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Updated: June 2, 2025
"And to-day is Friday!" shrieked the Goat-mother. "Oh! this is hard indeed!" "Compose yourself, ma'am, and listen to my advice," said the Pedlar. "You lock up your house, or leave me in charge with Lizbet and Lénora, and you and the two other children start off at once to ask the help of the Goat-king.
The children screamed, the Goat-mother wept tears of joy; and after a general rejoicing, the whole party sat down to a comfortable meal, during which the Lieutenant's health was drunk by the Goat-family amidst loud cheering. "I am sorry we can't invite the whole corps," said the Goat-mother. "It's very cold for them outside, but the fact is I haven't sufficient crockery.
"Keep the tame Fox instead of me, ma'am," he said, as he shook hands warmly with his friends at parting. "The poor creature is miserable in captivity." He then made the Goat-mother a handsome present of all his remaining groceries, and departed once more upon his travels.
He is a mild, humane creature, and will very likely order out a detachment of the 'Free-will' goats to help to defend your household." "That is the only thing to do," said the Goat-mother mournfully. "I certainly know the way, for of course I have always been to the yearly Goat Assembly, but I always started three days before the meeting, and went down the back of the mountain, over the slopes.
The Goat-mother trembling in every limb for she had never had a private interview with Royalty before clutched a child in each hand and followed the Porter. They passed down two passages, and finally reached a large ice-grotto, with a row of windows opening on to a wide crevasse. The room was filled with a flickering green light that yet rendered everything distinctly visible.
As to the Goat-mother, she had passed through such a moment of terror that she had to be assisted out of the back room by three of the guard, and revived with a cabbage leaf before she could recover herself.
That same afternoon a special messenger from the Goat-King arrived with an inlaid musical chair, "as a slight token of regard," for the Heif-father. "Well, at all events, it's better than a cuckoo clock," said the Goat-mother resignedly, "but let me warn you seriously never to sit down upon it! I know its ways, and though kindly meant, I should have preferred paper-knives!"
"I wish it was at the bottom of the Glacier!" groaned the Goat-mother, staggering along; her bonnet nearly falling off, her shawl trailing on the snow behind her. "Be careful, Pyto! Careless Goat!" she cried. "Test the snow-bridges carefully with your alpenstock before you venture on them!"
The tallow candle was immediately put out, the Lieutenant and his detachment seized their weapons, and concealed themselves behind the door, and the Goat-mother and her children were shut up in an inner room, where they waited in fear and trembling. On came the Chamois with noiseless leaps, bounding into the garden, and approaching the front door with the utmost caution.
But Pyto, who was young and giddy, went gamboling on; until suddenly, without even time for a bleat of terror, he fell crashing through the rotten ice, and disappeared from view into one of the largest crevasses. "Goats-i-tivy!" cried the Goat-mother. "He's gone! Oh, my darling child, where are you?"
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