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The Diary of a Goose Girl

The Diary of a Goose

Girl
by Kate Douglas Wiggin

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The Diary of a Goose Girl

THORNYCROFT FARM, near

Barbury Green, July 1, 190-.
In alluding to myself as a Goose Girl, I am using only the most modest
of my titles; for I am also a poultry-maid, a tender of Belgian hares and
rabbits, and a shepherdess; but I particularly fancy the role of Goose Girl,
because it recalls the German fairy tales of my early youth, when I always
yearned, but never hoped, to be precisely what I now am.
As I was jolting along these charming Sussex roads the other day, a fat
buff pony and a tippy cart being my manner of progression, I chanced
upon the village of Barbury Green.
One glance was enough for any woman, who, having eyes to see,
could see with them; but I made assurance doubly sure by driving about a
little, struggling to conceal my new-born passion from the stable- boy who
was my escort. Then, it being high noon of a cloudless day, I descended
from the trap and said to the astonished yokel: "You may go back to the
Hydropathic; I am spending a month or two here. Wait a moment--I'll
send a message, please!"
I then scribbled a word or two to those having me in custody.
"I am very tired of people," the note ran, "and want to rest myself by
living a while with things. Address me (if you must) at Barbury Green
post-office, or at all events send me a box of simple clothing there--
nothing but shirts and skirts, please. I cannot forget that I am only
twenty miles from Oxenbridge (though it might be one hundred and
twenty, which is the reason I adore it), but I rely upon you to keep an
honourable distance yourselves, and not to divulge my place of retreat to
others, especially to--you know whom! Do not pursue me. I will never
be taken alive!"
Having cut, thus, the cable that bound me to civilisation, and having
seen the buff pony and the dazed yokel disappear in a cloud of dust, I
looked about me with what Stevenson calls a "fine, dizzy, muddle-headed
joy," the joy of a successful rebel or a liberated serf. Plenty of money in

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The Diary of a Goose Girl

my purse--that was unromantic, of course, but it simplified matters--and

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 railroads.
The Green is in the very centre of Barbury village, and all civic,
political, family, and social life converges there, just at the public duck-
pond--a wee, sleepy lake with a slope of grass-covered stones by which
the ducks descend for their swim.
The houses are set about the Green like those in a toy village. They are
of old brick, with crumpled, up-and-down roofs of deep- toned red, and
tufts of stonecrop growing from the eaves. Diamond- paned windows,
half open, admit the sweet summer air; and as for the gardens in front, it
would seem as if the inhabitants had nothing to do but work in them, there
is such a riotous profusion of colour and bloom. To add to the effect,
there are always pots of flowers hanging from the trees, blue flax and
yellow myrtle; and cages of Java sparrows and canaries singing joyously,
as well they may in such a paradise.
The shops are idyllic, too, as if Nature had seized even the man of
trade and made him subservient to her designs. The general draper's,
where I fitted myself out for a day or two quite easily, is set back in a
tangle of poppies and sweet peas, Madonna lilies and Canterbury bells.
The shop itself has a gay awning, and what do you think the draper has
suspended from it, just as a picturesque suggestion to the passer-by?
Suggestion I call it, because I should blush to use the word advertisement
in describing anything so dainty and decorative. Well, then, garlands of
shoes, if you please! Baby bootlets of bronze; tiny ankle-ties in yellow,
blue, and scarlet kid; glossy patent-leather pumps shining in the sun, with
festoons of slippers at the corners, flowery slippers in imitation Berlin

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The Diary of a Goose Girl

wool-work. If you make this picture in your mind's-eye, just add a

window above the awning, and over the fringe of marigolds in the
window-box put the draper's wife dancing a rosy-cheeked baby. Alas!
my words are only black and white, I fear, and this picture needs a palette
drenched in primary colours.
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 entrance-door
of the shop is a great round clock set in a green frame of clustering vine.
The hands pointed to one when I passed the watchmaker's garden with its
thicket of fragrant lavender and its murmuring bees; so I went in to the
sign of the "Strong i' the Arm" for some cold luncheon, determining to
patronise "The Running Footman" at the very next opportunity. Neither
of these inns is starred by Baedeker, and this fact adds the last touch of
enchantment to the picture.
The landlady at the "Strong i' the Arm" stabbed me in the heart by
telling me that there were no apartments to let in the village, and that she
had no private sitting-room in the inn; but she speedily healed the wound
by saying that I might be accommodated at one of the farm-houses in the
vicinity. Did I object to a farm-'ouse? Then she could cheerfully
recommend the Evan's farm, only 'alf a mile away. She 'ad understood
from Miss Phoebe Evan, who sold her poultry, that they would take one
lady lodger if she didn't wish much waiting upon.
In my present mood I was in search of the strenuous life, and eager to
wait, rather than to be waited upon; so I walked along the edge of the
Green, wishing that some mentally unbalanced householder would take a
sudden fancy to me and ask me to come in and lodge awhile. I suppose
these families live under their roofs of peach- blow tiles, in the midst of
their blooming gardens, for a guinea a week or thereabouts; yet if they
"undertook" me (to use their own phrase), the bill for my humble meals
and bed would be at least double that. I don't know that I blame them;
one should have proper compensation for admitting a world-stained lodger

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The Diary of a Goose Girl

into such an Eden.

