"Thank you!"
"O, nothing to thank for!" she answered, but drew a long sigh, and
walked on.
He sat down on the grass again. The goat walked about near him, but he
was no longer so pleased with it as before.
The goat was fastened to the wall; but Oeyvind walked about, looking up
at the cliff. His mother came out, and sat down by his side, he wanted
to hear stories about what was far away, for now the goat no longer
satisfied him. So she told him how once everything could talk: the
mountain talked to the stream, and the stream to the river, the river to
the sea, and the sea to the sky; but then he asked if the sky did not
talk to any one; and the sky talked to the clouds, the clouds to the
trees, the trees to the grass, the grass to the flies, the flies to the
animals, the animals to the children, the children to the grown-up
people; and so it went on, until it had gone round, and no one could
tell where it had begun. Oeyvind looked at the mountain, the trees, the
sky, and had never really seen them before. The cat came out at that
moment, and lay down on the stone before the door in the sunshine.
"What does the cat say?" asked Oeyvind, pointing. His mother sang,--
"At evening softly shines the sun,
The cat lies lazy on the stone.
Two small mice,
Cream thick and nice,
Four bits of fish,
I stole behind a dish,
And am so lazy and tired,
Because so well I have fared,"
says the cat.
But then came the cock, with all the hens.
"What does the cock say?" asked Oeyvind, clapping his hands together.
His mother sang,--
"The mother-hen her wings doth sink,
The cock stands on one leg to think:
That gray goose
Steers high her course;
But sure am I that never she
As clever as a cock can be.
Run in, you hens, keep under the roof to-day,
For the sun has got leave to stay away,"
says the cock.
But the little birds were sitting on the ridge-pole, singing. "What do
the birds say?" asked Oeyvind, laughing.
"Dear Lord, how pleasant is life,
For those who have neither toil nor strife,"
say the birds.
And she told him what they all said, down to the ant, who crawled in the
moss, and the worm who worked in the bark.
That same summer, his mother began to teach him to read. He had owned
books a long time, and often wondered how it would seem when they also
began to talk. Now the letters turned into animals, birds, and
everything else; but soon they began to walk together, two and two; _a_
stood and rested under a tree, which was called _b_, then came _c_, and
did the same; but when three or four came together, it seemed as if they
were angry with each other, for it would not go right. And the farther
along he came, the more he forgot what they were: he remembered longest
_a_, which he liked best; it was a little black lamb, and was friends
with everybody; but soon he forgot _a_ also: the book had no more
stories, nothing but lessons.