For a time they had followed an old, hilly country road,
which wound around cliffs, and ran forward under wild
mountain-walls--when the boy suddenly let out a shriek. He had been
sitting and swinging his foot back and forth, and one of his wooden
shoes had slipped off.
"Goosey-gander, goosey-gander, I have dropped my shoe!" cried the boy.
The goosey-gander turned about and sank toward the ground; then the boy
saw that two children, who were walking along the road, had picked up
his shoe. "Goosey-gander, goosey-gander," screamed the boy excitedly,
"fly upward again! It is too late. I cannot get my shoe back again."
Down on the road stood Osa, the goose-girl, and her brother, little
Mats, looking at a tiny wooden shoe that had fallen from the skies.
Osa, the goose-girl, stood silent a long while, and pondered over the
find. At last she said, slowly and thoughtfully: "Do you remember,
little Mats, that when we went past Oevid Cloister, we heard that the
folks in a farmyard had seen an elf who was dressed in leather breeches,
and had wooden shoes on his feet, like any other working man? And do you
recollect when we came to Vittskoevle, a girl told us that she had seen a
Goa-Nisse with wooden shoes, who flew away on the back of a goose? And
when we ourselves came home to our cabin, little Mats, we saw a goblin
who was dressed in the same way, and who also straddled the back of a
goose--and flew away.
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