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diff --git a/old/1867-h.htm.2005-04-11 b/old/1867-h.htm.2005-04-11 new file mode 100644 index 0000000..39817d4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1867-h.htm.2005-04-11 @@ -0,0 +1,2129 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Diary of a Goose Girl</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">The Diary of a Goose Girl, by Kate Douglas Wiggin</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Diary of a Goose Girl, by Kate Douglas +Wiggin + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + + + + + +Title: The Diary of a Goose Girl + + +Author: Kate Douglas Wiggin + +Release Date: April 11, 2005 [eBook #1867] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DIARY OF A GOOSE GIRL*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1902 Gay and Bird edition by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<h1>THE DIARY OF A GOOSE GIRL</h1> +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> +<p>THORNYCROFT FARM, near Barbury Green, July 1, 190-.</p> +<p>In alluding to myself as a Goose Girl, I am using only the most modest +of my titles; for I am also a poultry-maid, a tender of Belgian hares +and rabbits, and a shepherdess; but I particularly fancy the rôle +of Goose Girl, because it recalls the German fairy tales of my early +youth, when I always yearned, but never hoped, to be precisely what +I now am.</p> +<p>As I was jolting along these charming Sussex roads the other day, +a fat buff pony and a tippy cart being my manner of progression, I chanced +upon the village of Barbury Green.</p> +<p>One glance was enough for any woman, who, having eyes to see, could +see with them; but I made assurance doubly sure by driving about a little, +struggling to conceal my new-born passion from the stable-boy who was +my escort. Then, it being high noon of a cloudless day, I descended +from the trap and said to the astonished yokel: “You may go back +to the Hydropathic; I am spending a month or two here. Wait a +moment—I’ll send a message, please!”</p> +<p>I then scribbled a word or two to those having me in custody.</p> +<p>“I am very tired of people,” the note ran, “and +want to rest myself by living a while with things. Address me +(if you must) at Barbury Green post-office, or at all events send me +a box of simple clothing there—nothing but shirts and skirts, +please. I cannot forget that I am only twenty miles from Oxenbridge +(though it might be one hundred and twenty, which is the reason I adore +it), but I rely upon you to keep an honourable distance yourselves, +and not to divulge my place of retreat to others, especially to—you +know whom! Do not pursue me. I will never be taken alive!”</p> +<p>Having cut, thus, the cable that bound me to civilisation, and having +seen the buff pony and the dazed yokel disappear in a cloud of dust, +I looked about me with what Stevenson calls a “fine, dizzy, muddle-headed +joy,” the joy of a successful rebel or a liberated serf. +Plenty of money in my purse—that was unromantic, of course, but +it simplified matters—and nine hours of daylight remaining in +which to find a lodging.</p> +<p>The village is one of the oldest, and I am sure it must be one of +the quaintest, in England. It is too small to be printed on the +map (an honour that has spoiled more than one Arcadia), so pray do not +look there, but just believe in it, and some day you may be rewarded +by driving into it by chance, as I did, and feel the same Columbus thrill +running, like an electric current, through your veins. I withhold +specific geographical information in order that you may not miss that +Columbus thrill, which comes too seldom in a world of railroads.</p> +<p>The Green is in the very centre of Barbury village, and all civic, +political, family, and social life converges there, just at the public +duck-pond—a wee, sleepy lake with a slope of grass-covered stones +by which the ducks descend for their swim.</p> +<p>The houses are set about the Green like those in a toy village. +They are of old brick, with crumpled, up-and-down roofs of deep-toned +red, and tufts of stonecrop growing from the eaves. Diamond-paned +windows, half open, admit the sweet summer air; and as for the gardens +in front, it would seem as if the inhabitants had nothing to do but +work in them, there is such a riotous profusion of colour and bloom. +To add to the effect, there are always pots of flowers hanging from +the trees, blue flax and yellow myrtle; and cages of Java sparrows and +canaries singing joyously, as well they may in such a paradise.</p> +<p>The shops are idyllic, too, as if Nature had seized even the man +of trade and made him subservient to her designs. The general +draper’s, where I fitted myself out for a day or two quite easily, +is set back in a tangle of poppies and sweet peas, Madonna lilies and +Canterbury bells. The shop itself has a gay awning, and what do +you think the draper has suspended from it, just as a picturesque suggestion +to the passer-by? Suggestion I call it, because I should blush +to use the word advertisement in describing anything so dainty and decorative. +Well, then, garlands of shoes, if you please! Baby bootlets of +bronze; tiny ankle-ties in yellow, blue, and scarlet kid; glossy patent-leather +pumps shining in the sun, with festoons of slippers at the corners, +flowery slippers in imitation Berlin wool-work. If you make this +picture in your mind’s-eye, just add a window above the awning, +and over the fringe of marigolds in the window-box put the draper’s +wife dancing a rosy-cheeked baby. Alas! my words are only black +and white, I fear, and this picture needs a palette drenched in primary +colours.</p> +<p>Along the street, a short distance, is the old watchmaker’s. +Set in the hedge at the gate is a glass case with <i>Multum in Parvo</i> +painted on the woodwork. Within, a little stand of trinkets revolves +slowly; as slowly, I imagine, as the current of business in that quiet +street. The house stands a trifle back and is covered thickly +with ivy, while over the entrance-door of the shop is a great round +clock set in a green frame of clustering vine. The hands pointed +to one when I passed the watchmaker’s garden with its thicket +of fragrant lavender and its murmuring bees; so I went in to the sign +of the “Strong i’ the Arm” for some cold luncheon, +determining to patronise “The Running Footman” at the very +next opportunity. Neither of these inns is starred by Baedeker, +and this fact adds the last touch of enchantment to the picture.</p> +<p>The landlady at the “Strong i’ the Arm” stabbed +me in the heart by telling me that there were no apartments to let in +the village, and that she had no private sitting-room in the inn; but +she speedily healed the wound by saying that I might be accommodated +at one of the farm-houses in the vicinity. Did I object to a farm-’ouse? +Then she could cheerfully recommend the Evan’s farm, only ’alf +a mile away. She ’ad understood from Miss Phoebe Evan, who +sold her poultry, that they would take one lady lodger if she didn’t +wish much waiting upon.</p> +<p>In my present mood I was in search of the strenuous life, and eager +to wait, rather than to be waited upon; so I walked along the edge of +the Green, wishing that some mentally unbalanced householder would take +a sudden fancy to me and ask me to come in and lodge awhile. I +suppose these families live under their roofs of peach-blow tiles, in +the midst of their blooming gardens, for a guinea a week or thereabouts; +yet if they “undertook” me (to use their own phrase), the +bill for my humble meals and bed would be at least double that. +I don’t know that I blame them; one should have proper compensation +for admitting a world-stained lodger into such an Eden.</p> +<p>When I was searching for rooms a week ago, I chanced upon a pretty +cottage where the woman had sometimes let apartments. She showed +me the premises and asked me if I would mind taking my meals in her +own dining-room, where I could be served privately at certain hours: +and, since she had but the one sitting-room, would I allow her to go +on using it occasionally? also, if I had no special preference, would +I take the second-sized bedroom and leave her in possession of the largest +one, which permitted her to have the baby’s crib by her bedside? +She thought I should be quite as comfortable, and it was her opinion +that in making arrangements with lodgers, it was a good plan not to +“bryke up the ’ome any more than was necessary.”</p> +<p>“Bryke up the ’ome!” That is seemingly the +malignant purpose with which I entered Barbury Green.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> +<p>July 4th.</p> +<p>Enter the family of Thornycroft Farm, of which I am already a member +in good and regular standing.</p> +<p>I introduce Mrs. Heaven first, for she is a self-saturated person +who would never forgive the insult should she receive any lower place.</p> +<p>She welcomed me with the statement: “We do not take lodgers +here, nor boarders; no lodgers, nor boarders, but we do occasionally +admit paying guests, those who look as if they would appreciate the +quietude of the plyce and be willing as you might say to remunerate +according.”</p> +<p>I did not mind at this particular juncture what I was called, so +long as the epithet was comparatively unobjectionable, so I am a paying +guest, therefore, and I expect to pay handsomely for the handsome appellation. +Mrs. Heaven is short and fat; she fills her dress as a pin-cushion fills +its cover; she wears a cap and apron, and she is so full of platitudes +that she would have burst had I not appeared as a providential outlet +for them. Her accent is not of the farm, but of the town, and +smacks wholly of the marts of trade. She is repetitious, too, +as well as platitudinous. “I ’ope if there’s +anythink you require you will let us know, let us know,” she says +several times each day; and whenever she enters my sitting-room she +prefaces her conversation with the remark: “I trust you are finding +it quiet here, miss? It’s the quietude of the plyce that +is its charm, yes, the quietude. And yet” (she dribbles +on) “it wears on a body after a while, miss. I often go +into Woodmucket to visit one of my sons just for the noise, simply for +the noise, miss, for nothink else in the world but the noise. +There’s nothink like noise for soothing nerves that is worn threadbare +with the quietude, miss, or at least that’s my experience; and +yet to a strynger the quietude of the plyce is its charm, undoubtedly +its chief charm; and that is what our paying guests always say, although +our charges are somewhat higher than other plyces. If there’s +anythink you require, miss, I ’ope you’ll mention it. +There is not a commodious assortment in Barbury Green, but we can always +send the pony to Woodmucket in case of urgency. Our paying guest +last summer was a Mrs. Pollock, and she was by way of having sudden +fancies. Young and unmarried though you are, miss, I think you +will tyke my meaning without my speaking plyner? Well, at six +o’clock of a rainy afternoon, she was seized with an unaccountable +desire for vegetable marrows, and Mr. ’Eaven put the pony in the +cart and went to Woodmucket for them, which is a great advantage to +be so near a town and yet ’ave the quietude.”</p> +<p>Mr. Heaven is merged, like Mr. Jellyby, in the more shining qualities +of his wife. A line of description is too long for him. +Indeed, I can think of no single word brief enough, at least in English. +The Latin “nil” will do, since no language is rich in words +of less than three letters. He is nice, kind, bald, timid, thin, +and so colourless that he can scarcely be discerned save in a strong +light. When Mrs. Heaven goes out into the orchard in search of +him, I can hardly help calling from my window, “Bear a trifle +to the right, Mrs. Heaven—now to the left—just in front +of you now—if you put out your hands you will touch him.”</p> +<p>Phoebe, aged seventeen, is the daughter of the house. She is +virtuous, industrious, conscientious, and singularly destitute of physical +charm. She is more than plain; she looks as if she had been planned +without any definite purpose in view, made of the wrong materials, been +badly put together, and never properly finished off; but “plain” +after all is a relative word. Many a plain girl has been married +for her beauty; and now and then a beauty, falling under a cold eye, +has been thought plain.</p> +<p>Phoebe has her compensations, for she is beloved by, and reciprocates +the passion of, the Woodmancote carrier, Woodmucket being the English +manner of pronouncing the place of his abode. If he “carries” +as energetically for the great public as he fetches for Phoebe, then +he must be a rising and a prosperous man. He brings her daily, +wild strawberries, cherries, birds’ nests, peacock feathers, sea-shells, +green hazel-nuts, samples of hens’ food, or bouquets of wilted +field flowers tied together tightly and held with a large, moist, loving +hand. He has fine curly hair of sandy hue, which forms an aureole +on his brow, and a reddish beard, which makes another inverted aureole +to match, round his chin. One cannot look at him, especially when +the sun shines through him, without thinking how lovely he would be +if stuffed and set on wheels, with a little string to drag him about.</p> +<p>Phoebe confided to me that she was on the eve of loving the postman +when the carrier came across her horizon.