ack again
to the eastern shore. He walked with heavy steps, and was fearfully
blue. He didn't know what would become of him if he couldn't find the
goosey-gander. There was no one whom he could spare less.

But when he wandered over the sheep meadow, what was that big, white
thing that came toward him in the mist if it wasn't the goosey-gander?
He was all right, and very glad that, at last, he had been able to find
his way back to the others. The mist had made him so dizzy, he said,
that he had wandered around on the big meadow all day long. The boy
threw his arms around his neck, for very joy, and begged him to take
care of himself, and not wander away from the others. And he promised,
positively, that he never would do this again. No, never again.

But the next morning, when the boy went down to the beach and hunted for
mussels, the geese came running and asked if he had seen the
goosey-gander. No, of course he hadn't. "Well, then the goosey-gander
was lost again. He had gone astray in the mist, just as he had done the
day before."

The boy ran off in great terror and began to search. He found one place
where the Ottenby wall was so tumble-down that he could climb over it.
Later, he went about, first on the shore which gradually widened and
became so large that there was room for fields and meadows and
farms--then up on the flat highland, which lay in the middle of the
island, and where there were no buildings except windmills, and where
the turf was so thin that the white cement shone under it.

Meanwhile, he could not find the goosey-gander; and as it drew on toward
evening, and the boy must return to the beach, he couldn't believe
anything but that his travelling companion was lost. He was so
depressed, he did not know what to do with himself.

He had just climbed over the wall again when he heard a stone crash down
close beside him. As he turned to see what it was, he thought that he
could distinguish something that moved on a stone pile which lay close
to the wall. He stole nearer, and saw the goosey-gander come trudging
wearily over the stone pile, with several long fibres in his mouth. The
goosey-gander didn't see the boy, and the boy did not call to him, but
thought it advisable to find out first why the goosey-gander time and
again disappeared in this manner.

And he soon learned the reason for it. Up in the stone pile lay a young
gray goose, who cried with joy when the goosey-gander came. The boy
crep