CHAPTER XXVIII

MAGNUS AND GOLDEN HORN

Now came Andy’s and Maglena’s turn to be called. They sat on the bench between the young couple. Serious things were discussed.

First it was decided that Magnus should stay with the young pair _as their own child_.

Then came the question of the goat. The man wondered if Andy wanted to sell them the goat. The squire had promised that he could have two sheep on the place, and instead he could just as well have a goat. He’d fence in a space with a little house for her, so she wouldn’t do any unexpected damage.

And Andy considered! Maglena noticed that, as she sat beside him, both astonished and angry. Was Andy such a fool that he couldn’t at once say that they couldn’t get along without Golden Horn!

Now it was Andy’s turn to be pinched. During the discussion Maglena pinched him harder and harder. Why, he sat there like a rabbit without will enough to refuse at once. And there! Right under Maglena’s nose he accepts the price of twelve crowns that is offered for ‘the goat.’

‘_The goat!_’ Just as if Golden Horn were a goat, a goat to sell like any trash of a goat.

And into the bargain, Andy sits there perfectly calm and says that he had long thought of finding Golden Horn some good place to stay.

‘Imagine that!’ Maglena was so angry that it seemed to bubble within her. She wanted to pound Andy, for he did not seem to pay any attention to her pinches, even when she used her nails.

‘But are you crazy, boy?’ she screamed at last, when Andy stood up and shook hands over the bargain. The lumberman was to keep the money until Andy demanded it.

‘Are _you_ out of your senses, girl?’ he cried threateningly in answer.

‘Now you can just as well sell me too!’ Maglena stifled and muffled her howls as well as she could.

‘Maglena, be quiet and control your temper,’ whispered Andy earnestly and reproachfully. ‘You should think of what you say.’

‘As if I don’t do that!’ wailed Maglena as she half ran after Andy, who, in order to get out of hearing of the rest, hurried back of the house and out over the grass.

‘Golden Horn has been mine ever since Anna-Lisa left her! I have milked her and she has called for me the minute she didn’t see me. And you take her away from me and sell her, just like Joseph’s brothers did with Joseph!’

Andy walked on perfectly quiet, and waited for Maglena to lose breath and give up. When she actually did become silent, perhaps to get strength for further objections, he broke in.

‘I suppose you think that it is fun for Golden Horn to have a muzzle on all the time.’

‘She doesn’t have it on all the time,’ sobbed Maglena. ‘She is free in the woods and along the roads.’

‘But you see, girl, we don’t often go through woods now. We are in big parishes where there are only fields and meadows with the grain not cut. You know we just about get the muzzle off when we have to put it on again. Wasn’t it you that said that just yesterday?’

‘Ye-es,’ moaned Maglena unhappily.

‘You said she was beginning to get thin,’ added Andy inexorably.

‘Ye-es,’ wailed Maglena almost inaudibly.

‘Would you think it was any fun to walk between a row of rolls of butter and fresh cheeses on one side of the road, and a wall of thick bread and wheat buns and coffee bread on the other side? And you’d have a muzzle on and couldn’t eat. Do you think that would be any fun?’ repeated Andy, sternly serious as Maglena was silent.

‘No-o,’ whispered Maglena, perfectly crushed.

‘Here she’ll have a little yard to run in, and a house with straw on the floor to live in, grass and clover and pine branches to eat. Or she can be tethered here on the grass all summer, so much green stuff grows here.’

‘And maybe she’ll get bread too from these good nice people here, every day, and everything that is left after they have eaten,’ murmured Maglena, who began to see that Andy’s love for Golden Horn was of a better sort than her own.

‘You see, Maglena, little girl,’ said Andy, now in the gentlest, mildest voice he could manage. In his heart and soul he wanted only to be good to the heart-broken little sister. ‘You can understand, Maglena, what a good thing it is that these people will care for Magnus too.’

‘Yes, then Golden Horn will have some one to go to when she gets lonesome.’

‘Yes, and the poor little fellow will have her too. Magnus will be sad and lonesome for us many times,’ added Andy with a heavy, thoughtful expression. ‘But it will be fine for him here with such nice people.’

‘I think it was mother that led us here too, Andy. Boy,’ she went on with a soft, deeply repentant voice, ‘are you mad at me because I pinched you so awfully? I’m afraid I hurt you.’

‘Never!’ said Andy, with a superior air.

He did still feel Maglena’s pinches and nails; but he did not want to make her unhappy because of that: she who was already in such despair and grief, and now must leave Golden Horn.

Andy had long been worried and anxious about Golden Horn. Ever since the flight from the Wicked Farm, where Golden Horn had been so cruelly treated, he had feared that some new danger would overtake her. And it hurt him every time he had to put the muzzle on her, now in the most beautiful blossoming time of the year. So Andy felt relieved at finding a good place to leave her.