“Hans, you are a coward!” replied Caspar, for the third time shaking him.
But as little Hans said, “I will certainly show you a monster!” and as the others begged for his life, he let him loose, stamped again on the ground, and exclaimed:
“Oh, I would have commanded a band of heroes; I would have caught the monster, and led it in triumph home, but now it is gone, and you are the cause!”
But meanwhile the goat, which at first had so frightened them, approached again, and performed various playful capers to induce them to play with it. This increased Caspar’s rage, who would have seized the animal and beaten it; but it ran back, and then lowering its horns rushed against Caspar, not very softly. This excited him the more; he made a bold spring, seized the brute by the hair, and mounted it, in order the better to hold it; but, lo! the goat ran wildly away with him, with mad jumps through the wood, past shrieking Bessy, away into the village, where the people pointed their fingers at him mockingly.
Where did the goat stop?—for Caspar, while he lives, will not forget this! It easily found the way to the schoolhouse where it once joyfully fed, and flying to the yard, where the affrighted dog tried to seize it, it rushed into the school at the principal entrance, and stood suddenly in the schoolroom, where Herr Gulmann was correcting the exercises of his scholars. He heard the tremendous noise and outcry, and putting on his spectacles he discovered all!
What further happened I will omit, out of pity for Caspar, who may read this history some time. Only this must I mention: that Herr Gulmann made him read and explain on Monday morning, for a religious exercise, the history of David and Goliath, and soon after he unwillingly related the story of the Seven Suabians, who allowed themselves to be conquered by a hare, and at that seven little boys blushed very deeply. I believe, however, that seven times seven-and-seventy little boys would blush at this story I have just told if it had happened to them!
The Story of Little Black Mingo
Once upon a time there was a little black girl, and her name was Little Black Mingo.
She had no father and mother, so she had to live with a horrid cross old woman called Black Noggy, who used to scold her every day, and sometimes beat her with a stick, even though she had done nothing naughty.
One day Black Noggy called her, and said: “Take this chatty down to the river and fill it with water, and come back as fast as you can—quick now!”