he had been able to eat a raw thing. "It's evident that I'm not a human
being any longer, but a real elf," thought he.

While the boy ate, the goosey-gander stood silently beside him. But when
he had swallowed the last bite, he said in a low voice: "It's a fact
that we have run across a stuck-up goose folk who despise all tame
birds."

"Yes, I've observed that," said the boy.

"What a triumph it would be for me if I could follow them clear up to
Lapland, and show them that even a tame goose can do things!"

"Y-e-e-s," said the boy, and drawled it out because he didn't believe
the goosey-gander could ever do it; yet he didn't wish to contradict
him. "But I don't think I can get along all alone on such a journey,"
said the goosey-gander. "I'd like to ask if you couldn't come along and
help me?" The boy, of course, hadn't expected anything but to return to
his home as soon as possible, and he was so surprised that he hardly
knew what he should reply. "I thought that we were enemies, you and I,"
said he. But this the goosey-gander seemed to have forgotten entirely.
He only remembered that the boy had but just saved his life.

"I suppose I really ought to go home to father and mother," said the
boy. "Oh! I'll get you back to them some time in the fall," said the
goosey-gander. "I shall not leave you until I put you down on your own
doorstep."

The boy thought it might be just as well for him if he escaped showing
himself before his parents for a while. He was not disinclined to favour
the scheme, and was just on the point of saying that he agreed to
it--when they heard a loud rumbling behind them. It was the wild geese
who had come up from the lake--all at one time--and stood shaking the
water from their backs. After that they arranged themselves in a long
row--with the leader-goose in the centre--and came toward them.

As the white goosey-gander sized up the wild geese, he felt ill at ease.
He had expected that they should be more like tame geese, and that he
should feel a closer kinship with them. They were much smaller than he,
and none of them were white. They were all gray with a sprinkling of
brown. He was almost afraid of their eyes. They were yellow, and shone
as if a fire had been kindled back of them. The goosey-gander had always
been taught that it was most fitting to move slowly and with a rolling
motion, but these creatures did not walk--they half ran. He grew most
alarmed, however, when he looked at the