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OEYVIND AND MARIT
(A Little Story of Norway)
Bjornstjerne Bjornson
Oeyvind was his name. A low, rocky cliff over-
hung the house where he was born; fir and birch
trees looked down upon the roof, and the wild
cherry strewed flowers over it. On this roof lived
a little goat belonging to Oeyvind; it was kept
there that it might not wander away, and Oeyvind
carried leaves and grass up to it. One fine day
the goat leaped down and ran off to the cliff; it
went straight up and soon stood where it had never
been before. Oeyvind did not see the goat when
he came out in the afternoon and thought at once
of the fox. He grew hot all over, looked round
about and called:
“Here, goat! Here, goat! Here, goat!”
“Ba-a-a!” answered the goat from the top of the
hill, putting its head on one side and looking down.
At the side of the goat there was kneeling a little girl.
“Is this goat yours?” asked she.
Oeyvind opened wide his mouth and eyes, thrust
both hands into his breeches and said: “Who are
you?”
“I am Marit, mother’s little one, father’s fiddle,
the elf in the house, granddaughter to Ola Nordi-
stuen of the Heide farms, four years old in the
autumn — I am!”
“Is that who you are?” cried he, drawing a long
breath, for he had not dared to take one while
she was speaking.
“Is this goat yours?” she asked again.
“Ye-es!” replied he.
“I like it so very much. Will you not give it
to me?”
“No indeed, I will not.”
She lay flat on the ground staring down at him,
and soon she said: “But if I give you a twisted
bun for the goat, may I have it then?”
Oeyvind was the son of poor people; he had tasted
twisted bun only once in his life; that was when
grandfather came to his house, and he had never
eaten anything so good before or since. He fixed
his eyes on the girl.
“Let me see the bun first,” said he.
She was not long in showing him a large twisted
bun that she held in her hand.
“Here it is!” cried she, and tossed it down to
him.
“Oh! it broke in pieces!” said the boy, picking
up every bit with the greatest care. He could
not help tasting of the very smallest morsel, and
it was so good that he had to try another, till before
he knew it, he had eaten up the whole bun.
“Now the goat belongs to me,” said the girl.
The boy stopped with the last bit in his mouth;
the girl lay there laughing, and the goat stood by
her side, with its white breast and shining brown
hair, looking sideways down.
“Could you not wait a while?” begged the boy,
his heart beginning to beat fast. The girl laughed
more than ever, and quickly got up on her knees.
“No, the goat is mine,” said she, and threw her
arms about it. Then, loosening one of her garters,
she fastened it about its neck. Oeyvind watched
her. She rose to her feet and began to tug at the
goat; it would not go along with her, and stretched
its neck over the edge of the cliff toward Oeyvind.
“Ba-a-a-a!” said the goat.
Then the little girl took hold of its hair with
one hand, pulled at the garter with the other, and
said prettily: “Come now, goat, you shall go into
the sitting room and eat from mother’s dish and
my apron.” And then she sang:
“Come, boy’s pretty goatie.
Come, calf, my delight.
Come here, mewing pussie,
In shoes snowy white.
Yellow ducks from your shelter,
Come forth, helter skelter.
Come, doves ever beaming,
With soft feathers gleaming!”
There the boy stood. He had taken care of the
goat ever since winter when it was born, and he
had never dreamed that he could lose it; but now
it was gone in a moment and he would never see it
again.
His mother came up humming from the beach,
with some wooden pails she had been scouring;
she saw the boy sitting on the grass, with his legs
crossed under him, crying, and she went to him.
“What makes you cry?”
“Oh, my goat — my goat!”
“Why, where is the goat?” asked the mother,
looking up at the roof.
“It will never come back any more,” said the boy.
“Dear me! how can that be?”
Oeyvind would not tell what he had done at
first.
“Has the fox carried it off?”
“Oh, I wish it were the fox.”
“Then, what has become of it?” cried the mother.
“Oh — oh — oh! I happened to — to — to sell it
for a twisted bun!”
As soon as he spoke, the boy understood what
he had done, to sell his pet goat for a bun; he had
not thought about it before. The mother said:
“What do you suppose the Httle goat thinks of
you, when you were willing to sell it for a twisted bun?”
The boy thought this over, and felt perfectly sure
that he could never be happy again. He was so
sorry for what he had done, that he promised him-
self he would never do anything wrong again —
neither cut the cord of the spinning wheel, nor let
the sheep loose, nor go down to the sea alone. He
fell asleep lying there and dreamed about his goat.
Then something wet was thrust right against his
ear and he started up. “Ba-a-a-a!” he heard, and
it was the goat that had returned to him.
‘What! have you come back again?” He sprang
up, seized it by the two forelegs, and danced about
with it as if it were a brother. He pulled it by
the beard, and was on the point of going in to
his mother with it, when he heard someone behind
him, and saw the little girl sitting on the grass
beside him. Now he understood why the goat had
come back, and he let go of it.
“Is it you who have brought the goat?”
