The justness of expression, the sincerity, is especially impressive when Oeyvind’s Mother came out and sat down by his side when the goat no longer satisfied him and he wanted to hear stories of what was far away.  There is emotional harmony too, because the words suggest the free freshness of the mountain air and the landscape which rose round about the Boy and his Mother.

So she told him how once everything could talk:  “The mountain talked to the stream, and the stream to the river, the river to the sea, and the sea to the sky.”—­But then he asked if the sky did not talk to any one:  “And the sky talked to the clouds, the clouds to the trees, the trees to the grass, the grass to the flies, the flies to the animals, the animals to the children, the children to the grown-up people....”  Oeyvind looked at the mountain, the trees, and the sky and had never seen them before.

There is delicacy or emotional harmony also in the Mother’s song.  When Oeyvind asked, “What does the Cat say?” his Mother sang:—­

At evening softly shines the sun.  The cat lies lazy on the stone.  Two small mice, Cream, thick and nice, Four bits of fish, 1 stole behind a dish, And am so lazy and tired, Because so well I have fared.

The unity is maintained through the central interest of the two Children and the goat.

The tale is characterized by fairly good mass.  As the story aims to portray a natural picture of child life, obviously it could not maintain a style of too great solidity and force, but rather would seek one of ease and naturalness.  Mass, as shown in Oeyvind and Marit, appears in the following description of Oeyvind’s play with the goat, after he first realized its return:—­

He jumped up, took it by the two fore-legs, and danced with it as if it were a brother; he pulled its beard, and he was just going in to his mother with it, when he heard someone behind him; and looking, saw the girl sitting on the greensward by his side.  Now he understood it all, and let go the goat.

The story of child-friendship is told in distinct little episodes which naturally connect.  That unmistakable relation of the parts which is essential to coherence, appears in the following outline of the story:—­

     1.  A new acquaintance; Oeyvind and Marit meet.  The exchange of a
        goat for a cake.  The departure of the goat.  Marit sings to the
        goat.  The return of the goat.  Marit accompanies the goat.

     2.  New interests.  The stories of what the animals say, told to
        Oeyvind by his Mother.  The first day of school.

     3.  An old acquaintance renewed:  Oeyvind again meets Marit at
        School.

The Children’s love of the goat, the comradeship of Oeyvind and Marit, of Oeyvind and his Mother, and of Marit and her Grandfather, are elements which assist in producing coherence.  The songs of Marit, and the songs and stories of Oeyvind’s Mother, especially preserve the relation of parts.  In the following paragraphs, which give distinct pictures, note the coherence secured internally largely by the succession of verbs denoting action and also by the denotation of the words.