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15. Whither I went, how long I there remained:

Thus for three years I had herded my flock, it increased continually until it numbered over a hundred head, and I grew more and more fond of them and they of me. In autumn and spring we would climb to the hillsides nearest at hand, often as far as two hours' journey. In summer, however, I was not allowed to herd anywhere but in the Kohlwald, a wilderness more than an hour's journey distant, where no large numbers of cattle can graze. We made our way to the Aueralp, which belonged to the monastery of St. Mary, it was covered with forest, with here and there clearings made by charcoal-burners, or thickets, with many a dark ravine and steep crag, but there the best goat-pasture was to be found. From Dreyschlatt I had an hour's journey every morning before I might let any beast take so much as a mouthful, first through our cattle-pasture, then through a large wood, on and on by meandering paths through this and that part of the district, and to each part I gave a name. Here were the near levels, there the two crags, here the clearing, there the Cauldron, the Plate and the Kettle. Every day I herded the flock in a different place, to find the sunshine or the shade. At midday I ate my piece of bread and anything else that mother had secretly put with it. And I had a goat of my own, whose milk I sucked. [...]

6. The delights of the herdboy's life:

How pleasant it was to travel over the hills on fine summer days, to roam through shady woods, chasing butterflies through the bushes and taking birds' nests! Every noontide we encamped beside a stream, there the goats rested for two or three hours, or if the weather was hot, longer still. I ate my midday meal of bread, sucked milk from my own goat, bathed in the mirror-clear water and played with the young goats. I always had a knife or a small axe with me, and felled young saplings of fir, willow or elm. Then my goats would gather in troops and tear off the leaves. When I called to them: come and eat, they would break into a gallop and I would be hemmed in by them. Every kind of leaf or plant that they ate, I tasted for myself, and some of them were very good. During the whole summer the strawberries, raspberries, bilberries and blackberries flourished, I always had my fill of them and yet could still take more than enough home to mother in the evening. It was a fine feast, though one day I overate and got a surfeit.

What more pleasure could I want with each day, with each new morning, when the sun was gilding the hills towards which I climbed with my herd, then shining on every beech-covered slope, and lastly on the meadows and clearings. I think of this a thousand times and often it seems to me that nowadays the sun does not shine so brightly. Then, when all the bushes beside my path resounded with the jubilant song of the birds, and they came hopping around me - O, how happy I was! Ah then, what can I say? I felt nothing but sweet, sweet delight! I sang and warbled with them until I was hoarse. At other times I would track these gay denizens of the forest through the bushes, feasting my eyes on their beautiful plumage and wishing that they were only half as tame as my goats, peeping at their young ones and their eggs, and marvelling at the wonderful construction of their nests.

My goats brought me almost as much pleasure. I had some of every colour, large and small, shorthaired and longhaired, ill-natured and good-natured. Two or three times a day I called them together and counted them, to see if any were missing. I had accustomed them to come bounding out of the bushes at my call of "Come on, eat! eat!" Some of them were particularly fond of me and throughout the whole day stayed within a musket-shot of me, and if I hid from them they would all begin to cry out. From my Duglöörle - so I had named my "dinner-goat" - I could hide myself only by great cunning. She was my very own. Whenever I sat or laid myself down she would come and stand over me all ready for suckling or milking, and yet in the height of summer I often had to lead her home still full. At other times I would milk her for a charcoal-burner, with whom I spent many a pleasant hour, when he was sawing wood or tending his furnace.

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