Chapter 4: Up in the Cloud-Land

Ellen walked on toward the forest, followed by the white gander and the goat. She wondered what she could do with the goat. She could not take it with her, and if she turned it loose it would go and worry some other animals, she was sure.

Over toward the right at the very edge of the wood was a house. Ellen thought perhaps the people who lived there would take care of the goat, so she went over toward it.

When she reached the house, she found it was a very comfortable one with a porch covered with vines, and a stable and out-buildings at the back.

On the porch sat a gray-haired woman dressed in silk. She was looking up toward the quiet sky and listening to music that sounded from within the house. Ellen had never heard such beautiful music in all her life. As long as it sounded she could do nothing but stand and listen. Through the open window the little girl could see the top of a golden harp. She supposed some one must be playing on it, but she had never known before that any one in the world could play as beautifully as that.

When the music stopped the woman on the porch stirred and sighed. Then she lowered her eyes and her gaze fell upon Ellen. She rose and came to the edge of the porch. “Good-morning, child,” she said. “Did you want to see me?”

“Yes,” said Ellen. “I wanted to know whether you didn’t want a goat.”

“Why, no,” answered the woman with some surprise, “I don’t. We have all the animals about the place that we want.”

“I wish you would take this one,” urged Ellen. “I don’t know what to do with it.”

“How do you come to be leading it about the country? Is it your goat?”

“Not exactly.” She began to tell the woman all her story of how she had followed the little pig to the village; of how she had found the animals were being worried by the goat, and of how she had made it come away with her. It all sounded so strange, Ellen was half afraid the woman would not believe it. She did not seem to think it surprising, however; but when Ellen had ended she shook her head. “No,” she said; “we wouldn’t want such a mischievous animal about, I’m sure; but I’ll ask my son.” Then she called, “Jack, Jack!”

In answer a tall, stout lad came to the door. “What is it, mother?” he asked.

“Here’s a child who has a goat, and she says this, that, and the other” (and the woman repeated Ellen’s story). “Now the end of the matter is, she wants to leave the goat here with us.”

“I don’t see how we can—” began the lad slowly, when suddenly he stopped and listened intently with a strange, scared look on his face.

His mother caught him by the arm. “What is it, Jack?” she cried. “What are you listening to? It isn’t—”

Jack nodded without answering.

And now all listened, and Ellen knew that a sound she had heard some minutes before, without particularly noticing it, was the voice of some one weeping and complaining. The voice was very faint and far off, but in the silence the little girl could make out the words, “I can’t get down! I can’t get down! Woe is me, but it’s lonely up here.” Ellen could not tell where the voice came from, but it seemed to come from the sky. There was silence for a moment and then it began again lamenting and weeping.