CHAPTER XXVII

A PROBLEM, A CHOICE, AND SORROW

Magnus was chattering with Golden Horn and pulling grass for her when he was unexpectedly called up to the young pair who sat on the bench. When asked if he would like to stay there for always, he first answered slowly that he for his part had nothing against it. He wasn’t exactly happy at the suggestion, just wondering and inwardly a little excited. So he hunched up his shoulders, put his hands in his ‘pockets,’ stared before him, and stood there, and was silent.

It was perhaps a little disappointing to the young folks who wanted to take off his ‘muzzle,’ and probably thought that he would cry and laugh with the joy of being free.

And then he only stood there, and was silent, and looked thoughtful.

‘But, boy, don’t you want to stay?’ asked Kristina, surprised and really displeased.

Worried and embarrassed, Magnus turned toward the garden where the other two were weeding. And at once he knew what he wanted. It would be just good for Andy and Maglena if he left them. After this they’d have mighty little chance to pinch and comb and wash with soap! So Magnus turned to the young people with a mischievous happy smile, and said that he for his part thought it would be great fun to stay there.

He kept Golden Horn beside him so she should not hurt the young trees and the gardens. Suddenly Magnus became thoughtful again. He looked down at the goat with a wondering, frightened expression in his eyes.

‘I guess,’ stammered Magnus and became blood-red, and his voice began to tremble----‘I guess I’d rather go away from here after all.’

‘But, boy,’ said Kristina, and looked gently and steadily into his eyes, ‘remember that you’ll never have to starve again and walk the roads tired and discouraged. You’ll have a nice bed with sheets and a pillow, and a robe, and you’ll have real clothes that I’ll weave and sew for you.’

Magnus listened happily to the description. He knew more than well what all this meant. He certainly did not think it was any fun to walk and walk and to starve and be afraid of people and dogs and northern lights and ghosts on the ice, or to be dressed like a beggar and get his nose out of joint pulling on tight shirts that were so strong that it was impossible to tear them and so get them on more easily. No, that was no fun. It was worse, much worse, than to be pinched by Andy or washed by Maglena.

Again Magnus stood and considered. Golden Horn, beside him, chewed her cud with peaceful, contented, closed eyes. She hardly opened them when she pushed against Magnus with her nose. She wanted to be scratched between the horns.

But Magnus thought she said: ‘Just think, old fellow, we won’t be together. When I have a muzzle, I should think you could stand one. That is better for us both than not being together.’

‘Golden Horn can’t get along without me,’ said Magnus, troubled. He stared at the ground with round eyes and dug his birch-bark shoe into the sand so that the bare ankle above it became purple.

‘The goat!’ repeated the man, amazed. ‘Don’t you believe that the goat cares where she is! She’d just as soon go with the others whether you are along or not.’

‘In the daytime, maybe,’ admitted Magnus. ‘But at night when it is dark, in the winter when it is cold, and now too for that matter, she’s used to having me sleep with my head on her when we sleep in lofts and sheds and like that. She’d miss me terribly.’

‘She won’t think of you and won’t remember you after she has left here. You can go to the sawmill with me, and see ships from Portugal and Holland. And I’ll give you a nice jack-knife.’

‘A jack-knife,’ repeated Magnus. His eyes became still rounder and bigger, and he slackened the caressing hold he had around the goat’s neck.

‘I’ll give you a little axe too, so you can help me cut kindling wood when mother here is going to cook good things for us to eat.’

‘_A little axe!_’

There was almost a wail in Magnus’s voice as he repeated the words.

‘And I’ll make you a little rake. It will be painted green and you can rake and keep the yard here clean.’

The young man raised the bid. It amused him to see whether a poor boy’s love for such a lowly creature as a goat would be so strong that he could resist all the advantages now offered him.

‘A green rake too,’ sniffed Magnus, for the struggle within was so great that he wept, and tears dropped from his little red snub-nose. He could hardly control his voice enough to talk.

‘And with it you can rake here in the vegetable garden after you’ve slept in the bed and had enough to eat and are dressed in the new blue-striped clothes and have your cap on, a new one with a real visor. And you have the jack-knife in a sheath like a grown-up man.’

Suddenly and violently, Magnus pushed Golden Horn away from him. He almost kicked her.

‘Can’t you go, you goat! What do you stand here for, and stare at me and butt me and wet me with your nose? Get away, do you hear!’

Magnus stamped his foot, so furious that he snarled. His face was red, and the tears still ran.

Andy and Maglena, who were in the farthest corner of the garden, wondered what was going on. But they had had lunch and now wanted to finish weeding the beds, so they couldn’t come unless they were called.

Andy was quite worried about what Magnus was saying. But then he thought that such nice people wouldn’t mind what such a little fellow raved about.

‘Oscar, you’re not fair to the boy. Can’t you see how torn he is?’ said Kristina, who interceded compassionately. ‘There is good steadfast stuff in that little one,’ she continued. ‘And it would be really hard to let him go now.’

The man nodded thoughtfully, looking out into space.

‘You have often said that it was all wrong for us not to have goats down here,’ he began slowly and uncertainly.

‘Of course it’s wrong. Think of the good they are! First of all, cheese and butter for your bread. You’d have to hunt for such warm mittens and waterproof socks as you get when you mix goats’ hair with wool and spin it into yarn. Kidskin is the finest you can get for robes. And every one knows what fine leather you get from goatskin. Besides, the meat of both goats and kids is good to eat. So it is altogether wrong not to have goats. They’re easy to take care of, and clean, so you can’t help liking them. A good goat gives as much milk as a young cow or an old cow, and it doesn’t take one fourth as much fodder for a goat.’

‘That time you certainly were a chatter-box,’ laughed the man.

‘Yes; and they’re wise too. I am sure that this goat sees that the boy is sad and that he didn’t mean anything bad when he shrieked and kicked at her. See what good friends they are now again.’

Magnus, perplexed, angry, worried, and repentant, had run after Golden Horn, who, repulsed, had run away a bit, but then stopped in wonder and stared at Magnus, giving forth a complaining, rather puzzled, bleating.

These weren’t any pretty words that Golden Horn spoke to Magnus. He understood that all too well. Magnus heard plainly what she bleated about. Golden Horn said that she had been good to him, given him food, warmed him, walked beside him like a good friend. And now she got a kick and angry words without knowing why. No one else heard that Golden Horn bleated forth all this. But Magnus heard it, and that was why he went back to her, bent down with his arms around her neck, and said again and again:

‘Don’t mind what I said just now; I was just talking. Are we good friends again, little pearl? You must understand that I’ll go with you forever, big doll. Little pearl, we must be together, and be good friends.’