"So do we," cried all the other pigs. "Then we'd be happy. He's just an ugly old baldhead, anyway."
"His master shaved him," said Ringling, "he was so bad."
"Well, his master had three sons, and he sent them one at a time to take the goat out to pasture. Every time before the boy brought the goat home he would ask, 'Goat, have you had enough?' And the goat would answer:
"'_I am satisfied quite; No more can I bite._'
Then the boy would bring him home and put him in the stable. But the father always wanted to be sure his goat had had enough, so he would go out himself and say, 'Goat have you had enough to-day?' Then it would answer:
"'_I only jumped about the fields, And never found a bite._'
It made the father so angry to think his sons should have treated the goat that way that he drove them away from home."
"I know," Ellen interrupted. "Then when the father found out that the goat had deceived him and made him send his sons away--"
"He shaved the goat's head and drove it away with a yard-stick," cried Middling, raising his voice. He wanted to tell the story himself. "Then it hid in a bear's cave--"
"And the bear was afraid to go home, for he could just see the goat's eyes shining in the cave and he didn't know what it was, and he was afraid to go in; but a bee said it would see, so it went in and stung the goat on the head and then the goat jumped out of the cave and ran till it came here, and I do wish somebody would take it away."
"I would," said Ellen, "if I knew where to take it." She was not afraid of the goat, for she had a pet one at home that drew a little wagon.
Littlesie, who had finished his roast beef and had come to the door, looked frightened. "You couldn't," he cried. "Why Baldhead would butt you right over if you tried to touch him."
"Mistress," said the white gander, "I know how you could make the goat go away."
Then the gander told his plan, while Ellen and all the five pigs listened.
"Good, good," cried the pigs when they had heard it, and they clapped their hoofs and leaped up into the air.
Ellen, too, thought it a good plan and said she would do everything as the gander told her.
The pigs showed her where the goat lived, and then they ran back home, for the gander said it would be better for Ellen and him to go to see the goat by themselves.