</p> +<p>“It doesn’t do to be too hysty, does it, miss?” +she asked me as we were weeding the onion bed. “I was to +give the postman his answer on the Monday night, and it was on the Monday +morning that Mr. Gladwish made his first trip here as carrier. +I may say I never wyvered from that moment, and no more did he. +When I think how near I came to promising the postman it gives me a +turn.” (I can understand that, for I once met the man I +nearly promised years before to marry, and we both experienced such +a sense of relief at being free instead of bound that we came near falling +in love for sheer joy.)</p> +<p>The last and most important member of the household is the Square +Baby. His name is Albert Edward, and he is really five years old +and no baby at all; but his appearance on this planet was in the nature +of a complete surprise to all parties concerned, and he is spoiled accordingly. +He has a square head and jaw, square shoulders, square hands and feet. +He is red and white and solid and stolid and slow-witted, as the young +of his class commonly are, and will make a bulwark of the nation in +course of time, I should think; for England has to produce a few thousand +such square babies every year for use in the colonies and in the standing +army. Albert Edward has already a military gait, and when he has +acquired a habit of obedience at all comparable with his power of command, +he will be able to take up the white man’s burden with distinguished +success. Meantime I can never look at him without marvelling how +the English climate can transmute bacon and eggs, tea and the solid +household loaf into such radiant roses and lilies as bloom upon his +cheeks and lips.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> +<p>July 8th.</p> +<p>Thornycroft is by way of being a small poultry farm.</p> +<p>In reaching it from Barbury Green, you take the first left-hand road, +go till you drop, and there you are.</p> +<p>It reminds me of my “grandmother’s farm at Older.” +Did you know the song when you were a child?—</p> +<blockquote><p>My grandmother had a very fine farm<br /> +‘Way down in the fields of Older.<br /> +With a cluck-cluck here,<br /> +And a cluck-cluck there,<br /> +Here and there a cluck-cluck,<br /> +Cluck-cluck here and there,<br /> +Down in the fields at Older.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It goes on for ever by the simple subterfuge of changing a few words +in each verse.</p> +<blockquote><p>My grandmother had a very fine farm<br /> +‘Way down in the fields of Older.<br /> +With a quack-quack here,<br /> +And a quack-quack there,<br /> +Here and there a quack-quack,<br /> +Quack-quack here and there,<br /> +Down in the fields at Older.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This is followed by the gobble-gobble, moo-moo, baa-baa, etc., as +long as the laureate’s imagination and the infant’s breath +hold good. The tune is pretty, and I do not know, or did not, +when I was young, a more fascinating lyric.</p> +<p>Thornycroft House must have belonged to a country gentleman once +upon a time, or to more than one; men who built on a bit here and there +once in a hundred years, until finally we have this charmingly irregular +and dilapidated whole. You go up three steps into Mrs. Heaven’s +room, down two into mine, while Phoebe’s is up in a sort of turret +with long, narrow lattices opening into the creepers. There are +crooked little stair-cases, passages that branch off into other passages +and lead nowhere in particular; I can’t think of a better house +in which to play hide and seek on a wet day. In front, what was +once, doubtless, a green, is cut up into greens; to wit, a vegetable +garden, where the onions, turnips, and potatoes grow cosily up to the +very door-sill; the utilitarian aspect of it all being varied by some +scarlet-runners and a scattering of poppies on either side of the path.</p> +<p>The Belgian hares have their habitation in a corner fifty feet distant; +one large enclosure for poultry lies just outside the sweetbrier hedge; +the others, with all the houses and coops, are in the meadow at the +back, where also our tumbler pigeons are kept.</p> +<p>Phoebe attends to the poultry; it is her department. Mr. Heaven +has neither the force nor the <i>finesse</i> required, and the gentle +reader who thinks these qualities unneeded in so humble a calling has +only to spend a few days at Thornycroft to be convinced. Mrs. +Heaven would be of use, but she is dressing the Square Baby in the morning +and putting him to bed at night just at the hours when the feathered +young things are undergoing the same operation.</p> +<p>A Goose Girl, like a poet, is sometimes born, sometimes otherwise. +I am of the born variety. No training was necessary; I put my +head on my pillow as a complicated product of modern civilisation on +a Tuesday night, and on a Wednesday morning I awoke as a Goose Girl.</p> +<p>My destiny slumbered during the day, but at eight o’clock I +heard a terrific squawking in the direction of the duck-ponds, and, +aimlessly drifting in that direction, I came upon Phoebe trying to induce +ducks and drakes, geese and ganders, to retire for the night. +They have to be driven into enclosures behind fences of wire netting, +fastened into little rat-proof boxes, or shut into separate coops, so +as to be safe from their natural enemies, the rats and foxes; which, +obeying, I suppose, the law of supply and demand, abound in this neighbourhood. +The old ganders are allowed their liberty, being of such age, discretion, +sagacity, and pugnacity that they can be trusted to fight their own +battles.</p> +<p>The intelligence of hens, though modest, is of such an order that +it prompts them to go to bed at a virtuous hour of their own accord; +but ducks and geese have to be materially assisted, or I believe they +would roam till morning. Never did small boy detest and resist +being carried off to his nursery as these dullards, young and old, detest +and resist being driven to theirs. Whether they suffer from insomnia, +or nightmare, or whether they simply prefer the sweet air of liberty +(and death) to the odour of captivity and the coop, I have no means +of knowing.</p> +<p>Phoebe stood by one of the duck-ponds, a long pole in her hand, and +a helpless expression in that doughlike countenance of hers, where aimless +contours and features unite to make a kind of facial blur. (What +does the carrier see in it?) The pole was not long enough to reach +the ducks, and Phoebe’s method lacked spirit and adroitness, so +that it was natural, perhaps, that they refused to leave the water, +the evening being warm, with an uncommon fine sunset.</p> +<p>I saw the situation at once and ran to meet it with a glow of interest +and anticipation. If there is anything in the world I enjoy, it +is making somebody do something that he doesn’t want to do; and +if, when victory perches upon my banner, the somebody can be brought +to say that he ought to have done it without my making him, that adds +the unforgettable touch to pleasure, though seldom, alas! does it happen. +Then ensued the delightful and stimulating hour that has now become +a feature of the day; an hour in which the remembrance of the table-d’hôte +dinner at the Hydro, going on at identically the same time, only stirs +me to a keener joy and gratitude.</p> +<p>The ducks swim round in circles, hide under the willows, and attempt +to creep into the rat-holes in the banks, a stupidity so crass that +it merits instant death, which it somehow always escapes. Then +they come out in couples and waddle under the wrong fence into the lower +meadow, fly madly under the tool-house, pitch blindly in with the sitting +hens, and out again in short order, all the time quacking and squawking, +honking and hissing like a bewildered orchestra. By dint of splashing +the water with poles, throwing pebbles, beating the shrubs at the pond’s +edges, “shooing” frantically with our skirts, crawling beneath +bars to head them off, and prodding them from under bushes to urge them +on, we finally get the older ones out of the water and the younger ones +into some sort of relation to their various retreats; but, owing to +their lack of geography, hatred of home, and general recalcitrancy, +they none of them turn up in the right place and have to be sorted out. +We uncover the top of the little house, or the enclosure as it may be, +or reach in at the door, and, seizing the struggling victim, drag him +forth and take him where he should have had the wit to go in the first +instance. The weak ones get in with the strong and are in danger +of being trampled; two May goslings that look almost full-grown have +run into a house with a brood of ducklings a week old. There are +twenty-seven crowded into one coop, five in another, nineteen in another; +the gosling with one leg has to come out, and the duckling threatened +with the gapes; their place is with the “invaleeds,” as +Phoebe calls them, but they never learn the location of the hospital, +nor have the slightest scruple about spreading contagious diseases.</p> +<p>Finally, when we have separated and sorted exhaustively, an operation +in which Phoebe shows a delicacy of discrimination and a fearlessness +of attack amounting to genius, we count the entire number and find several +missing. Searching for their animate or inanimate bodies, we “scoop” +one from under the tool-house, chance upon two more who are being harried +and pecked by the big geese in the lower meadow, and discover one sailing +by himself in solitary splendour in the middle of the deserted pond, +a look of evil triumph in his bead-like eye. Still we lack one +young duckling, and he at length is found dead by the hedge. A +rat has evidently seized him and choked him at a single throttle, but +in such haste that he has not had time to carry away the tiny body.</p> +<p>“Poor think!” says Phoebe tearfully; “it looks +as if it was ’it with some kind of a wepping. I don’t +know whatever to do with the rats, they’re gettin’ that +fearocious!”</p> +<p>Before I was admitted into daily contact with the living goose (my +previous intercourse with him having been carried on when gravy and +stuffing obscured his true personality), I thought him a very Dreyfus +among fowls, a sorely slandered bird, to whom justice had never been +done; for even the gentle Darwin is hard upon him. My opinion +is undergoing some slight modifications, but I withhold judgment at +present, hoping that some of the follies, faults, vagaries, and limitations +that I observe in Phoebe’s geese may be due to Phoebe’s +educational methods, which were, before my advent, those of the darkest +ages.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<p>July 9th.</p> +<p>By the time the ducks and geese are incarcerated for the night, the +reasonable, sensible, practical-minded hens—especially those whose +mentality is increased and whose virtue is heightened by the responsibilities +of motherhood—have gone into their own particular rat-proof boxes, +where they are waiting in a semi-somnolent state to have the wire doors +closed, the bricks set against them, and the bits of sacking flung over +the tops to keep out the draught. We have a great many young families, +both ducklings and chicks, but we have no duck mothers at present. +The variety of bird which Phoebe seems to have bred during the past +year may be called the New Duck, with certain radical ideas about woman’s +sphere. What will happen to Thornycroft if we develop a New Hen +and a New Cow, my imagination fails to conceive. There does not +seem to be the slightest danger for the moment, however, and our hens +lay and sit and sit and lay as if laying and sitting were the twin purposes +of life.</p> +<p>The nature of the hen seems to broaden with the duties of maternity, +but I think myself that we presume a little upon her amiability and +natural motherliness. It is one thing to desire a family of one’s +own, to lay eggs with that idea in view, to sit upon them three long +weeks and hatch out and bring up a nice brood of chicks. It must +be quite another to have one’s eggs abstracted day by day and +eaten by a callous public, the nest filled with deceitful substitutes, +and at the end of a dull and weary period of hatching to bring into +the world another person’s children—children, too, of the +wrong size, the wrong kind of bills and feet, and, still more subtle +grievance, the wrong kind of instincts, leading them to a dangerous +aquatic career, one which the mother may not enter to guide, guard, +and teach; one on the brink of which she must ever stand, uttering dryshod +warnings which are never heeded. They grow used to this strange +order of things after a bit, it is true, and are less anxious and excited. +When the duck-brood returns safely again and again from what the hen-mother +thinks will prove a watery grave, she becomes accustomed to the situation, +I suppose. I find that at night she stands by the pond for what +she considers a decent, self-respecting length of time, calling the +ducklings out of the water; then, if they refuse to come, the mother +goes off to bed and leaves them to Providence, or Phoebe.</p> +<p>The brown hen that we have named Cornelia is the best mother, the +one who waits longest and most patiently for the web-footed Gracchi +to finish their swim.</p> +<p>When a chick is taken out of the incubytor (as Phoebe calls it) and +refused by all the other hens, Cornelia generally accepts it, though +she had twelve of her own when we began using her as an orphan asylum. +“Wings are made to stretch,” she seems to say cheerfully, +and with a kind glance of her round eye she welcomes the wanderer and +the outcast. She even tended for a time the offspring of an absent-minded, +light-headed pheasant who flew over a four-foot wall and left her young +behind her to starve; it was not a New Pheasant, either; for the most +conservative and old-fashioned of her tribe occasionally commits domestic +solecisms of this sort.