The Diary of a Goose Girl..................................................................................................................................1

Kate Douglas Wiggin ...............................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER I .............................................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER II ............................................................................................................................................3

CHAPTER III..........................................................................................................................................4

CHAPTER IV..........................................................................................................................................7

CHAPTER V...........................................................................................................................................9

CHAPTER VI........................................................................................................................................10

CHAPTER VII .......................................................................................................................................11

CHAPTER VIII.....................................................................................................................................14

CHAPTER IX........................................................................................................................................16

CHAPTER X.........................................................................................................................................17

CHAPTER XI........................................................................................................................................19

CHAPTER XII .......................................................................................................................................21

CHAPTER XIII.....................................................................................................................................22

CHAPTER XIV.....................................................................................................................................23

In alluding to myself as a Goose Girl, I am using only the most modest of my titles; for I am also a

poultrymaid, a tender of Belgian hares and rabbits, and a shepherdess; but I particularly fancy the role of

Goose Girl, because it recalls the German fairy tales of my early youth, when I always yearned, but never

As I was jolting along these charming Sussex roads the other day, a fat buff pony and a tippy cart being my

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 newborn 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

"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 postoffice, or at all events send me a box of simple clothing therenothing

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 toyou know whom! Do not pursue

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, muddleheaded

joy," the joy of a successful rebel or a liberated serf. Plenty of money in my pursethat was unromantic, of

course, but it simplified mattersand nine hours of daylight remaining in which to find a lodging.

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

The Green is in the very centre of Barbury village, and all civic, political, family, and social life converges

there, just at the public duckponda wee, sleepy lake with a slope of grasscovered stones by which the

The houses are set about the Green like those in a toy village. They are of old brick, with crumpled,

upanddown 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.

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 passerby? 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 ankleties in yellow, blue, and

scarlet kid; glossy patentleather pumps shining in the sun, with festoons of slippers at the corners, flowery

slippers in imitation Berlin woolwork. If you make this picture in your mind'seye, just add a window

above the awning, and over the fringe of marigolds in the windowbox put the draper's wife dancing a

rosycheeked baby. Alas! my words are only black and white, I fear, and this picture needs a palette

Along the street, a short distance, is the old watchmaker's. Set in the hedge at the gate is a glass case with

Multum in Parvo 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 entrancedoor 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

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 sittingroom in the inn; but she speedily healed the wound by

saying that I might be accommodated at one of the farmhouses 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

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 worldstained lodger

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 diningroom, where I could be served privately at certain hours: and, since she had but the one

sittingroom, would I allow her to go on using it occasionally? also, if I had no special preference, would I

take the secondsized 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

"Bryke up the 'ome!" That is seemingly the malignant purpose with which I entered Barbury Green.

Enter the family of Thornycroft Farm, of which I am already a member in good and regular standing.

I introduce Mrs. Heaven first, for she is a selfsaturated person who would never forgive the insult should

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

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 pincushion 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 sittingroom 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

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.

Heavennow to the leftjust in front of you now if you put out your hands you will touch him."

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

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, seashells, green hazelnuts,

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

Phoebe confided to me that she was on the eve of loving the postman when the carrier came across her

"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

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 slowwitted, 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.

In reaching it from Barbury Green, you take the first lefthand road, go till you drop, and there you are.

It reminds me of my "grandmother's farm at Older." Did you know the song when you were a child?

It goes on for ever by the simple subterfuge of changing a few words in each verse.

This is followed by the gobblegobble, moomoo, baabaa, 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

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 staircases,

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 doorsill; the

utilitarian aspect of it all being varied by some scarletrunners and a scattering of poppies on either side of

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

Phoebe attends to the poultry; it is her department. Mr. Heaven has neither the force nor the finesse 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

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,

My destiny slumbered during the day, but at eight o'clock I heard a terrific squawking in the direction of the

duckponds, 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 ratproof 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

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

Phoebe stood by one of the duckponds, 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

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 tabled'hote dinner at the Hydro, going on at identically the same time, only stirs me to a

The ducks swim round in circles, hide under the willows, and attempt to creep into the ratholes 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 toolhouse, 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

fullgrown have run into a house with a brood of ducklings a week old. There are twentyseven 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.

