"'And so blue is the sky thereMy joy can't be told'?"
Moni heard the words very well; he gave no answer, but they made a great impression on him. Oh, how different it really was from the time when he could sing all day long and he felt exactly as he sang. Oh, if it could only be like that again!
Again Moni climbed up the mountain, silent and sad and without singing. The rain had now ceased, but thick fog hung around on the mountains, and the sky was still full of dark clouds. Moni again sat under the rock and battled with his thoughts. About noon the sky began to clear; it grew brighter and brighter. Moni came out of his cave and looked around. The goats once more sprang gayly here and there, and the little kid was quite frolicsome from delight at the returning sun and made the merriest leaps.
Moni stood on the Pulpit-rock and saw how it was growing brighter and more beautiful below in the valley and above over the mountains beyond. Now the clouds scattered and the lovely light blue sky looked down so cheerfully that it seemed to Moni as if the dear Lord were looking out of the bright blue at him, and suddenly it became quite clear in his heart what he ought to do. He could not carry the wrong around with him any more; he must throw it off. Then Moni seized the little kid, that was jumping about him, took it in his arms and said tenderly: "Oh, Mäggerli, you poor Mäggerli! I have certainly done what I could, but it is wrong, and that must not be done. Oh, if only you didn't have to die! I can't bear it!"
And Moni began to cry so hard, that he could no longer speak, and the kid bleated pitifully and crept far under his arm, as if it wanted to cling to him and be protected. Then Moni lifted the little goat on his shoulders, saying:
"Come, Mäggerli, I will carry you home once more to-day. Perhaps I can't carry you much longer."
When the flock came down to the Bath House, Paula was again standing on the watch. Moni put the young goat with the black one in the shed, and instead of going on farther, he came toward the young lady and was going past her into the house. She stopped him.
"Still no singing, Moni? Where are you going with such a troubled face?"
"I have to tell about something," replied Moni, without lifting his eyes.
"Tell about something? What is it? Can't I know?"
"I must tell the landlord. Something has been found."
"Found? What is it? I have lost something, a beautiful cross."
"Yes, that is just what it is."
"What do you say?" exclaimed Paula, in the greatest surprise. "Is it a cross with sparkling stones?"
"Yes, exactly that."
"What have you done with it, Moni? Give it to me. Did you find it?"
"No, Jörgli from Küblis found it."
Then Paula wanted to know who he was and where he lived, and to send some one to Küblis at once to get the cross.
"I will go as fast as I can, and if he still has it I will bring it to you," said Moni.
"If he still has it?" said Paula. "Why shouldn't he still have it? And how do you know all about it, Moni? When did he find it, and how did you hear about it?"
Moni looked on the ground. He didn't dare say how it had all come about, and how he had helped to conceal the discovery until he could no longer bear it.
But Paula was very kind to Moni. She took him aside, sat down on the trunk of a tree, beside him, and said with the greatest friendliness:
"Come, tell me all about how it happened, Moni, for I want so much to know everything from you."
Then Moni gained confidence and began to relate the whole story, and told her every word of his struggle about Mäggerli and how he had lost all happiness and dared no longer look up to the dear Lord, and how to-day he couldn't bear it any longer.
Then Paula talked with him very kindly and said he should have come immediately and told everything, and it was right that he had told her all now so frankly, and that he would not regret it. Then she said he could promise Jörgli ten francs, as soon as she had the cross in her hands again.
"Ten francs!" repeated Moni, full of astonishment, for he knew how Jörgli would have sold it for much less. Then Moni rose and said he would go right away that very day to Küblis, and if he got the cross he would bring it with him early the next morning. He ran along and was once more able to leap and jump, for he had a much lighter heart and the heavy burden no longer weighed him down to the ground.
When he reached home, he only put his goats in, told his grandmother he had an errand to do, and ran at once down to Küblis. He found Jörgli at home and told him without delay what he had done. At first the boy was very angry, but when he considered that all was known, he took out the cross and asked:
"Will she give me anything for it?"
"Yes, and now you can see, Jörgli," said Moni, indignantly, "how by being honorable you will receive ten francs, and by being deceitful only four: the ten francs you are going to have now."
Jörgli was very much amazed. He regretted that he had not gone immediately with the cross to the Bath House, after he had picked it up in front of the door, for now he had not a clear conscience and it might have been so different! But now it was too late. He gave the cross to Moni, who hastened home with it, for it had already grown quite dark.
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 delightful with him.
When the goat-boy came along with his flock in the morning, Paula was already standing 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 kindly, "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 astonishment, as if it were impossible to understand her words. At last he stammered: "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 thereMy 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 resounding 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, and laid it down, saying:
"There, Mäggerli, now sleep well in your new home! You must always have this; every day I will make you a new bed!"
Then Moni came back directly to his wondering grandmother, and while they sat together at their supper, he told her the whole story from the very beginning about his three days so full of trouble, and the happy ending to-day.
The grandmother listened very quietly and attentively and when he came to the end, she said earnestly:
"Moni, you must remember what has happened to you now, as long as you live! While you were having so great trouble with wrong-doing in order to help the little creature, the dear Lord had already found a way to help it and make you happy as soon as you would do what was right in His sight. If you had done right at once, and trusted in God, all would have gone well at first. Now the dear Lord has helped you beyond all you deserved, so that you will not forget it your whole life long."
"No, I will surely never forget it," said Moni, eagerly assenting, "and will always truly think, the first thing: I must only do what is right before the dear Lord. He will take care of all the rest."
But before Moni could lie down to sleep, he had to look into the shed once more, to see if it were really possible that the little kid was lying out there and belonged to him.
Jörgli received the ten francs according to the agreement, but he was not allowed to escape from the affair so easily as that. When he returned to the Bath House, he was brought to the landlord who took the boy by the collar, gave him a good shaking, and said threateningly:
"Jörgli! Jörgli! Don't you try a second time to bring my whole house into bad repute! If anything like this happens a single time again, you will come out of my house in a way that will not please you! See, up there hangs a very sharp willow rod for such cases. Now go and think this over."
Moreover, the event had other consequences for the boy. From this time on, if anything was lost anywhere in the Bath House, all the servants immediately exclaimed: "Jörgli from Küblis has it!" and if he came afterwards into the house they all pounced on him together and cried: "Give it here, Jörgli! Out with it!" And if he assured them he had nothing and knew nothing about it, they would all exclaim: "We know you already!" and "You can't fool us!"
So Jörgli had to endure the most menacing attacks continually, and had hardly a moment's peace any more, for if he saw any one approaching him, he at once thought he was coming to ask if he had found this or that. So Jörgli was not at all happy; and a hundred times he thought: "If only I had given back that cross immediately! I will never in my whole life keep anything else that doesn't belong to me."
But Moni never ceased singing and yodeling, the whole summer long, for there was hardly another human being in the world as happy as he was up there with his goats. Often, however, when he lay stretched out in his contentment on the Pulpit-rock, and gazed down into the sunny valley below, he had to think how he had sat that time with the heavy burden on his heart, under the Rain-rock, and all happiness was gone; and he would say again and again in his heart: "I know now what I will do, so that it will never happen again: I will do nothing that will prevent me from looking up gladly to heaven, because this is right to the dear Lord."
But if it chanced that Moni became too long absorbed in his meditation, one or another of the goats would come along, gaze wonderingly at him and try to attract his attention by bleating, which oftentimes he did not hear for quite a while. Only when Mäggerli came and called after him longingly, then he heard at once and came leaping to it immediately, for his affectionate little kid always remained Moni's dearest possession.