</p> +<p>There is no telling when, where, or how the maternal instinct will +assert itself. Among our Thornycroft cats is a certain Mrs. Greyskin. +She had not been seen for many days, and Mrs. Heaven concluded that +she had hidden herself somewhere with a family of kittens; but as the +supply of that article with us more than equals the demand, we had not +searched for her with especial zeal.</p> +<p>The other day Mrs. Greyskin appeared at the dairy door, and when +she had been fed Phoebe and I followed her stealthily, from a distance. +She walked slowly about as if her mind were quite free from harassing +care, and finally approached a deserted cow-house where there was a +great mound of straw. At this moment she caught sight of us and +turned in another direction to throw us off the scent. We persevered +in our intention of going into her probable retreat, and were cautiously +looking for some sign of life in the haymow, when we heard a soft cackle +and a ruffling of plumage. Coming closer to the sound we saw a +black hen brooding a nest, her bright bead eyes turning nervously from +side to side; and, coaxed out from her protecting wings by youthful +curiosity, came four kittens, eyes wide open, warm, happy, ready for +sport!</p> +<p>The sight was irresistible, and Phoebe ran for Mr. and Mrs. Heaven +and the Square Baby. Mother Hen was not to be embarrassed or daunted, +even if her most sacred feelings were regarded in the light of a cheap +entertainment. She held her ground while one of the kits slid +up and down her glossy back, and two others, more timid, crept underneath +her breast, only daring to put out their pink noses! We retired +then for very shame and met Mrs. Greyskin in the doorway. This +should have thickened the plot, but there is apparently no rivalry nor +animosity between the co-mothers. We watch them every day now, +through a window in the roof. Mother Greyskin visits the kittens +frequently, lies down beside the home nest, and gives them their dinner. +While this is going on Mother Blackwing goes modestly away for a bite, +a sup, and a little exercise, returning to the kittens when the cat +leaves them. It is pretty to see her settle down over the four, +fat, furry dumplings, and they seem to know no difference in warmth +or comfort, whichever mother is brooding them; while, as their eyes +have been open for a week, it can no longer be called a blind error +on their part.</p> +<p>When we have closed all our small hen-nurseries for the night, there +is still the large house inhabited by the thirty-two full-grown chickens +which Phoebe calls the broilers. I cannot endure the term, and +will not use it. “Now for the April chicks,” I say +every evening.</p> +<p>“Do you mean the broilers?” asks Phoebe.</p> +<p>“I mean the big April chicks,” say I.</p> +<p>“Yes, them are the broilers,” says she.</p> +<p>But is it not disagreeable enough to be a broiler when one’s +time comes, without having the gridiron waved in one’s face for +weeks beforehand?</p> +<p>The April chicks are all lively and desirous of seeing the world +as thoroughly as possible before going to roost or broil. As a +general thing, we find in the large house sixteen young fowls of the +contemplative, flavourless, resigned-to-the-inevitable variety; three +more (the same three every night) perch on the roof and are driven down; +four (always the same four) cling to the edge of the open door, waiting +to fly off, but not in, when you attempt to close it; nine huddle together +on a place in the grass about forty feet distant, where a small coop +formerly stood in the prehistoric ages. This small coop was one +in which they lodged for a fortnight when they were younger, and when +those absolutely indelible impressions are formed of which we read in +educational maxims. It was taken away long since, but the nine +loyal (or stupid) Casabiancas cling to the sacred spot where its foundations +rested; they accordingly have to be caught and deposited bodily in the +house, and this requires strategy, as they note our approach from a +considerable distance.</p> +<p>Finally all are housed but two, the little white cock and the black +pullet, who are still impish and of a wandering mind. Though headed +off in every direction, they fly into the hedges and hide in the underbrush. +We beat the hedge on the other side, but with no avail. We dive +into the thicket of wild roses, sweetbrier, and thistles on our hands +and knees, coming out with tangled hair, scratched noses, and no hens. +Then, when all has been done that human ingenuity can suggest, Phoebe +goes to her late supper and I do sentry-work. I stroll to a safe +distance, and, sitting on one of the rat-proof boxes, watch the bushes +with an eagle eye. Five minutes go by, ten, fifteen; and then +out steps the white cock, stealthily tiptoeing toward the home into +which he refused to go at our instigation. In a moment out creeps +the obstinate little beast of a black pullet from the opposite clump. +The wayward pair meet at their own door, which I have left open a few +inches. When all is still I walk gently down the field, and, warned +by previous experiences, approach the house from behind. I draw +the door to softly and quickly; but not so quickly that the evil-minded +and suspicious black pullet hasn’t time to spring out, with a +make-believe squawk of fright—that induces three other blameless +chickens to fly down from their perches and set the whole flock in a +flutter. Then I fall from grace and call her a Broiler; and when, +after some minutes of hot pursuit, I catch her by falling over her in +the corner by the goose-pen, I address her as a fat, juicy Broiler with +parsley butter and a bit of bacon.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> +<p>July 10th.</p> +<p>At ten thirty or so in the morning the cackling begins. I wonder +exactly what it means! Have the forest-lovers who listen so respectfully +to, and interpret so exquisitely, the notes of birds—have none +of them made psychological investigations of the hen cackle? Can +it be simple elation? One could believe that of the first few +eggs, but a hen who has laid two or three hundred can hardly feel the +same exuberant pride and joy daily. Can it be the excitement incident +to successful achievement? Hardly, because the task is so extremely +simple. Eggs are more or less alike; a little larger or smaller, +a trifle whiter or browner; and almost sure to be quite right as to +details; that is, the big end never gets confused with the little end, +they are always ovoid and never spherical, and the yolk is always inside +of the white. As for a soft-shelled egg, it is so rare an occurrence +that the fear of laying one could not set the whole race of hens in +a panic; so there really cannot be any intellectual or emotional agitation +in producing a thing that might be made by a machine. Can it be +simply “fussiness”; since the people who have the least +to do commonly make the most flutter about doing it?</p> +<p>Perhaps it is merely conversation. “<i>Cut-cut-cut-cut-cut</i>-DAH<i>cut</i>! +. . . I have finished my strictly fresh egg, have you laid yours? +Make haste, then, for the cock has found a gap in the wire-fence and +wants us to wander in the strawberry-bed. . . . Cut-cut-cut-cut-cut-DAH<i>cut</i> +. . . Every moment is precious, for the Goose Girl will find us, when +she gathers the strawberries for her luncheon . . . Cut-cut-cut-cut! +On the way out we can find sweet places to steal nests . . . Cut-cut-cut! +. . . I am so glad I am not sitting this heavenly morning; it <i>is</i> +a dull life.</p> +<p>A Lancashire poultryman drifted into Barbury Green yesterday. +He is an old acquaintance of Mr. Heaven, and spent the night and part +of the next day at Thornycroft Farm. He possessed a deal of fowl +philosophy, and tells many a good hen story, which, like fish stories, +draw rather largely on the credulity of the audience. We were +sitting in the rickyard talking comfortably about laying and cackling +and kindred matters when he took his pipe from his mouth and told us +the following tale—not a bad one if you can translate the dialect:—</p> +<p>‘Aw were once towd as, if yo’ could only get th’ +hen’s egg away afooar she hed sin it, th’ hen ‘ud +think it hed med a mistek an’ sit deawn ageean an’ lay another.</p> +<p>“An’ it seemed to me it were a varra sensible way o’ +lukkin’ at it. Sooa aw set to wark to mek a nest as ’ud +tek a rise eawt o’ th’ hens. An’ aw dud it too. +Aw med a nest wi’ a fause bottom, th’ idea bein’ as +when a hen hed laid, th’ egg ’ud drop through into a box +underneyth.</p> +<p>“Aw felt varra preawd o’ that nest, too, aw con tell +yo’, an’ aw remember aw felt quite excited when aw see an +awd black Minorca, th’ best layer as aw hed, gooa an’ settle +hersel deawn i’ th’ nest an’ get ready for wark. +Th’ hen seemed quite comfortable enough, aw were glad to see, +an’ geet through th’ operation beawt ony seemin’ trouble.</p> +<p>“Well, aw darsay yo’ know heaw a hen carries on as soon +as it’s laid a egg. It starts “chuckin’” +away like a showman’s racket, an’ after tekkin’ a +good Ink at th’ egg to see whether it’s a big ’un +or a little ’un, gooas eawt an’ tells all t’other +hens abeawt it.</p> +<p>“Neaw, this black Minorca, as aw sed, were a owdish bird, an’ +maybe knew mooar than aw thowt. Happen it hed laid on a nest wi’ +a fause bottom afooar, an’ were up to th’ trick, but whether +or not, aw never see a hen luk mooar disgusted i’ mi life when +it lukked i’ th’ nest an’ see as it hed hed all that +trouble fer nowt.</p> +<p>“It woked reawnd th’ nest as if it couldn’t believe +its own eyes.</p> +<p>“But it dudn’t do as aw expected. Aw expected as +it ’ud sit deawn ageean an’ lay another.</p> +<p>“But it just gi’e one wonderin’ sooart o’ +chuck, an then, after a long stare reawnd th’ hen-coyt, it woked +eawt, as mad a hen as aw’ve ever sin. Aw fun’ eawt +after, what th’ long stare meant. It were tekkin’ +farewell! For if yo’ll believe me that hen never laid another +egg i’ ony o’ my nests.</p> +<p>“Varra like it laid away in a spot wheear it could hev summat +to luk at when it hed done wark for th’ day.</p> +<p>“Sooa aw lost mi best layer through mi actin’, an’ +aw’ve never invented owt sen.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<p>One learns to be modest by living on a poultry farm, for there are +constant expositions of the most deplorable vanity among the cocks. +We have a couple of pea-fowl who certainly are an addition to the landscape, +as they step mincingly along the square of turf we dignify by the name +of lawn. The head of the house has a most languid and self-conscious +strut, and his microscopic mind is fixed entirely on his splendid trailing +tail. If I could only master his language sufficiently to tell +him how hideously ugly the back view of this gorgeous fan is, when he +spreads it for the edification of the observer in front of him, he would +of course retort that there is a “congregation side” to +everything, but I should at least force him into a defence of his tail +and a confession of its limitations. This would be new and unpleasant, +I fancy; and if it produced no perceptible effect upon his super-arrogant +demeanour, I might remind him that he is likely to be used, eventually, +for a feather duster, unless, indeed, the Heavens are superstitious +and prefer to throw his tail away, rather than bring ill luck and the +evil eye into the house.</p> +<p>The longer I study the cock, whether Black Spanish, White Leghorn, +Dorking, or the common barnyard fowl, the more intimately I am acquainted +with him, the less I am impressed with his character. He has more +pride of bearing, and less to be proud of, than any bird I know. +He is indolent, though he struts pompously over the grass as if the +day were all too short for his onerous duties. He calls the hens +about him when I throw corn from the basket, but many a time I have +seen him swallow hurriedly, and in private, some dainty titbit he has +found unexpectedly. He has no particular chivalry. He gives +no special encouragement to his hen when he becomes a prospective father, +and renders little assistance when the responsibilities become actualities. +His only personal message or contribution to the world is his raucous +cock-a-doodle-doo, which, being uttered most frequently at dawn, is +the most ill-timed and offensive of all musical notes. It is so +unnecessary too, as if the day didn’t come soon enough without +his warning; but I suppose he is anxious to waken his hens and get them +at their daily task, and so he disturbs the entire community. +In short, I dislike him; his swagger, his autocratic strut, his greed, +his irritating self-consciousness, his endless parading of himself up +and down in a procession of one.</p> +<p>Of course his character is largely the result of polygamy. +His weaknesses are only what might be expected; and as for the hens, +I have considerable respect for the patience, sobriety, and dignity +with which they endure an institution particularly offensive to all +women. In their case they do not even have the sustaining thought +of its being an article of religion, so they are to be complimented +the more.</p> +<p>There is nothing on earth so feminine as a hen—not womanly, +simply feminine. Those men of insight who write the Woman’s +Page in the Sunday newspapers study hens more than women, I sometimes +think; at any rate, their favourite types are all present on this poultry +farm.