It didn’t take Marit long to pull out a large cake. “Here it is,” she said, and threw it down to him.
“Ow, it went to pieces,” said the boy. He gathered up every crumb, and he couldn’t help tasting a very small one. That was so good he had to eat another. Before he knew it he had eaten up the whole cake.
“Now the goat is mine,” said the girl, and she laughed and clapped her hands. The boy stopped with the last bit in his mouth.
“Wait a little while?” he begged, for he loved his little goat.
The small girl got up quickly. “No, the goat is mine,” she said, and she threw her arms around its neck. She loosened one of her garters and fastened it round the goat’s neck and began pulling the goat after her. The goat would not follow: it stretched its neck down to see Oeyvind. “Bay-ay-ay,” it said. But the girl took hold of its fleece with one hand and pulled the string with the other, and said, sweetly, “Come, little goat, you shall go into my room and eat out of my apron.” And then she sang,
“Come, boy’s goat,
Come, mother’s calf,
Come, mewing cat
In snow-white shoes;
Come, yellow ducks,