Moni the Goat Boy, and Other Stories

by Johanna Spyri

In winter the farmers did not usually take boys, as they did through the summer, for their clothes and keep, so no one had offered to take Renti on these terms; but the shoemaker had agreed to take him for a small sum to cover his board, since he always had use for a boy.

When Renti presented himself at the shoemaker's the man was sitting in the one room of the house, with his wife and three small children. He was mending a shoe, although it was Sunday.

"I suppose you are the new boy," said the woman, when he presented himself. "Lay your bundle in here. This is where you are to sleep," and she pointed toward the door by which he had entered. Renti understood that he was to sleep in the small cupboard-like opening that he had noticed on the left of the door. It was shut off from the rest of the room by a few narrow boards, with wide cracks between them, these openings being the only means by which light and air could enter the space. Within, there was nothing but a straw bed and a broken chair. This was to be Renti's bedroom. He tossed his bundle on the chair and ran out.

The poor shoemaker had no order or system in his household. He took Renti for the sake of the little money he would get for him, and because he needed some one to do his errands, as his own children were too small to be of any use to him. Aside from this he paid little attention to the boy and let him go his own way. He sent him to school mornings, because the boy's expenses were paid by the community and he would have been called to account if Renti had not gone to school; but in the afternoon, if he had long errands, or any other kind of work for him, he kept him out. In the evening the shoemaker always sent him about here and there, and Renti came home when he pleased, no one paying any attention to him; but he never found anything to eat then, for he was always too late for the family supper, and of course nothing was saved for him. The others were glad that he did not come, for there was hardly enough for the family, and if he had come in time they would have had to give him something. To have anything left over was a thing unknown to them.

Renti was becoming sadly demoralized. In school he never knew anything because he never studied at home, being out every night. In appearance, too, this thin, ragged little fellow was much changed from the Renti of former days.

Gretchen was much worried about it all; her days had become very unhappy. When she heard the teacher saying so often, "Renti, you have become one of the very worst boys in school," she felt like sinking through the floor, for she always felt as though it were she herself being thus disgraced. She never had a chance to speak to Renti; he always ran away right after school and seemed to have grown shy and timid. She could not tell her troubles at home, for as soon as she mentioned his name her brothers would cry out, "Don't speak of him; he's a good for nothing." And even her mother would no longer take his part and say in her kind way, "He may turn out all right in time."

Gretchen had but one hope,—that when Renti's time with the shoemaker was over and he was once more taken on a farm, where there was better management, he would turn over a new leaf; for she could not believe that he was really the good for nothing that her brothers thought him.

Evenings she often wanted to go out to see whether Renti might not be standing at the corner of the barn; she wanted to console him and urge him to do better; but her mother would never let her go. She said that Renti should not be wandering about at night, and if he had a clear conscience he would find their door on Sunday afternoons. If he didn't come then, Gretchen was not to watch for him.

So on many and many a night Gretchen went to bed with a heavy heart, and lay awake thinking of some way by which Renti could be led back to the right path.