</p> +<p>Some families of White Leghorns spend most of their time in the rickyard, +where they look extremely pretty, their slender white shapes and red +combs and wattles well set off by the background of golden hayricks. +There is a great oak-tree in one corner, with a tall ladder leaning +against its trunk, and a capital roosting-place on a long branch running +at right angles with the ladder. I try to spend a quarter of an +hour there every night before supper, just for the pleasure of seeing +the feathered “women-folks” mount that ladder.</p> +<p>A dozen of them surround the foot, waiting restlessly for their turn. +One little white lady flutters up on the lowest round and perches there +until she reviews the past, faces the present, and forecasts the future; +during which time she is gathering courage for the next jump. +She cackles, takes up one foot and then the other, tilts back and forth, +holds up her skirts and drops them again, cocks her head nervously to +see whether they are all staring at her below, gives half a dozen preliminary +springs which mean nothing, declares she can’t and won’t +go up any faster, unties her bonnet strings and pushes back her hair, +pulls down her dress to cover her toes, and finally alights on the next +round, swaying to and fro until she gains her equilibrium, when she +proceeds to enact the same scene over again.</p> +<p>All this time the hens at the foot of the ladder are criticising +her methods and exclaiming at the length of time she requires in mounting; +while the cocks stroll about the yard keeping one eye on the ladder, +picking up a seed here and there, and giving a masculine sneer now and +then at the too-familiar scene. They approach the party at intervals, +but only to remark that it always makes a man laugh to see a woman go +up a ladder. The next hen, stirred to the depths by this speech, +flies up entirely too fast, loses her head, tumbles off the top round, +and has to make the ascent over again. Thus it goes on and on, +this <i>petite comédie humaine</i>, and I could enjoy it with +my whole heart if Mr. Heaven did not insist on sharing the spectacle +with me. He is so inexpressibly dull, so destitute of humour, +that I did not think it likely he would see in the performance anything +more than a flock of hens going up a ladder to roost. But he did; +for there is no man so blind that he cannot see the follies of women; +and, when he forgot himself so far as to utter a few genial, silly, +well-worn reflections upon femininity at large, I turned upon him and +revealed to him some of the characteristics of his own sex, gained from +an exhaustive study of the barnyard fowl of the masculine gender. +He went into the house discomfited, though chuckling a little at my +vehemence; but at least I have made it for ever impossible for him to +watch his hens without an occasional glance at the cocks.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> +<p>July 12th.</p> +<p>O the pathos of a poultry farm! Catherine of Aragon, the black +Spanish hen that stole her nest, brought out nine chicks this morning, +and the business-like and marble-hearted Phoebe has taken them away +and given them to another hen who has only seven. Two mothers +cannot be wasted on these small families—it would not be profitable; +and the older mother, having been tried and found faithful over seven, +has been given the other nine and accepted them. What of the bereft +one? She is miserable and stands about moping and forlorn, but +it is no use fighting against the inevitable; hens’ hearts must +obey the same laws that govern the rotation of crops. Catherine +of Aragon feels her lot a bitter one just now, but in time she will +succumb, and lay, which is more to the point.</p> +<p>We have had a very busy evening, beginning with the rats’ supper—delicate +sandwiches of bread-and-butter spread with Paris green.</p> +<p>We have a new brood of seventeen ducklings just hatched this afternoon. +When we came to the nest the yellow and brown bunches of down and fluff +were peeping out from under the hen’s wings in the prettiest fashion +in the world.</p> +<p>“It’s a noble hen!” I said to Phoebe.</p> +<p>“She ain’t so nowble as she looks,” Phoebe answered +grimly. “It was another ’en that brooded these eggs +for near on three weeks and then this big one come along with a fancy +she’d like a family ’erself if she could steal one without +too much trouble; so she drove the rightful ’en off the nest, +finished up the last few days, and ’ere she is in possession of +the ducklings!”</p> +<p>“Why don’t you take them away from her and give them +back to the first hen, who did most of the work?” I asked, with +some spirit.</p> +<p>“Like as not she wouldn’t tyke them now,” said +Phoebe, as she lifted the hen off the broken egg-shells and moved her +gently into a clean box, on a bed of fresh hay. We put food and +drink within reach of the family, and very proud and handsome that highway +robber of a hen looked, as she stretched her wings over the seventeen +easily-earned ducklings.</p> +<p>Going back to the old nesting-box, I found one egg forgotten among +the shells. It was still warm, and I took it up to run across +the field with it to Phoebe. It was heavy, and the carrying of +it was a queer sensation, inasmuch as it squirmed and “yipped” +vociferously in transit, threatening so unmistakably to hatch in my +hand that I was decidedly nervous. The intrepid little youngster +burst his shell as he touched Phoebe’s apron, and has become the +strongest and handsomest of the brood.</p> +<p>All this tending of downy young things, this feeding and putting +to bed, this petting and nursing and rearing, is such pretty, comforting +woman’s work. I am sure Phoebe will make a better wife to +the carrier for having been a poultry-maid, and though good enough for +most practical purposes when I came here, I am an infinitely better +woman now. I am afraid I was not particularly nice the last few +days at the Hydro. Such a lot of dull, prosy, inquisitive, bothering +old tabbies! Aunt Margaret furnishing imaginary symptoms enough +to keep a fond husband and two trained nurses distracted; a man I had +never encouraged in my life coming to stay in the neighbourhood and +turning up daily for rejection; another man taking rooms at the very +hotel with the avowed purpose of making my life a burden; and on the +heels of both, a widow of thirty-five in full chase! Small wonder +I thought it more dignified to retire than to compete, and so I did.</p> +<p>I need not, however, have cut the threads that bound me to Oxenbridge +with such particularly sharp scissors, nor given them such a vicious +snap; for, so far as I can observe, the little world of which I imagined +myself the sun continues to revolve, and, probably, about some other +centre. I can well imagine who has taken up that delightful but +somewhat exposed and responsible position—it would be just like +her!</p> +<p>I am perfectly happy where I am; it is not that; but it seems so +strange that they can be perfectly happy without me, after all that +they—after all that was said on the subject not many days ago. +Nothing turns out as one expects. There have been no hot pursuits, +no rewards offered, no bills posted, no printed placards issued describing +the beauty and charms of a young person who supposed herself the cynosure +of every eye. Heigh-ho! What does it matter, after all? +One can always be a Goose Girl!</p> +<p>* * *</p> +<p>I wonder if the hen mother is quite, quite satisfied with her ducklings! +Do you suppose the fact of hatching and brooding them breaks down all +the sense of difference? Does she not sometimes reflect that if +her children were the ordinary sort, and not these changelings, she +would be enjoying certain pretty little attentions dear to a mother’s +heart? The chicks would be pecking the food off her broad beak +with their tiny ones, and jumping on her back to slide down her glossy +feathers. They would be far nicer to cuddle, too, so small and +graceful and light; the changelings are a trifle solid and brawny. +And personally, just as a matter of taste, would she not prefer wee, +round, glancing heads, and pointed beaks, peeping from under her wings, +to these teaspoon-shaped things larger than her own? I wonder!</p> +<p>We are training fourteen large young chickens to sit on the perches +in their new house, instead of huddling together on the floor as has +been their habit, because we discover rat-holes under the wire flooring +occasionally, and fear that toes may be bitten. At nine o’clock +Phoebe and I lift the chickens one by one, and, as it were, glue them +to their perches, squawking. Three nights have we gone patiently +through with this performance, but they have not learned the lesson. +The ducks and geese are, however, greatly improved by the application +of advanced educational methods, and the <i>régime</i> of perfect +order and system instituted by Me begins to show results.</p> +<p>There is no more violent splashing and pebbling, racing, chasing, +separating. The pole, indeed, still has to be produced, but at +the first majestic wave of my hand they scuttle toward the shore. +The geese turn to the right, cross the rickyard, and go to their pen; +the May ducks turn to the left for their coops, the June ducks follow +the hens to the top meadow, and even the idiot gosling has an inspiration +now and then and stumbles on his own habitation.</p> +<p>Mrs. Heaven has no reverence for the principles of Comenius, Pestalozzi, +or Herbert Spencer as applied to poultry, and when the ducks and geese +came out of the pond badly the other night and went waddling and tumbling +and hissing all over creation, did not approve of my sending them back +into the pond to start afresh.</p> +<p>“I consider it a great waste of time, of good time, miss,” +she said; “and, after all, do you consider that educated poultry +will be any better eating, or that it will lay more than one egg a day, +miss?”</p> +<p>I have given the matter some attention, and I fear Mrs. Heaven is +right. A duck, a goose, or a hen in which I have developed a larger +brain, implanted a sense of duty, or instilled an idea of self-government, +is likely, on the whole, to be leaner, not fatter. There is nothing +like obeying the voice of conscience for taking the flesh off one’s +bones; and, speaking of conscience, Phoebe, whose metaphysics are of +the farm farmy, says that hers “felt like a hunlaid hegg for dyes” +after she had jilted the postman.</p> +<p>As to the eggs, I am sure the birds will go on laying one a day for +’tis their nature to. Whether the product of the intelligent, +conscious, logical fowl, will be as rich in quality as that of the uneducated +and barbaric bird, I cannot say; but it ought at least to be equal to +the Denmark egg eaten now by all Londoners; and if, perchance, left +uneaten, it is certain to be a very superior wife and mother.</p> +<p>While we are discussing the subject of educating poultry, I confess +that the case of Cannibal Ann gives me much anxiety. Twice in +her short career has she been under suspicion of eating her own eggs, +but Phoebe has never succeeded in catching her <i>in flagrante delicto</i>. +That eminent detective service was reserved for me, and I have been +haunted by the picture ever since. It is an awful sight to witness +a hen gulp her own newly-laid fresh egg, yolk, white, shell, and all; +to realise that you have fed, sheltered, chased, and occasionally run +in, a being possessed of no moral sense, a being likely to set a bad +example, inculcate vicious habits among her innocent sisters, and lower +the standard of an entire poultry-yard. <i>The Young Poultry Keeper’s +Friend</i> gives us no advice on this topic, and we do not know whether +to treat Cannibal Ann as the victim of a disease, or as a confirmed +criminal; whether to administer remedies or cut her off in the flower +of her youth.</p> +<p>We have had a sad scene to-night. A chick has been ailing all +day, and when we shut up the brood we found him dead in a corner.</p> +<p>Phoebe put him on the ground while she busied herself about the coop. +The other chicks came out and walked about the dead one again and again, +eyeing him curiously.</p> +<p>“Poor little chap!” said Phoebe. “’E’s +never ’ad a mother! ’E was an incubytor chicken, and +wherever I took ’im ’e was picked at. There was somethink +wrong with ’im; ’e never was a fyvorite!”</p> +<p>I put the fluffy body into a hole in the turf, and strewed a handful +of grass over him. “Sad little epitaph!” I thought. +“He never was a fyvorite!”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> +<p>July 13th.</p> +<p>I like to watch the Belgian hares eating their trifolium or pea-pods +or grass; graceful, gentle things they are, crowding about Mr. Heaven, +and standing prettily, not greedily, on their hind legs, to reach for +the clover, their delicate nostrils and whiskers all a-quiver with excitement.</p> +<p>As I look out of my window in the dusk I can see one of the mothers +galloping across the enclosure, the soft white lining of her tail acting +as a beacon-light to the eight infant hares following her, a quaint +procession of eight white spots in it glancing line. In the darkest +night those baby creatures could follow their mother through grass or +hedge or thicket, and she would need no warning note to show them where +to flee in case of danger. “All you have to do is to follow +the white night-light that I keep in the lining of my tail,” she +says, when she is giving her first maternal lectures; and it seems a +beneficent provision of Nature. To be sure, Mr. Heaven took his +gun and went out to shoot wild rabbits to-day, and I noted that he marked +them by those same self-betraying tails, as they scuttled toward their +holes or leaped toward the protecting cover of the hedge; so it does +not appear whether Nature is on the side of the farmer or the rabbit +. . .