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 toolhouse, 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

beadlike 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

"Poor think!" says Phoebe tearfully; "it looks as if it was 'it with some kind of a wepping. I don't know

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

By the time the ducks and geese are incarcerated for the night, the reasonable, sensible, practicalminded

hensespecially those whose mentality is increased and whose virtue is heightened by the responsibilities of

motherhoodhave gone into their own particular ratproof boxes, where they are waiting in a

semisomnolent 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

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

henmother 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, selfrespecting 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

The brown hen that we have named Cornelia is the best mother, the one who waits longest and most patiently

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 absentminded,

lightheaded pheasant who flew over a fourfoot 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

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 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 cowhouse 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!

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 comothers. 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.

When we have closed all our small hennurseries for the night, there is still the large house inhabited by the

thirtytwo full grown chickens which Phoebe calls the broilers. I cannot endure the term, and will not use it.

But is it not disagreeable enough to be a broiler when one's time comes, without having the gridiron waved in

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, resignedtotheinevitable 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.

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 sentrywork. I stroll

to a safe distance, and, sitting on one of the ratproof 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 evilminded and suspicious black pullet hasn't

time to spring out, with a make believe squawk of frightthat 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 goosepen, I

At ten thirty or so in the morning the cackling begins. I wonder exactly what it means! Have the forestlovers

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 softshelled 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?

Perhaps it is merely conversation. "CutcutcutcutcutDAHcut! . . . I have finished my strictly fresh egg,

have you laid yours? Make haste, then, for the cock has found a gap in the wirefence and wants us to

wander in the strawberrybed. . . . Cutcutcut cutcutDAHcut . . . Every moment is precious, for the

Goose Girl will find us, when she gathers the strawberries for her luncheon . . . Cutcutcutcut! On the way

out we can find sweet places to steal nests . . . Cutcutcut! . . . I am so glad I am not sitting this heavenly

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 talenot a bad one if you can translate the dialect:

'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

'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

'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'

"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

"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.

"But it dudn't do as aw expected. Aw expected as it 'ud sit deawn ageean an' lay another.

"But it just gi'e one wonderin' sooart o' chuck, an then, after a long stare reawnd th' hencoyt, 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

"Varra like it laid away in a spot wheear it could hev summat to luk at when it hed done wark for th' day.

"Sooa aw lost mi best layer through mi actin', an' aw've never invented owt sen."

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 peafowl 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 selfconscious 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 superarrogant 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

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 cockadoodledoo, which, being uttered

most frequently at dawn, is the most illtimed 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 selfconsciousness, his endless parading of himself up and down in a

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

There is nothing on earth so feminine as a hennot 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

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 oaktree in one corner, with a tall ladder leaning against its trunk, and a capital

roostingplace 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 "womenfolks" mount that

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

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 toofamiliar 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 petite comedie humaine, 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, wellworn

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

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 businesslike and marblehearted Phoebe has taken them away and given

them to another hen who has only seven. Two mothers cannot be wasted on these small familiesit 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

We have had a very busy evening, beginning with the rats' supper delicate sandwiches of

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

"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

"Why don't you take them away from her and give them back to the first hen, who did most of the work?" I

"Like as not she wouldn't tyke them now," said Phoebe, as she lifted the hen off the broken eggshells 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

Going back to the old nestingbox, 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,

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 poultrymaid, 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 thirtyfive in full

chase! Small wonder I thought it more dignified to retire than to compete, and so I did.

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 positionit would be just like her!

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 theyafter 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.

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

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 ratholes 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 regime of perfect order and system instituted by Me

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

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.

"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?"

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 selfgovernment, 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

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,

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 in flagrante delicto. 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 newlylaid

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. The Young Poultry Keeper's Friend 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.

