Free West of the Moon by Margi Preus Page B

do is wait a bit for the goatman who will surely be coming along soon enough. He’s much bigger and tastier than I and has a hump on his back that would carve up into a nice roast for Sunday dinner, if you don’t mind my mentioning Sunday.”
    â€œDoes he now?” peals a voice like a bell. It’s so clear andreal I feel the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Then I hear the sound of splashing, like someone or something wading about in the water under the bridge.
    â€œIndeed, I think that’s what I’ll do—eat you up!” says the voice. “Yum! Yum! Yum!”
    â€œThat’s not what you’re supposed to say,” I squeak.
    â€œâ€™Tisn’t?” comes the voice.
    â€œNo,” say I. “You’re supposed to say, ‘Very well, then, be off with you.’”
    â€œMaybe I would have said
that
if
you
had said you were going up the hill to get fat, but you didn’t. Also, you are not going up the hill but down it.”
    I watch as the top of a head appears, then a pair of shoulders, then the whole of a person. It’s a boy carrying a fishing pole and a stringer of fish. And laughing!
    â€œWell, you’re little, that’s certain,” says he, “but if you’re a goat girl, then where are your goats?”
    â€œI’ve left them at the farm of the man who owns them,” I say.
    â€œIs that the man with the hump?”
    â€œThat’s the one. He hasn’t come by this way, I suppose?”
    â€œNay,” says the boy. “But let’s ask my ma, for not much gets past her!”
    We follow the boy along the well-worn trail, as sheep run ahead of us, their bells clanging in the rosy twilight. After abit, we come into a farmyard where the lad’s ma is out pitching scraps to a litter of piglets. The boy introduces us as Little Girl, Littler Girl, and Littlest Girl, and his ma trundles off to the house with the stringer of fish.
    Later, as we scrape our bread around on the plates, sopping up every bit of juice, the farmwife asks, “How do such wee lasses come here all by themselves, I wonder?” She chucks Greta on the chin.
    â€œWell, our ma died,” I explain, “and so my sister and I had to go live with our mean aunt.”
    â€œThat was poor luck,” says she.
    â€œNot such terrible luck, for our pa went to America to get rich so he could send money for us to join him,” I tell them.
    â€œOh, that is fine luck, then!” says the boy.
    â€œBut in the meantime, my mean aunt sold me to an even meaner master,” I say.
    â€œOh, that was terrible bad luck!” says the farmwife.
    â€œNot
so
terrible, for the mean old man had a troll treasure laid up in his house,” I tell her.
    â€œTreasure!” the boy exclaims. “Is that so, then?”
    â€œIt’s so, indeed, for I laid hands on it and ran away and fetched my sister, and now we’re setting off for America to find our papa.”
    â€œThat’s fine luck, then!” the boy chimes in.
    â€œNot such good luck, after all,” I say, “for the old man caught up with us and got the treasure back!”
    At this, the farmwife and her son exhale sighs of deepest disappointment, while I wonder where he’s gotten to, old Mr. Svaalberd.
    The farmwife takes away our plates. “You lasses sleep here,” she says, “as it is getting late. My hens are laying, so there’ll be fresh eggs for breakfast, so don’t be in too much of a hurry to rush off, neither. We won’t send you away with empty stomachs!”
    She then clamps eyes on Spinning Girl, who’s fallen asleep in a chair. “That one looks plumb worn out, poor thing,” she says, then whispers, “Is there something a wee bit wrong with her?”
    I shrug. “She doesn’t say much, so it’s hard to know if anything is wrong with her or not,” I say. “When it comes to spinning,