</p> +<p>There is as much comedy and as much tragedy in poultry life as anywhere, +and already I see rifts within lutes. We have in a cage a French +gentleman partridge married to a Hungarian lady of defective sight. +He paces back and forth in the pen restlessly, anything but content +with the domestic fireside. One can see plainly that he is devoted +to the Boulevards, and that if left to his own inclinations he would +never have chosen any spouse but a thorough Parisienne.</p> +<p>The Hungarian lady is blind of one eye, from some stray shot, I suppose. +She is melancholy at all times, and occasionally goes so far as to beat +her head against the wire netting. If liberated, Mr. Heaven says +that her blindness would only expose her to death at the hands of the +first sportsman, and it always seems to me as if she knows this, and +is ever trying to decide whether a loveless marriage is any better than +the tomb.</p> +<p>Then, again, the great, grey gander is, for some mysterious reason, +out of favour with the entire family. He is a noble and amiable +bird, by far the best all-round character in the flock, for dignity +of mien and large-minded common-sense. What is the treatment vouchsafed +to this blameless husband and father? One that puts anybody out +of sorts with virtue and its scant rewards. To begin with, the +others will not allow him to go into the pond. There is an organised +cabal against it, and he sits solitary on the bank, calm and resigned, +but, naturally, a trifle hurt. His favourite retreat is a tiny +sort of island on the edge of the pool under the alders, where with +his bent head, and red-rimmed philosophic eyes he regards his own breast +and dreams of happier days. When the others walk into the country +twenty-three of them keep together, and Burd Alane (as I have named +him from the old ballad) walks by himself. The lack of harmony +is so evident here, and the slight so intentional and direct, that it +almost moves me to tears. The others walk soberly, always in couples, +but even Burd Alane’s rightful spouse is on the side of the majority, +and avoids her consort.</p> +<p>What is the nature of his offence? There can be no connubial +jealousies, I judge, as geese are strictly monogamous, and having chosen +a partner of their joys and sorrows they cleave to each other until +death or some other inexorable circumstance does them part. If +they are ever mistaken in their choice, and think they might have done +better, the world is none the wiser. Burd Alane looks in good +condition, but Phoebe thinks he is not quite himself, and that some +day when he is in greater strength he will turn on his foes and rend +them, regaining thus his lost prestige, for formerly he was king of +the flock.</p> +<p>* * *</p> +<p>Phoebe has not a vestige of sentiment. She just asked me if +I would have a duckling or a gosling for dinner; that there were two +quite ready—the brown and yellow duckling, that is the last to +leave the water at night, and the white gosling that never knows his +own ’ouse. Which would I ’ave, and would I ’ave +it with sage and onion?</p> +<p>Now, had I found a duckling on the table at dinner I should have +eaten it without thinking at all, or with the thought that it had come +from Barbury Green. But eat a duckling that I have stoned out +of the pond, pursued up the bank, chased behind the wire netting, caught, +screaming, in a corner, and carried struggling to his bed? Feed +upon an idiot gosling that I have found in nine different coops on nine +successive nights—in with the newly-hatched chicks, the half-grown +pullets, the setting hen, the “invaleed goose,” the drake +with the gapes, the old ducks in the pen?—Eat a gosling that I +have caught and put in with his brothers and sisters (whom he never +recognises) so frequently and regularly that I am familiar with every +joint in his body?</p> +<p>In the first place, with my own small bump of locality and lack of +geography, I would never willingly consume a creature who might, by +some strange process of assimilation, make me worse in this respect; +in the second place, I should have to be ravenous indeed to sit down +deliberately and make a meal of an intimate friend, no matter if I had +not a high opinion of his intelligence. I should as soon think +of eating the Square Baby, stuffed with sage and onion and garnished +with green apple-sauce, as the yellow duckling or the idiot gosling.</p> +<p>Mrs. Heaven has just called me into her sitting-room, ostensibly +to ask me to order breakfast, but really for the pleasure of conversation. +Why she should inquire whether I would relish some gammon of bacon with +eggs, when she knows that there has not been, is not now, and never +will be, anything but gammon of bacon with eggs, is more than I can +explain.</p> +<p>“Would you like to see my flowers, miss?” she asks, folding +her plump hands over her white apron. “They are looking +beautiful this morning. I am so fond of potted plants, of plants +in pots. Look at these geraniums! Now, I consider that pink +one a perfect bloom; yes, a perfect bloom. This is a fine red +one, is it not, miss? Especially fine, don’t you think? +The trouble with the red variety is that they’re apt to get “bobby” +and have to be washed regularly; quite bobby they do get indeed, I assure +you. That white one has just gone out of blossom, and it was really +wonderful. You could ’ardly have told it from a paper flower, +miss, not from a white paper flower. My plants are my children +nowadays, since Albert Edward is my only care. I have been the +mother of eleven children, miss, all of them living, so far as I know; +I know nothing to the contrary. I ’ope you are not wearying +of this solitary place, miss? It will grow upon you, I am sure, +as it did upon Mrs. Pollock, with all her peculiar fancies, and as it +’as grown upon us.—We formerly had a butcher’s shop +in Buffington, and it was naturally a great responsibility. Mr. +Heaven’s nerves are not strong, and at last he wanted a life of +more quietude, more quietude was what he craved. The life of a +retail butcher is a most exciting and wearying one. Nobody satisfied +with their meat; as if it mattered in a world of change! Everybody +complaining of too much bone or too little fat; nobody wishing tough +chops or cutlets, but always seeking after fine joints, when it’s +against reason and nature that all joints should be juicy and all cutlets +tender; always complaining if livers are not sent with every fowl, always +asking you to remember the trimmin’s, always wanting their beef +well ’ung, and then if you ’ang it a minute too long, it’s +left on your ’ands! I often used to say to Mr. Heaven, yes +many’s the time I’ve said it, that if people would think +more of the great ’ereafter and less about their own little stomachs, +it would be a deal better for them, yes, a deal better, and make it +much more comfortable for the butchers!”</p> +<p>* * *</p> +<p>Burd Alane has had a good quarter of an hour to-day.</p> +<p>His spouse took a brief promenade with him. To be sure, it +was during an absence of the flock on the other side of the hedge so +that the moral effect of her spasm of wifely loyalty was quite lost +upon them. I strongly suspect that she would not have granted +anything but a secret interview. What a petty, weak, ignoble character! +I really don’t like to think so badly of any fellow-creature as +I am forced to think of that politic, time-serving, pusillanimous goose. +I believe she laid the egg that produced the idiot gosling!</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> +<p>Here follows the true story of Sir Muscovy Drake, the Lady Blanche, +and Miss Malardina Crippletoes.</p> +<p>Phoebe’s flock consisted at first mostly of Brown Mallards, +but a friend gave her a sitting of eggs warranted to produce a most +beautiful variety of white ducks. They were hatched in due time, +but proved hard to raise, till at length there was only one survivor, +of such uncommon grace and beauty that we called her the Lady Blanche. +Presently a neighbour sold Phoebe his favourite Muscovy drake, and these +two splendid creatures by “natural selection” disdained +to notice the rest of the flock, but forming a close friendship, wandered +in the pleasant paths of duckdom together, swimming and eating quite +apart from the others.</p> +<p>In the brown flock there was one unfortunate, misshapen from the +egg, quite lame, and with no smoothness of plumage; but on that very +account, apparently, or because she was too weak to resist them, the +others treated her cruelly, biting her and pushing her away from the +food.</p> +<p>One day it happened that the two ducks—Sir Muscovy and Lady +Blanche—had come up from the water before the others, and having +taken their repast were sitting together under the shade of a flowering +currant-bush, when they chanced to see poor Miss Crippletoes very badly +used and crowded away from the dish. Sir Muscovy rose to his feet; +a few rapid words seemed to pass between him and his mate, and then +he fell upon the other drake and the heartless minions who had persecuted +the helpless one, drove them far away out of sight, and, returning, +went to the corner where the victim was cowering, her face to the wall. +He seemed to whisper to her, or in some way to convey to her a sense +of protection; for after a few moments she tremblingly went with him +to the dish, and hurriedly ate her dinner while he stood by, repulsing +the advances of the few brown ducks who remained near and seemed inclined +to attack her.</p> +<p>When she had eaten enough Lady Blanche joined them, and they went +down the hill together to their favourite swimming-place. After +that Miss Crippletoes always followed a little behind her protectors, +and thus shielded and fed she grew stronger and well-feathered, though +she was always smaller than she should have been and had a lowly manner, +keeping a few steps in the rear of her superiors and sitting at some +distance from their noon resting-place.</p> +<p>Phoebe noticed after a while that Lady Blanche was seldom to be seen, +and Sir Muscovy and Miss Crippletoes often came to their meals without +her. The would-be mother refused to inhabit the house Phoebe had +given her, and for a long time the place she had chosen for her sitting +could not be found. At length the Square Baby discovered her in +a most ideal spot. A large boulder had dropped years ago into +the brook that fills our duck-pond; dropped and split in halves with +the two smooth walls leaning away from each other. A grassy bank +towered behind, and on either side of the opening, tall bushes made +a miniature forest where the romantic mother could brood her treasures +while her two guardians enjoyed the water close by her retreat.</p> +<p>All this happened before my coming to Thornycroft Farm, but it was +I who named the hero and heroines of the romance when Phoebe had told +me all the particulars. Yesterday morning I was sitting by my +open window. It was warm, sunny, and still, but in the country +sounds travel far, and I could hear fowl conversation in various parts +of the poultry-yard as well as in all the outlying bits of territory +occupied by our feathered friends. Hens have only three words +and a scream in their language, but ducks, having more thoughts to express, +converse quite fluently, so fluently, in fact, that it reminds me of +dinner at the Hydropathic Hotel. I fancy I have learned to distinguish +seven separate sounds, each varied by degrees of intensity, and with +upward or downward inflections like the Chinese tongue.</p> +<p>In the distance, then, I heard the faint voice of a duck calling +as if breathless and excited. While I wondered what was happening, +I saw Miss Crippletoes struggling up the steep bank above the duck-pond. +It was the quickest way from the water to the house, but difficult for +the little lame webbed feet. When she reached the level grass +sward she sank down a moment, exhausted; but when she could speak again +she cried out, a sharp staccato call, and ran forward.</p> +<p>Instantly she was answered from a distant knoll, where for some reason +Sir Muscovy loved to retire for meditation. The cries grew lower +and softer as the birds approached each other, and they met at the corner +just under my window. Instantly they put their two bills together +and the loud cries changed to confiding murmurs. Evidently some +hurried questions and answers passed between them, and then Sir Muscovy +waddled rapidly by the quickest path, Miss Crippletoes following him +at a slower pace, and both passed out of sight, using their wings to +help their feet down the steep declivity. The next morning, when +I wakened early, my first thought was to look out, and there on the +sunny greensward where they were accustomed to be fed, Sir Muscovy, +Lady Blanche, and their humble maid, Malardina Crippletoes, were scattering +their own breakfast before the bills of twelve beautiful golden balls +of ducklings. The little creatures could never have climbed the +bank, but must have started from their nest at dawn, coming round by +the brook to the level at the foot of the garden, and so by slow degrees +up to the house.</p> +<p>Judging from what I heard and knew of their habits, I am sure the +excitement of the previous morning was occasioned by the hatching of +the eggs, and that Lady Blanche had hastily sent her friend to call +Sir Muscovy, the family remaining together until they could bring the +babies with them and display their beauty to Phoebe and me.