Moni the Goat Boy, and Other Stories

by Johanna Spyri

And the wife said: "I think so, too. I do not like the tramp of heavy boots about the house."

So the household went on in its old quiet way, and still the work was properly done.

But when autumn came the farmer said: "We must have a herd boy. The hired man cannot sit out in the meadow all day when there is so much work still to be done, and yet we cannot leave the cows out in the pasture all alone."

And the wife said: "That would suit me very well; for a nimble little boy would often be handy for me in the work about the kitchen, the well, and the shed. He might look after the chickens, too; I cannot call the man for all these little services."

"Then I will go and get one," said the farmer, reaching for his coat and his heavy cane. The alms commissioner always knew of boys to hire; he would go to him.

Now it happened that on that very day the butcher had sent his delivery boy to the commissioner with a message that a new place should be found for the boy, as he himself had bought a cart and would have no more need of him.

This boy was Renti. He was quite alone in the world, having neither father nor mother nor any one else who belonged to him. Where he had come from no one knew.

Nine years before, on Laurentius Day, a tiny baby boy, wrapped in a coarse cloth, had been left on the doorstep of the church. The sexton, coming to ring the bell for evening prayers, had found a bundle at the door, and on discovering that it contained a living child he had taken it to the pastor. On the following Sunday the little boy was baptized, and received the name of Laurence in honor of the saint on whose day he had been found. Then he was intrusted to the care of the old washerwoman Katrina, who kept him clean and decent as long as she lived. But she died after a few years, and then Renti passed from one hand to another. Sometimes he was treated kindly, sometimes quite otherwise; up to the time of his tenth year he had never known how it felt to have a home, for he had never been kept more than a year in one place. In the last few years, since he had been able to do light work, he had gone to a new place almost every three months, wherever people happened to have need of him.

When the farmer of Lindenhof arrived at the commissioner's, the latter was at his door and Renti was standing before him delivering the message from the butcher.