We have had a sad scene tonight. A chick has been ailing all day, and when we shut up the brood we found

Phoebe put him on the ground while she busied herself about the coop. The other chicks came out and walked

"Poor little chap!" said Phoebe. "E's never 'ad a mother! 'E was an incubytor chicken, and wherever I took 'im

I put the fluffy body into a hole in the turf, and strewed a handful of grass over him. "Sad little epitaph!" I

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,

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 beaconlight 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 nightlight 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 today, 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 . . .

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

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.

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 allround character in the flock, for dignity of mien and

largeminded commonsense. 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 redrimmed philosophic eyes he regards his own breast and dreams of

happier days. When the others walk into the country twentythree 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.

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

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 readythe 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

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 nightsin with the

newlyhatched chicks, the halfgrown 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?

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 applesauce, as the yellow duckling or the idiot

Mrs. Heaven has just called me into her sittingroom, 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

"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

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,

timeserving, pusillanimous goose. I believe she laid the egg that produced the idiot gosling!

Here follows the true story of Sir Muscovy Drake, the Lady Blanche, and Miss Malardina Crippletoes.

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.

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

One day it happened that the two ducksSir Muscovy and Lady Blanchehad come up from the water

before the others, and having taken their repast were sitting together under the shade of a flowering

currantbush, 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

When she had eaten enough Lady Blanche joined them, and they went down the hill together to their

favourite swimmingplace. 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

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 wouldbe 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 duckpond; 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.

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 poultryyard 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

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

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

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

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 rifleshooting, there is fortunetelling, 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

I never purchased more radiant goodwill for less money, but the combined effect of the wellboiled tea and

the boiling orchestrion produced many village nightmares, so the mothers told me at chapel next morning.

I have many friends in Barbury Green, and often have a pleasant chat with the draper, and the watchmaker,

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 postoffice (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

It was a dear little scene, and I, a passerby, 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 onethe wind's

always in the west when you have any of these wonderworkers in your neighbourhood.

I have talks too, sometimes, with the old parson, who lives in a quaint house with "Parva Domus Magna

Quies" cut into the stone over the doorway. He is not a preaching parson, but a retired one, almost the nicest

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 hollyhocks 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.

"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

"It was just before Sundayschool. 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

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 magiclantern shows, but here we rest our tired eyes

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.

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!)

As I was sitting under the trees waiting for Phoebe to finish some shopping in the village, a travelling

poultrydealer 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 cherryred 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,

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 poultryraisers that green

young hog bones fresh cut in the Banner Bone Breaker (of which he was the agent) possessed a nutritive

Phoebe was distinctly nervous when I rose to say a few words on poultry breeding, announcing as my topic

"Mothers, Stepmothers, FosterMothers, 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

Just as we were passing out the door we paused to hear the report of a special committee whose chairman

WHEREAS,It has pleased the Almighty to remove from our midst our greatest Rose Comb Buff

RESOLVED,That the next edition of our catalogue contain an illustrated memorial page in his honour and

RESOLVED,That the Rose Comb Buff Orpington Club extend to the bereaved family their heartfelt

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 loverlike, 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

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

Workmen were trudging along with their luncheonbaskets 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.

Phoebe asked me if the people I had left behind at the Hydropathic were my relatives.

"Some of them are of remote consanguinity," I responded evasively, and the next question was hushed upon

"They are obeying my wish to be let alone, there's no doubt of that," I was thinking. "For my part, I like a

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 postoffice yesterday that I wore to the Hen Conference today, 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

"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

"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

"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!" . . .

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

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

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 balladfragments 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

There is another beautiful song that I follow whenever I hear it, straining my eyes to the treetops, yet never

He is called the poetlaureate 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 birdlore without knowing it.

At all events, describe to him the cock of a head, the glance of an eye, the tipup 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

I bought a doll's table and china teaset in Buffington. We put it under an appletree 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 teatime we sprinkle seeds and crumbs

in the dishes, water in the tiny cups, drop a cherry in each of the fruitplates, and have a the chantant for the

birdies. We sometimes invite an "invaleed" duckling, or one of the baby rabbits, or the peacock, in which

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

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.

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

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

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 highminded 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

I have been studying The Young Poultry Keeper's Friend 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 poultryyard 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

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 poultryyard 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 selfdefence.

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 tobaccopills, 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

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.