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> +<p>July 14th.</p> +<p>We are not wholly without the pleasures of the town in Barbury Green. +Once or twice in a summer, late on a Saturday afternoon, a procession +of red and yellow vans drives into a field near the centre of the village. +By the time the vans are unpacked all the children in the community +are surrounding the gate of entrance. There is rifle-shooting, +there is fortune-telling, there are games of pitch and toss, and swings, +and French bagatelle; and, to crown all, a wonderful orchestrion that +goes by steam. The water is boiled for the public’s tea, +and at the same time thrilling strains of melody are flung into the +air. There is at present only one tune in the orchestrion’s +repertory, but it is a very good tune; though after hearing it three +hundred and seven times in a single afternoon, it pursues one, sleeping +and waking, for the next week. Phoebe and I took the Square Baby +and went in to this diversified entertainment. There was a small +crowd of children at the entrance, but as none of them seemed to be +provided with pennies, and I felt in a fairy godmother mood, I offered +them the freedom of the place at my expense.</p> +<p>I never purchased more radiant good-will for less money, but the +combined effect of the well-boiled tea and the boiling orchestrion produced +many village nightmares, so the mothers told me at chapel next morning.</p> +<p>* * *</p> +<p>I have many friends in Barbury Green, and often have a pleasant chat +with the draper, and the watchmaker, and the chemist.</p> +<p>The last house on the principal street is rather an ugly one, with +especially nice window curtains. As I was taking my daily walk +to the post-office (an entirely unfruitful expedition thus far, as nobody +has taken the pains to write to me) I saw a nursemaid coming out of +the gate, wheeling a baby in a perambulator. She was going placidly +away from the Green when, far in the distance, she espied a man walking +rapidly toward us, a heavy Gladstone bag in one hand. She gazed +fixedly for a moment, her eyes brightening and her cheeks flushing with +pleasure,—whoever it was, it was an unexpected arrival;—then +she retraced her steps and, running up the garden-path, opened the front +door and held an excited colloquy with somebody; a slender somebody +in a nice print gown and neatly-dressed hair, who came to the gate and +peeped beyond the hedge several times, drawing back between peeps with +smiles and heightened colour. She did not run down the road, even +when she had satisfied herself of the identity of the traveller; perhaps +that would not have been good form in an English village, for there +were houses on the opposite side of the way. She waited until +he opened the gate, the nursemaid took the bag and looked discreetly +into the hedge, then the mistress slipped her hand through the traveller’s +arm and walked up the path as if she had nothing else in the world to +wish for. The nurse had a part in the joy, for she lifted the +baby out of the perambulator and showed proudly how much he had grown.</p> +<p>It was a dear little scene, and I, a passer-by, had shared in it +and felt better for it. I think their content was no less because +part of it had enriched my life, for happiness, like mercy, is twice +blessed; it blesses those who are most intimately associated in it, +and it blesses all those who see it, hear it, feel it, touch it, or +breathe the same atmosphere. A laughing, crowing baby in a house, +one cheerful woman singing about her work, a boy whistling at the plough, +a romance just suspected, with its miracle of two hearts melting into +one—the wind’s always in the west when you have any of these +wonder-workers in your neighbourhood.</p> +<p>I have talks too, sometimes, with the old parson, who lives in a +quaint house with “<i>Parva Domus Magna Quies</i>” cut into +the stone over the doorway. He is not a preaching parson, but +a retired one, almost the nicest kind, I often think.</p> +<p>He has been married thirty years, he tells me; thirty years, spent +in the one little house with the bricks painted red and grey alternately, +and the scarlet holly-hocks growing under the windows. I am sure +they have been sweet, true, kind years, and that his heart must be a +quiet, peaceful place just like his house and garden.</p> +<p>“I was only eleven years old when I fell in love with my wife,” +he told me as we sat on the seat under the lime-tree; he puffing cosily +at his pipe, I plaiting grasses for a hatband.</p> +<p>“It was just before Sunday-school. Her mother had dressed +her all in white muslin like a fairy, but she had stepped on the edge +of a puddle, and some of the muddy water had bespattered her frock. +A circle of children had surrounded her, and some of the motherly little +girls were on their knees rubbing at the spots anxiously, while one +of them wiped away the tears that were running down her pretty cheeks. +I looked! It was fatal! I did not look again, but I was +smitten to the very heart! I did not speak to her for six years, +but when I did, it was all right with both of us, thank God! and I’ve +been in love with her ever since, when she behaves herself!”</p> +<p>That is the way they speak of love in Barbury Green, and oh! how +much sweeter and more wholesome it is than the language of the town! +Who would not be a Goose Girl, “to win the secret of the weed’s +plain heart”? It seems to me that in society we are always +gazing at magic-lantern shows, but here we rest our tired eyes with +looking at the stars.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> +<p>July 16th.</p> +<p>Phoebe and I have been to a Hen Conference at Buffington. It +was for the purpose of raising the standard of the British Hen, and +our local Countess, who is much interested in poultry, was in the chair.</p> +<p>It was a very learned body, but Phoebe had coached me so well that +at the noon recess I could talk confidently with the members, discussing +the various advantages of True and Crossed Minorcas, Feverels, Andalusians, +Cochin Chinas, Shanghais, and the White Leghorn. (Phoebe, when +she pronounces this word, leaves out the “h” and bears down +heavily on the last syllable, so that it rhymes with begone!)</p> +<p>As I was sitting under the trees waiting for Phoebe to finish some +shopping in the village, a travelling poultry-dealer came along and +offered to sell me a silver Wyandotte pullet and cockerel. This +was a new breed to me and I asked the price, which proved to be more +than I should pay for a hat in Bond Street. I hesitated, thinking +meantime what a delightful parting gift they would be for Phoebe; I +mean if we ever should part, which seems more and more unlikely, as +I shall never leave Thornycroft until somebody comes properly to fetch +me; indeed, unless the “fetching” is done somewhat speedily +I may decline to go under any circumstances. My indecision as +to the purchase was finally banished when the poultryman asserted that +the fowls had clear open centres all over, black lacing entirely round +the white centres, were free from white edging, and each had a cherry-red +eye. This catalogue of charms inflamed my imagination, though +it gave me no mental picture of a silver Wyandotte fowl, and I paid +the money while the dealer crammed the chicks, squawking into my five-o’clock +tea-basket.</p> +<p>The afternoon session of the conference was most exciting, for we +reached the subject of imported eggs, an industry that is assuming terrifying +proportions. The London hotel egg comes from Denmark, it seems,—I +should think by sailing vessel, not steamer, but I may be wrong. +After we had settled that the British Hen should be protected and encouraged, +and agreed solemnly to abstain from Danish eggs in any form, and made +a resolution stating that our loyalty to Queen Alexandra would remain +undiminished, we argued the subject of hen diet. There was a great +difference of opinion here and the discussion was heated; the honorary +treasurer standing for pulped mangold and flint grit, the chair insisting +on barley meal and randans, while one eloquent young woman declared, +to loud cries of “’Ear, ’ear!” that rice pudding +and bone chips produce more eggs to the square hen than any other sort +of food. Impassioned orators arose here and there in the audience +demanding recognition for beef scraps, charcoal, round corn or buckwheat. +Foods were regarded from various standpoints: as general invigorators, +growth assisters, and egg producers. A very handsome young farmer +carried off final honours, and proved to the satisfaction of all the +feminine poultry-raisers that green young hog bones fresh cut in the +Banner Bone Breaker (of which he was the agent) possessed a nutritive +value not to be expressed in human language.</p> +<p>Phoebe was distinctly nervous when I rose to say a few words on poultry +breeding, announcing as my topic “Mothers, Stepmothers, Foster-Mothers, +and Incubators.” Protected by the consciousness that no +one in the assemblage could possibly know me, I made a distinct success +in my maiden speech; indeed, I somewhat overshot the mark, for the Countess +in the chair sent me a note asking me to dine with her that evening. +I suppressed the note and took Phoebe away before the proceedings were +finished, vanishing from the scene of my triumphs like a veiled prophet.</p> +<p>Just as we were passing out the door we paused to hear the report +of a special committee whose chairman read the following resolutions:—</p> +<p><i>Whereas</i>,—It has pleased the Almighty to remove from +our midst our greatest Rose Comb Buff Orpington fancier and esteemed +friend, Albert Edward Sheridain; therefore be it</p> +<p><i>Resolved</i>,—That the next edition of our catalogue contain +an illustrated memorial page in his honour and</p> +<p><i>Resolved</i>,—That the Rose Comb Buff Orpington Club extend +to the bereaved family their heartfelt sympathy.</p> +<p>The handsome young farmer followed us out to our trap, invited us +to attend the next meeting of the R. C. B. O. Club, of which he was +the secretary, and asked if I were intending to “show.” +I introduced Phoebe as the senior partner, and she concealed the fact +that we possessed but one Buff Orpington, and he was a sad “invaleed” +not suitable for exhibition. The farmer’s expression as +he looked at me was almost lover-like, and when he pressed a bit of +paper into my hand I was sure it must be an offer of marriage. +It was in fact only a circular describing the Banner Bone Breaker. +It closed with an appeal to Buff Orpington breeders to raise and ever +raise the standard, bidding them remember, in the midst of a low-minded +and sordid civilisation, that the rose comb should be small and neat, +firmly set on, with good working, a nice spike at the back lying well +down to head, and never, under any circumstances, never sticking up. +This adjuration somewhat alarmed us as Phoebe and I had been giving +our Buff Orpington cockerel the most drastic remedies for his languid +and prostrate comb.</p> +<p>Coming home we alighted from the trap to gather hogweed for the rabbits. +I sat by the wayside lazily and let Phoebe gather the appetising weed, +which grows along the thorniest hedges in close proximity to nettles +and thistles.</p> +<p>Workmen were trudging along with their luncheon-baskets of woven +bulrushes slung over their shoulders. Fields of ripening grain +lay on either hand, the sun shining on their every shade of green and +yellow, bronze and orange, while the breeze stirred the bearded barley +into a rippling golden sea.</p> +<p>Phoebe asked me if the people I had left behind at the Hydropathic +were my relatives.</p> +<p>“Some of them are of remote consanguinity,” I responded +evasively, and the next question was hushed upon her awe-stricken tongue, +as I intended.</p> +<p>“They are obeying my wish to be let alone, there’s no +doubt of that,” I was thinking. “For my part, I like +a little more spirit, and a little less ‘letter’!”</p> +<p>As the word “letter” flitted through my thoughts, I pulled +one from my pocket and glanced through it carelessly. It arrived, +somewhat tardily, only last night, or I should not have had it with +me. I wore the same dress to the post-office yesterday that I +wore to the Hen Conference to-day, and so it chanced to be still in +the pocket. If it had been anything I valued, of course I should +have lost or destroyed it by mistake; it is only silly, worthless little +things like this that keep turning up and turning up after one has forgotten +their existence.</p> +<blockquote><p>“You are a mystery!” [it ran.] “I +can apprehend, but not comprehend you. I know you in part. +I understand various bits of your nature; but my knowledge is always +fragmentary and disconnected, and when I attempt to make a whole of +the mosaics I merely get a kaleidoscopic effect. Do you know those +geographical dissected puzzles that they give to children? You +remind me of one of them.</p> +<p>“I have spent many charming (and dangerous) hours trying to +‘put you together’; but I find, when I examine my picture +closely, that after all I’ve made a purple mountain grow out of +a green tree; that my river is running up a steep hillside; and that +the pretty milkmaid, who should be wandering in the forest, is standing +on her head with her pail in the air</p> +<p>“Do you understand yourself clearly? Or is it just possible +that when you dive to the depths of your own consciousness, you sometimes +find the pretty milkmaid standing on her head? I wonder!” +. . .