While he sits there on the mountain
he is master and can have all the milk he wants. A king couldn't have
anything better."
Elsbeth was a little frightened by the offer. If Toni had been more with
the farm men, and had been with cows, or if he had naturally a different
disposition, wilder and more roving and commanding-but as he was so quiet
and shy, and besides without any knowledge of such things, to be for the
first time all alone for several months, away from home, up on the
mountains, watching a herd of cows, this seemed to her too hard for Toni.
What would the poor boy, who was not particularly strong, do if anything
happened to him or to the herd? She expressed all her thoughts to the
farmer, but it made no difference; he thought it would be good for the boy
to get out for once, and up on the mountain he would be much stronger than
at home, and nothing could happen to him, for he would be given a horn and
if anything went wrong he could blow lustily, and immediately the farm man
would come from the other mountain; in a half hour he would be there.
Elsbeth finally thought the farmer understood it much better than she, and
so it was decided that the next week, when the cows went up to the
mountain pasture, Toni should go with them.
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