She sat tearing up the grass with her hands and
said:
“I was not allowed to keep it; grandfather is
up there waiting.”
While the boy stood staring at her, a sharp voice
from the road above called, “Well”
Then she remembered what she had been told to
do; she rose, walked up to Oeyvind, thrust one
of her dirt-covered hands into his, and turning
her face away said, *1 beg your pardon!” But
then her courage was all gone; she flung her arms
about the goat and burst into tears.
“I believe you had better keep the goat,” stam-
mered Oeyvind, looking the other way.
“Make haste now!” called her grandfather from
the hill, so Marit turned and walked slowly toward him.
“You have forgotten your garter,” Oeyvind shouted
after her. She turned and looked at him, then she
answered in a choked voice, “You may keep it.”
He walked up to her, took her hand and said, “I
thank you.”
“Oh, it’s nothing to thank for,” she answered,
but she still sobbed as she walked away.
Oeyvind sat down on the grass again, the goat
roaming about near him, but he was no longer
as happy with it as before.
The goat was fastened near the house, but Oeyvind
wandered away, with his eyes fixed on the cliff. His
mother came and sat down beside him; he asked
her to tell him stories about things that were far
away, for now the goat no longer satisfied him.
So his mother told him how once everything could
talk; the mountain talked to the brook, the brook
to the river, the river to the sea, and the sea to
the sky; 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 beasts, the beasts to the chil-
dren, and the children to grown people. So it
went on and on, and round in a circle. As she
talked Oeyvind looked at the cliff, the trees, the
sea and the sky, and it seemed to him he had
never truly seen them before. The cat came out
just then, and stretched itself on the doorstep in
the sunshine.
“What does the cat say?”asked Oeyvind. The
mother sang:
“Evening sunshine softly is dying,
On the doorstep lazy puss is lying.
‘Well filled am I and sleek,
Am very lazy and meek,’
Says the pussie.”
Then the cock came strutting up with all his
hens. ‘What does the cock say?” asked Oeyvind,
clapping his hands. His mother sang:
“Mother-hen, her wings now are sinking.
Rooster on one leg stands thinking.
‘Seek your shelter, hens, I pray.
Gone is the sun to his rest for today,’
Says the Cock.'”
“What are the birds saying?” asked Oeyvind and
laughed.
“‘Dear Lord, how pleasant is life.
For those who have neither toil nor strife,’
Say the birds.”
Thus he learned what all were saying, even to the
ant crawling in the moss and the worm working
in the bark of the trees.
The same summer his mother began to teach him
to read. Then one day she said to him: “Tomorrow
school begins again and you are going”
Oeyvind had heard that school was a place where
boys played together and he was greatly pleased.
He walked faster than his mother up the hill-side,
so eager was he. When they came to the school-
house a loud buzzing like that from the mill at
home met them, and he asked his mother what it
was.
“It is the children reading,” answered she.
On entering, he saw many children around a
table; others sat on their dinner pails along the
wall, some stood in little groups around a large
printed card covered with numbers; the school-
master, an old gray-haired man, was sitting on a
stool by the chimney corner. They all looked up
as Oeyvind and his mother came in, and the mill-
hum ceased as if the water had been suddenly turned
off. The mother bowed to the schoolmaster, who
returned her greeting.
“I have come here to bring a little boy who wants
to learn to read,”said the mother.
“What is his name?” asked the schoolmaster.
“Oeyvind. He knows his letters and he can spell.”
“You don’t say so,” said the schoolmaster. “Come
here, Httle Whitehead.”
Oeyvind went over to him; the schoolmaster
took him on his lap and raised his cap.
“What a nice little boy!” said he and stroked
his hair. Oeyvind looked up into his eyes and
laughed.
“Is it at me you are laughing?” asked the school-
master with a frown.
“Yes, it is,” answered Oeyvind, and roared with
laughter. At that the schoolmaster laughed; Oey-
vind’s mother laughed; the children understood
that they also were allowed to laugh, and so they
all laughed together.
When Oeyvind was to take his seat, all the scholars
wished to make room for him. He on his part,
looked about for a long time. Then he spied near
the hearthstone, close beside him, sitting on a little
red-painted box, Marit with the many names. She
had hidden her face behind both hands and sat
peeping out at him.
“I will sit here!” cried Oeyvind at once, and,
seizing a lunch-box, he seated himself at her side.
Now she raised the arm nearest him a little and
peered at him from under her elbow; forthwith he,
too, covered his face with both hands and looked at
her from under his elbow. Thus they sat cutting
up capers until the reading began again! The
children read aloud, each from his book, high little
voices piping up, and lower voices drumming, while
here and there one chimed in to be heard above
all the rest. In all his life Oeyvind had never had
such fun.
“Is it always like this here?” he whispered to
Marit.
“Yes, always,”said she.
Later, they too had to go forward to the school-
master to read; then they were allowed to sit quietly
down again.
“I have a goat now myself,” said Marit.
“Have you?” cried Oeyvind; and that was the very
best thing he learned on his first day at school.
