being upset, for the road they followed was a
narrow, stony forest path.

It may have been the custom for all the peasants in Haelsingland to send
their cattle into the forests on the same day--or perhaps it only
happened so that year; at any rate the boy saw how processions of happy
people and cattle wandered out from every valley and every farm and
rushed into the lonely forest, filling it with life. From the depths of
the dense woods the boy heard the shepherd maidens' songs and the tinkle
of the cow bells. Many of the processions had long and difficult roads
to travel; and the boy saw how they tramped through marshes, how they
had to take roundabout ways to get past windfalls, and how, time and
again, the carts bumped against stones and turned over with all their
contents. But the people met all the obstacles with jokes and laughter.

In the afternoon they came to a cleared space where cattle sheds and a
couple of rude cabins had been built. The cows mooed with delight as
they tramped on the luscious green grass in the yards between the
cabins, and at once began grazing. The peasants, with merry chatter and
banter, carried water and wood and all that had been brought in the
carts into the larger cabin. Presently smoke rose from the chimney and
then the dairymaids, the shepherd boy, and the men squatted upon a flat
rock and ate their supper.

Gorgo, the eagle, was certain that he should find Clement Larsson among
those who were off for the forest. Whenever he saw a stock farm
procession, he sank down and scrutinized it with his sharp eyes; but
hour after hour passed without his finding the one he sought.

After much circling around, toward evening they came to a stony and
desolate tract east of the great main valley. There the boy saw another
outlying stock farm under him. The people and the cattle had arrived.
The men were splitting wood, and the dairymaids were milking the cows.

"Look there!" said Gorgo. "I think we've got him."

He sank, and, to his great astonishment, the boy saw that the eagle was
right. There indeed stood little Clement Larsson chopping wood.

Gorgo alighted on a pine tree in the thick woods a little away from the
house.

"I have fulfilled my obligation," said the eagle, with a proud toss of
his head. "Now you must try and have a word with the man. I'll perch
here at the top of the thick pine and wait for you."

THE ANIMALS' NEW YEAR'S EVE

The day's work was done at the forest ran