lady in astonishment4, as if it were impossible to understand her words. At last he stammered5: "But how—how can Mäggerli be mine?"
"How?" replied Paula, smiling. "See, last evening I bought her from the landlord and this morning I give her to you. Now can't you sing once more?"
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" exclaimed Moni and ran like mad to the shed, led the little goat out, and took it in his arms. Then he leaped back and held out his hand to Paula and said over and over again:
"I thank you a thousand, thousand times! May God reward you! If I could do something nice for you!"
"Well, then try once more and let us see if you can sing again!" said Paula.
Then Moni sang his song and went on up the mountain with the goats, and his jubilant tones rang down into the valley, so that there was no one in the whole Bath House who did not hear it and many an one turned over in his bed and said: "The goat-boy has good weather once more."
All were glad to hear him sing again, for all had depended on the merry alarm, some in order to get up, others to sleep a while longer.
When Moni, from the first summit, saw Paula still standing below in front of the house, he stepped as far out as possible and sang down at the top of his voice:
"And so blue is the sky there
My joy can't be told."
The whole day long Moni shouted for joy, and all the goats caught his spirit and jumped and sprang around as if it were a great festival. The sun shone cheerfully down out of the blue sky, and after the great rain, all the little plants were so fresh, and the yellow and red flowers so bright, it seemed to Moni as if he had never seen the mountains and the valley and the whole world so beautiful before. He didn't let the little kid leave him the whole day; he pulled up the best plants for it and fed it, and said over and over again:
"Mäggerli, you dear Mäggerli, you do not have to die. You are now mine and will come up to the pasture with me as long as we live." And with resounding6 singing and yodeling Moni came down again at evening and after he had led the black goat to her shed, he took the little kid in his arms, for it was now coming home with him. Mäggerli did not look as if it would rather stay there, but pressed close to Moni and felt that it was under the best protection, for Moni had for a long time treated it better and more kindly than its own mother.
But when Moni came near his grandmother's with Mäggerli on his shoulders, she didn't know at all what to make of it, and although Moni called from a distance:
"She belongs to me, Grandmother, she belongs to me!" she didn't understand for some time what he meant. But Moni couldn't explain to her yet; he ran to the shed, and there right next to Brownie, so that it wouldn't be afraid, he made Mäggerli a fine, soft bed of fresh straw, a............