</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Ah, well, it is no wonder that he wonders! So do I, for +that matter!</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> +<p>July 17th.</p> +<p>Thornycroft Farm seems to be the musical centre of the universe.</p> +<p>When I wake very early in the morning I lie in a drowsy sort of dream, +trying to disentangle, one from the other, the various bird notes, trills, +coos, croons, chirps, chirrups, and warbles. Suddenly there falls +on the air a delicious, liquid, finished song; so pure, so mellow, so +joyous, that I go to the window and look out at the morning world, half +awakened, like myself.</p> +<p>There is I know not what charm in a window that does not push up, +but opens its lattices out into the greenness. And mine is like +a little jewelled door, for the sun is shining from behind the chimneys +and lighting the tiny diamond panes with amber flashes.</p> +<p>A faint delicate haze lies over the meadow, and rising out of it, +and soaring toward the blue is the lark, flinging out that matchless +matin song, so rich, so thrilling, so lavish! As the blithe melody +fades away, I hear the plaintive ballad-fragments of the robin on a +curtsying branch near my window; and there is always the liquid pipe +of the thrush, who must quaff a fairy goblet of dew between his songs, +I should think, so fresh and eternally young is his note.</p> +<p>There is another beautiful song that I follow whenever I hear it, +straining my eyes to the treetops, yet never finding a bird that I can +identify as the singer. Can it be the—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Ousel-cock so black of hue,<br /> +With orange-tawny bill”?</p> +</blockquote> +<p>He is called the poet-laureate of the primrose time, but I don’t +know whether he sings in midsummer, and I have not seen him hereabouts. +I must write and ask my dear Man of the North. The Man of the +North, I sometimes think, had a Fairy Grandmother who was a robin; and +perhaps she made a nest of fresh moss and put him in the green wood +when he was a wee bairnie, so that he waxed wise in bird-lore without +knowing it. At all events, describe to him the cock of a head, +the glance of an eye, the tip-up of a tail, or the sheen of a feather, +and he will name you the bird. Near-sighted he is, too, the Man +of the North, but that is only for people.</p> +<p>The Square Baby and I have a new game.</p> +<p>I bought a doll’s table and china tea-set in Buffington. +We put it under an apple-tree in the side garden, where the scarlet +lightning grows so tall and the Madonna lilies stand so white against +the flaming background. We built a little fence around it, and +every afternoon at tea-time we sprinkle seeds and crumbs in the dishes, +water in the tiny cups, drop a cherry in each of the fruit-plates, and +have a <i>thé chantant</i> for the birdies. We sometimes +invite an “invaleed” duckling, or one of the baby rabbits, +or the peacock, in which case the cards read:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Thornycroft Farm.<br /> +The pleasure of your company is requested<br /> +at a<br /> +Thé Chantant<br /> +Under the Apple Tree.<br /> +Music at five.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It is a charming game, as I say, but I’d far rather play it +with the Man of the North; he is so much younger than the Square Baby, +and so much more responsive, too.</p> +<p>Thornycroft Farm is a sweet place, too, of odours as well as sounds. +The scent of the hay is for ever in the nostrils, the hedges are thick +with wild honeysuckle, so deliciously fragrant, the last of the June +roses are lingering to do their share, and blackberry blossoms and ripening +fruit as well.</p> +<p>I have never known a place in which it is so easy to be good. +I have not said a word, nor scarcely harboured a thought, that was not +lovely and virtuous since I entered these gates, and yet there are those +who think me fantastic, difficult, hard to please, unreasonable!</p> +<p>I believe the saints must have lived in the country mostly (I am +certain they never tried Hydropathic hotels), and why anybody with a +black heart and natural love of wickedness should not simply buy a poultry +farm and become an angel, I cannot understand.</p> +<p>Living with animals is really a very improving and wholesome kind +of life, to the person who will allow himself to be influenced by their +sensible and high-minded ideals. When you come to think about +it, man is really the only animal that ever makes a fool of himself; +the others are highly civilised, and never make mistakes. I am +going to mention this when I write to somebody, sometime; I mean if +I ever do. To be sure, our human life is much more complicated +than theirs, and I believe when the other animals notice our errors +of judgment they make allowances. The bee is as busy as a bee, +and the beaver works like a beaver, but there their responsibility ends. +The bee doesn’t have to go about seeing that other bees are not +crowded into unsanitary tenements or victimised by the sweating system. +When the beaver’s day of toil is over he doesn’t have to +discuss the sphere, the rights, or the voting privileges of beaveresses; +all he has to do is to work like a beaver, and that is comparatively +simple.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> +<p>I have been studying <i>The Young Poultry Keeper’s Friend</i> +of late. If there is anything I dislike and deplore, it is the +possession of knowledge which I cannot put to practical use. Having +discovered an interesting disease called Scaly Leg in the July number, +I took the magazine out into the poultry-yard and identified the malady +on three hens and a cock. Phoebe joined me in the diagnosis and +we treated the victims with a carbolic lotion and scrubbed them with +vaseline.</p> +<p>As Phoebe and I grow wise in medical lore the case of Cannibal Ann +assumes a different aspect. As the bibulous man quaffs more and +more flagons of beer and wine when his daily food is ham, salt fish, +and cabbage, so does the hen avenge her wrongs of diet and woes of environment. +Cannibal Ann, herself, has, so far as we know, been raised in a Christian +manner and enjoyed all the advantages of modern methods; but her maternal +parent may have lived in some heathen poultry-yard which was asphalted +or bricked or flagged, so that she was debarred from scratching in Mother +Earth and was forced to eat her own shells in self-defence.</p> +<p>* * *</p> +<p>The Square Baby is not particularly attracted by the poultry as a +whole, save when it is boiled with bacon or roasted with bread-sauce; +but he is much interested in the “invaleeds.” Whenever +Phoebe and I start for the hospital with the tobacco-pills, the tin +of paraffin, and the bottle of oil, he is very much in evidence. +Perhaps he has a natural leaning toward the medical profession; at any +rate, when pain and anguish wring the brow, he is in close attendance +upon the ministering angels.</p> +<p>Now it is necessary for the physician to have practice as well as +theory, so the Square Baby, being left to himself this afternoon, proceeded +to perfect himself in some of the healing arts used by country practitioners.</p> +<p>When discovered, he was seated in front of the wire-covered “run” +attached to a coop occupied by the youngest goslings. A couple +of bottles and a box stood by his side, and I should think he had administered +a cup of sweet oil, a pint of paraffin, and a quarter of a pound of +tobacco during his clinic. He had used the remedies impartially, +sometimes giving the paraffin internally and rubbing the patient’s +head with tobacco or oil, sometimes the reverse.</p> +<p>Several goslings leaned languidly against the netting, or supported +themselves by the edge of the water-dish, while others staggered and +reeled about with eyes half closed.</p> +<p>It was Mrs. Heaven who caught her son red-handed, so to speak. +She was dressed in her best, and just driving off to Woodmucket to spend +a day or two with her married daughter, and soothe her nerves with the +uproar incident to a town of six hundred inhabitants. She delayed +her journey a half-hour—long enough, in fact, to change her black +silk waist for a loose sacque which would give her arms full and comfortable +play. The joy and astonishment that greeted the Square Baby on +his advent, five years ago, was forgotten for the first time in his +brief life, and he was treated precisely as any ordinary wrongdoer would +have been treated under the same circumstances, summarily and smartly; +the “wepping,” as Phoebe would say, being Mrs. Heaven’s +hand.</p> +<p>All but one of the goslings lived, like thousands of others who recover +in spite of the doctors, but the Square Baby’s interest in the +healing art is now perceptibly lessened.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> +<p>July 18th.</p> +<p>The day was Friday; Phoebe’s day to go to Buffington with eggs +and chickens and rabbits; her day to solicit orders for ducklings and +goslings. The village cart was ready in the stable; Mr. and Mrs. +Heaven were in Woodmucket; I was eating my breakfast (which I remember +was an egg and a rasher) when Phoebe came in, a figure of woe.</p> +<p>The Square Baby was ill, very ill, and would not permit her to leave +him and go to market. Would I look at him? For he must have +dowsed ’imself as well as the goslings yesterday; anyways he was +strong of paraffin and tobacco, though he ’ad ’ad a good +barth.</p> +<p>I prescribed for Albert Edward, who was as uncomfortable and feverish +as any little sinner in the county of Sussex, and I then promptly proposed +going to Buffington in Phoebe’s place.</p> +<p>She did not think it at all proper, and said that, notwithstanding +my cotton gown and sailor hat, I looked quite, quite the lydy, and it +would never do.</p> +<p>“I cannot get any new orders,” said I, “but I can +certainly leave the rabbits and eggs at the customary places. +I know Argent’s Dining Parlours, and Songhurst’s Tea Rooms, +and the Six Bells Inn, as well as you do.”</p> +<p>So, donning a pair of Phoebe’s large white cotton gloves with +open-work wrists (than which I always fancy there is no one article +that so disguises the perfect lydy), I set out upon my travels, upborne +by a lively sense of amusement that was at least equal to my feeling +that I was doing Phoebe Heaven a good turn.</p> +<p>Prices in dressed poultry were fluctuating, but I had a copy of <i>The +Trade Review</i>, issued that very day, and was able to get some idea +of values and the state of the market as I jogged along. The general +movement, I learned, was moderate and of a “selective” character. +Choice large capons and ducks were in steady demand, but I blushed for +my profession when I read that roasting chickens were running coarse, +staggy, and of irregular value. Old hens were held firmly at sixpence, +and it is my experience that they always have to be, at whatever price. +Geese were plenty, dull, and weak. Old cocks,—why don’t +they say roosters?—declined to threepence ha’penny on Thursday +in sympathy with fowls,—and who shall say that chivalry is dead? +Turkeys were a trifle steadier, and there was a speculative movement +in limed eggs. All this was illuminating, and I only wished I +were quite certain whether the sympathetic old roosters were threepence +ha’penny apiece, or a pound.</p> +<p>Everything happened as it should, on this first business journey +of my life, which is equivalent to saying that nothing happened at all. +Songhurst’s Tea Rooms took five dozen eggs and told me to bring +six dozen the next week. Argent’s Dining Parlours purchased +three pairs of chickens and four rabbits. The Six Bells found +the last poultry somewhat tough and tasteless; whereupon I said that +our orders were more than we could possibly fill, still I hoped we could +go on “selling them,” as we never liked to part with old +customers, no matter how many new ones there were. Privately, +I understood the complaint only too well, for I knew the fowls in question +very intimately. Two of them were the runaway rooster and the +gadabout hen that never wanted to go to bed with the others. The +third was Cannibal Ann. I should have expected them to be tough, +but I cannot believe they were lacking in flavour.</p> +<p>The only troublesome feature of the trip was that Mrs. Sowerbutt’s +lodgers had suddenly left for London and she was unable to take the +four rabbits as she had hoped; but as an offset to that piece of ill-fortune +the Coke and Coal Yard and the Bicycle Repairing Rooms came out into +the street, and, stepping up to the trap, requested regular weekly deliveries +of eggs and chickens, and hoped that I would be able to bring them myself. +And so, in a happy frame of mind, I turned out of the Buffington main +street, and was jogging along homeward, when a very startling thing +happened; namely, a whole verse of the Bailiff’s Daughter of Islington:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“And as she went along the high road,<br /> +The weather being hot and dry,<br /> +She sat her down upon a green bank,<br /> +And her true love came riding by.