When discovered, he was seated in front of the wirecovered "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

Several goslings leaned languidly against the netting, or supported themselves by the edge of the waterdish,

It was Mrs. Heaven who caught her son redhanded, 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 halfhourlong 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.

All but one of the goslings lived, like thousands of others who recover in spite of the doctors, but the Square

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,

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

I prescribed for Albert Edward, who was as uncomfortable and feverish as any little sinner in the county of

She did not think it at all proper, and said that, notwithstanding my cotton gown and sailor hat, I looked quite,

"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."

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.

Prices in dressed poultry were fluctuating, but I had a copy of The Trade Review, 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

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,

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 illfortune 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

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 goosequill, on another, a glossy

tailfeather, 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 YOU 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

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.

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 selfrespect to shriek recriminations into a

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

Bailiff's Daughter."The crops certainly need rain, and the feed is becoming scarce."

Bailiff's Daughter."Oh no! that is a promotion to look forward to; I am now only a Goose Girl."

True Love."Indeed! If I wished to be severe I might remark: that I am sure you have found at last your true

Bailiff's Daughter."It was certainly through no desire to please YOU that I chose it."

Bailiff's Daughter."Oh no! I live many miles distant, over an extremely rough road. And you?"

Bailiff's Daughter (yawning purposely)."That is strange; the hotels are usually so full at this season. Why

True Love."As a matter of fact, only one left. "Full" and "empty" are purely relative terms. I call a hotel

Bailiff's Daughter (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

True Love."In the road? Perhaps; but if I am a man I shall follow you; they always do, I notice. What are

Bailiff's Daughter."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

Bailiff's Daughter."Oh, well! doubtless I shall be able to dispose of them on my way home, though times is

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

Bailiff's Daughter (modestly)."Thanks for your trade, sir, rather ungraciously bestowed, and we 'opes for a

True Love (leaning on the wheel of the trap)."Let us stop this nonsense. What did you hope to gain by

True Love."You knew you couldn't prevent my offering myself to you sometime or other."

True Love."That, on the contrary, you are wilfully withholding from me the joy of acceptance."

True Love."You couldn't succeed because you were superlatively desirable and precious already; but you

Bailiff's Daughter."Is it? Then it ought always to be labelled "dangerous," oughtn't it? But who thought of

Bailiff's Daughter."According to your theory, if you apply a match to Love it is likely to 'go off.'"

True Love."I wish you would try it on mine and await the result. Come now, you'll have to marry

True Love (morosely)."You're the sort of woman men won't leave in undisturbed spinsterhood; they'll

Bailiff's Daughter."Oh, I don't mind the badgering of a number of men; it's rather nice. It's the one badger I

True Love (impatiently)."That's just the perversity of things. I could put a stop to the protestations of the

many; I should like nothing betterbut the pertinacity of the one! Ah, well! I can't drop that without putting

Bailiff's Daughter (politely)."I shouldn't think of suggesting anything so extreme."

True Love (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

Bailiff's Daughter (yielding a point)."I'll put that boldly to the proof. Say you don't love me!"

True Love (seizing his advantage)."I don't! It's imbecile and besotted devotion! Tell me, when may I come

True Love."I know it; she told me where to find you,Thornycroft is the seventh poultryfarm 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 tomorrow; 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 lakePhoebe 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 motherofpearl. You shall be

the Goose Girl and I will be the Swan Herdsimply to be near youfor 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

Bailiffs Daughter (hedging)."I shall be rather busy; the Crossed Minorca hen comes off tomorrow."

True Love."Oh, never mind! I'll take her off tonight when I escort you to the farm; then she'll get a day's

Bailiff's Daughter."And rob fourteen prospective chicks of a mother; nay, lose the chicks themselves?

True Love."So long as you are a Goose Girl, does it make any difference whose you are? Is it any more

Bailiff's Daughter."Ah! but in one case the term of service is limited; in the other, permanent."

True Love."But in the one case you are the slave of the employer, in the other the employer of the slave.

Bailiff's Daughter."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

True Love (after a wellspent interval)."Tomorrow, 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