This page needs to be proofread.

166 The Lad and the North Wind. That pleased the lad, but as it was too late to get home that day, he went into the same inn where he had been before. But before he called for anything, he wanted to try the goat and see if it was true what the north wind had said about it, and sure enough the goat made only golden ducats. But when the innkeeper saw what kind of goat the lad had, he thought this was a goat worth håving, so when the lad had fallen asleep, he took another goat which couldn't make any golden ducats, and put that in its place. Next morning the lad started off home, and when he came in to his mother, he said, " The north wind is a good fellow after all ; this time he has given me a goat that måkes only golden ducats, if I onlysay, ' Goat of mine,make money!'" " Ah, to be sure !" said his mother, "thafs all rubbish, — and I don't believe it till I see it." " Goat of mine, make money ! " cried the lad, but not a shilling could the goat make. So the lad went back again to the north wind, and said that the goat wasn't worth anything, and he wasn't going to be done out of his meal, not he ! " Well," said the north wind, " I have nothing else to give you but that old stick over there in the corner; but it is a good stick, and if you only say, ' Stick of mine, lay on,' it lays on, till you say, ' Stick of mine, leave off.' " But it was a long way home, and the lad went into the old inn where he had slept before ; and as he pretty well guessed how he had lost the cloth and the goat, he lay down ?t oncc on the bench and began snoring as if he were asleep. The innkeeper, who thought that the stick must be good for something also, looked for a stick like the one the lad had, and was going to change the sticks while the lad was snoring away, but just as the innkeeper was going to take the stick, the lad cried out, " Stick of mine, lay on," and the stick commenced bcating the poor innkeeper, till he jumped over chairs and tables, while he shouted and yelled :" Oh dear !oh dear ! Tell the stick to leave off, or else it will kili me; you shall have both your cloth and your goat back again ! "