He was separated from everything now; he could no longer play
with other boys, he could not take charge of the farm after his parents
were gone; and certainly no girl would think of marrying _him_.

He sat and looked at his home. It was a little log house, which lay as
if it had been crushed down to earth, under the high, sloping roof. The
outhouses were also small; and the patches of ground were so narrow that
a horse could barely turn around on them. But little and poor though the
place was, it was much too good for him _now_. He couldn't ask for any
better place than a hole under the stable floor.

It was wondrously beautiful weather! It budded, and it rippled, and it
murmured, and it twittered--all around him. But he sat there with such a
heavy sorrow. He should never be happy any more about anything.

Never had he seen the skies as blue as they were to-day. Birds of
passage came on their travels. They came from foreign lands, and had
travelled over the East sea, by way of Smygahuk, and were now on their
way North. They were of many different kinds; but he was only familiar
with the wild geese, who came flying in two long rows, which met at an
angle.

Several flocks of wild geese had already flown by. They flew very high,
still he could hear how they shrieked: "To the hills! Now we're off to
the hills!"

When the wild geese saw the tame geese, who walked about the farm, they
sank nearer the earth, and called: "Come along! Come along! We're off to
the hills!"

The tame geese could not resist the temptation to raise their heads and
listen, but they answered very sensibly: "We're pretty well off where we
are. We're pretty well off where we are."

It was, as we have said, an uncommonly fine day, with an atmosphere that
it must have been a real delight to fly in, so light and bracing. And
with each new wild geese-flock that flew by, the tame geese became more
and more unruly. A couple of times they flapped their wings, as if they
had half a mind to fly along. But then an old mother-goose would always
say to them: "Now don't be silly. Those creatures will have to suffer
both hunger and cold."

There was a young gander whom the wild geese had fired with a passion
for adventure. "If another flock comes this way, I'll follow them," said
he.

Then there came a new flock, who shrieked like the others, and the young
gander answered: "Wait a minute! Wait a minute! I'm coming."

He spread his wings and raised himself