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>That true lovers are given to riding by, in ballads, I know very +well, but I hardly supposed they did so in real life, especially when +every precaution had been taken to avert such a catastrophe. I +had told the Barbury Green postmistress, on the morning of my arrival, +not to give the Thornycroft address to anybody whatsoever, but finding, +as the days passed, that no one was bold enough or sensible enough to +ask for it, I haughtily withdrew my prohibition. About this time +I began sending envelopes, carefully addressed in a feigned hand, to +a certain person at the Oxenbridge Hydro. These envelopes contained +no word of writing, but held, on one day, only a bit of down from a +hen’s breast, on another, a goose-quill, on another, a glossy +tail-feather, on another, a grain of corn, and so on. These trifles +were regarded by me not as degrading or unmaidenly hints and suggestions, +but simply as tests of intelligence. Could a man receive tokens +of this sort and fail to put two and two together? I feel that +I might possibly support life with a domineering and autocratic husband,—and +there is every prospect that I shall be called upon to do so,—but +not with a stupid one. Suppose one were linked for ever to a man +capable of asking,—“Did <i>you</i> send those feathers? +. . . How was I to guess? . . . How was a fellow to know they came from +you? . . . What on earth could I suppose they meant? . . . What clue +did they offer me as to your whereabouts? . . . Am I a Sherlock Holmes?”—No, +better eternal celibacy than marriage with such a being!</p> +<p>These were the thoughts that had been coursing through my goose-girl +mind while I had been selling dressed poultry, but in some way they +had not prepared me for the appearance of the aforesaid true love.</p> +<p>To see the very person whom one has left civilisation to avoid is +always more or less surprising, and to make the meeting less likely, +Buffington is even farther from Oxenbridge than Barbury Green. +The creature was well mounted (ominous, when he came to override my +caprice!) and he looked bigger, and, yes, handsomer, though that doesn’t +signify, and still more determined than when I saw him last; although +goodness knows that timidity and feebleness of purpose were not in striking +evidence on that memorable occasion. I had drawn up under the +shade of a tree ostensibly to eat some cherries, thinking that if I +turned my face away I might pass unrecognised. It was a stupid +plan, for if I had whipped up the mare and driven on, he of course, +would have had to follow, and he has too much dignity and self-respect +to shriek recriminations into a woman’s ear from a distance.</p> +<p>He approached with deliberation, reined in his horse, and lifted +his hat ceremoniously. He has an extremely shapely head, but I +did not show that the sight of it melted in the least the ice of my +resolve; whereupon we talked, not very freely at first,—men are +so stiff when they consider themselves injured. However, silence +is even more embarrassing than conversation, so at length I begin:—</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“It is a lovely day.”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“Yes, but the drought is getting rather +oppressive, don’t you think?”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“The crops certainly +need rain, and the feed is becoming scarce.”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“Are you a farmer’s wife?”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“Oh no! that is a promotion +to look forward to; I am now only a Goose Girl.”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“Indeed! If I wished to be severe +I might remark: that I am sure you have found at last your true vocation!”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“It was certainly through +no desire to please <i>you</i> that I chose it.”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“I am quite sure of that! Are +you staying in this part?”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“Oh no! I live +many miles distant, over an extremely rough road. And you?”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“I am still at the Hydropathic; or +at least my luggage is there.”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“It must be very pleasant +to attract you so long.”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“Not so pleasant as it was.”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“No? A new proprietor, +I suppose.”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“No; same proprietor; but the house +is empty.”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i> (yawning purposely).—“That +is strange; the hotels are usually so full at this season. Why +did so many leave?”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“As a matter of fact, only one left. +‘Full’ and ‘empty’ are purely relative terms. +I call a hotel full when it has you in it, empty when it hasn’t.”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i> (dying to laugh, but concealing her +feelings).—“I trust my bulk does not make the same impression +on the general public! Well, I won’t detain you longer; +good afternoon; I must go home to my evening work.”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“I will accompany you.”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“If you are a gentleman +you will remain where you are.”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“In the road? Perhaps; but if +I am a man I shall follow you; they always do, I notice. What +are those foolish bundles in the back of that silly cart?”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“Feed for the pony, +please, sir; fish for dinner; randans and barley meal for the poultry; +and four unsold rabbits. Wouldn’t you like them? Only +one and sixpence apiece. Shot at three o’clock this morning.”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“Thanks; I don’t like mine shot +so early.”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“Oh, well! doubtless +I shall be able to dispose of them on my way home, though times is ’ard!”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“Do you mean that you will “peddle” +them along the road?”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“You understand me better +than usual,—in fact to perfection.”</p> +<p>He dismounts and strides to the back of the cart, lifts the covers, +seizes the rabbits, flings some silver contemptuously into the basket, +and looks about him for a place to bury his bargain. A small boy +approaching in the far distance will probably bag the game.</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i> (modestly).—“Thanks for +your trade, sir, rather ungraciously bestowed, and we ’opes for +a continuance of your past fyvors.”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i> (leaning on the wheel of the trap).—“Let +us stop this nonsense. What did you hope to gain by running away?”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“Distance and absence.”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“You knew you couldn’t prevent +my offering myself to you sometime or other.”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“Perhaps not; but I +could at least defer it, couldn’t I?”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“Why postpone the inevitable?”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“Doubtless I shrank +from giving you the pain of a refusal.”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“Perhaps; but do you know what I suspect?”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“I’m not a suspicious +person, thank goodness!”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“That, on the contrary, you are wilfully +withholding from me the joy of acceptance.”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“If I intended to accept +you, why did I run away?”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“To make yourself more desirable and +precious, I suppose.”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i> (with the most confident coquetry).—“Did +I succeed?”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“No; you failed utterly.”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i> (secretly piqued).—“Then +I am glad I tried it.”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“You couldn’t succeed because +you were superlatively desirable and precious already; but you should +never have experimented. Don’t you know that Love is a high +explosive?”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“Is it? Then it +ought always to be labelled ‘dangerous,’ oughtn’t +it? But who thought of suggesting matches? I’m sure +I didn’t!”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“No such luck; I wish you would.”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“According to your theory, +if you apply a match to Love it is likely to ‘go off.’”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“I wish you would try it on mine and +await the result. Come now, you’ll have to marry somebody, +sometime.”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“I confess I don’t +see the necessity.”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i> (morosely).—“You’re the sort of +woman men won’t leave in undisturbed spinsterhood; they’ll +keep on badgering you.”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“Oh, I don’t mind +the badgering of a number of men; it’s rather nice. It’s +the one badger I find obnoxious.”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i> (impatiently).—“That’s just the +perversity of things. I could put a stop to the protestations +of the many; I should like nothing better—but the pertinacity +of the one! Ah, well! I can’t drop that without putting +an end to my existence.”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i> (politely).—“I shouldn’t +think of suggesting anything so extreme.”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i> (quoting).—“‘Mrs. Hauksbee proceeded +to take the conceit out of Pluffles as you remove the ribs of an umbrella +before re-covering.’ However, you couldn’t ask me +anything seriously that I wouldn’t do, dear Mistress Perversity.”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i> (yielding a point).—“I’ll +put that boldly to the proof. Say you don’t love me!”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i> (seizing his advantage).—“I don’t! +It’s imbecile and besotted devotion! Tell me, when may I +come to take you away?”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i> (sighing).—“It’s +like asking me to leave Heaven.”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“I know it; she told me where to find +you,—Thornycroft is the seventh poultry-farm I’ve visited,—but +you could never leave Heaven, you can’t be happy without poultry, +why that is a wish easily gratified. I’ll get you a farm +to-morrow; no, it’s Saturday, and the real estate offices close +at noon, but on Monday, without fail. Your ducks and geese, always +carrying it along with you. All you would have to do is to admit +me; Heaven is full of twos. If you shall swim on a crystal lake—Phoebe +told me what a genius you have for getting them out of the muddy pond; +she was sitting beside it when I called, her hand in that of a straw-coloured +person named Gladwish, and the ground in her vicinity completely strewn +with votive offerings. You shall splash your silver sea with an +ivory wand; your hens shall have suburban cottages, each with its garden; +their perches shall be of satin-wood and their water dishes of mother-of-pearl. +You shall be the Goose Girl and I will be the Swan Herd—simply +to be near you—for I hate live poultry. Dost like the picture? +It’s a little like Claude Melnotte’s, I confess. The +fact is I am not quite sane; talking with you after a fortnight of the +tabbies at the Hydro is like quaffing inebriating vodka after Miffin’s +Food! May I come to-morrow?”</p> +<p><i>Bailiffs Daughter</i> (hedging).—“I shall be rather +busy; the Crossed Minorca hen comes off to-morrow.”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“Oh, never mind! I’ll take +her off to-night when I escort you to the farm; then she’ll get +a day’s advantage.”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“And rob fourteen prospective +chicks of a mother; nay, lose the chicks themselves? Never!”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“So long as you are a Goose Girl, does +it make any difference whose you are? Is it any more agreeable +to be Mrs. Heaven’s Goose Girl than mine?”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“Ah! but in one case +the term of service is limited; in the other, permanent.”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i>.—“But in the one case you are the slave +of the employer, in the other the employer of the slave. Why did +you run away?”</p> +<p><i>Bailiff’s Daughter</i>.—“A man’s mind +is too dull an instrument to measure a woman’s reason; even my +own fails sometimes to deal with all its delicate shades; but I think +I must have run away chiefly to taste the pleasure of being pursued +and brought back. If it is necessary to your happiness that you +should explore all the Bluebeard chambers of my being, I will confess +further that it has taken you nearly three weeks to accomplish what +I supposed you would do in three days!”</p> +<p><i>True Love</i> (after a well-spent interval).—“To-morrow, +then; shall we say before breakfast? All, do! Why not? +Well, then, immediately after breakfast, and I breakfast at seven nowadays, +and sometimes earlier. Do take off those ugly cotton gloves, dear; +they are five sizes too large for you, and so rough and baggy to the +touch!”</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DIARY OF A GOOSE GIRL***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 1867-h.htm or 1867-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/6/1867 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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