When I was searching for rooms a week ago, I chanced upon a pretty
cottage where the woman had sometimes let apartments. She showed me
the premises and asked me if I would mind taking my meals in her own
dining-room, where I could be served privately at certain hours: and,
since she had but the one sitting-room, would I allow her to go on using it
occasionally? also, if I had no special preference, would I take the second-
sized bedroom and leave her in possession of the largest one, which
permitted her to have the baby's crib by her bedside? She thought I
should be quite as comfortable, and it was her opinion that in making
arrangements with lodgers, it was a good plan not to "bryke up the 'ome
any more than was necessary."
"Bryke up the 'ome!" That is seemingly the malignant purpose with
which I entered Barbury Green.

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The Diary of a Goose Girl

CHAPTER II

July 4th.
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 self-saturated person who
would never forgive the insult should she receive any lower place.
She welcomed me with the statement: "We do not take lodgers here,
nor boarders; no lodgers, nor boarders, but we do occasionally admit
paying guests, those who look as if they would appreciate the quietude of
the plyce and be willing as you might say to remunerate according."
I did not mind at this particular juncture what I was called, so long as
the epithet was comparatively unobjectionable, so I am a paying guest,
therefore, and I expect to pay handsomely for the handsome appellation.
Mrs. Heaven is short and fat; she fills her dress as a pin-cushion fills its
cover; she wears a cap and apron, and she is so full of platitudes that she
would have burst had I not appeared as a providential outlet for them.
Her accent is not of the farm, but of the town, and smacks wholly of the
marts of trade. She is repetitious, too, as well as platitudinous. "I 'ope
if there's anythink you require you will let us know, let us know," she says
several times each day; and whenever she enters my sitting-room she
prefaces her conversation with the remark: "I trust you are finding it
quiet here, miss? It's the quietude of the plyce that is its charm, yes, the
quietude. And yet" (she dribbles on) "it wears on a body after a while,
miss. I often go into Woodmucket to visit one of my sons just for the
noise, simply for the noise, miss, for nothink else in the world but the
noise. There's nothink like noise for soothing nerves that is worn
threadbare with the quietude, miss, or at least that's my experience; and
yet to a strynger the quietude of the plyce is its charm, undoubtedly its
chief charm; and that is what our paying guests always say, although our
charges are somewhat higher than other plyces. If there's anythink you
require, miss, I 'ope you'll mention it. There is not a commodious
assortment in Barbury Green, but we can always send the pony to
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The Diary of a Goose Girl

Woodmucket in case of urgency. Our paying guest last summer was a Mrs.
Pollock, and she was by way of having sudden fancies. Young and
unmarried though you are, miss, I think you will tyke my meaning without
my speaking plyner? Well, at six o'clock of a rainy afternoon, she was
seized with an unaccountable desire for vegetable marrows, and Mr.
'Eaven put the pony in the cart and went to Woodmucket for them, which
is a great advantage to be so near a town and yet 'ave the quietude."
Mr. Heaven is merged, like Mr. Jellyby, in the more shining qualities
of his wife. A line of description is too long for him. Indeed, I can think
of no single word brief enough, at least in English. The Latin "nil" will
do, since no language is rich in words of less than three letters. He is
nice, kind, bald, timid, thin, and so colourless that he can scarcely be
discerned save in a strong light. When Mrs. Heaven goes out into the
orchard in search of him, I can hardly help calling from my window, "Bear
a trifle to the right, Mrs. Heaven--now to the left--just in front of you now-
- if you put out your hands you will touch him."
Phoebe, aged seventeen, is the daughter of the house. She is virtuous,
industrious, conscientious, and singularly destitute of physical charm.
She is more than plain; she looks as if she had been planned without any
definite purpose in view, made of the wrong materials, been badly put
together, and never properly finished off; but "plain" after all is a relative
word. Many a plain girl has been married for her beauty; and now and
then a beauty, falling under a cold eye, has been thought plain.
Phoebe has her compensations, for she is beloved by, and reciprocates
the passion of, the Woodmancote carrier, Woodmucket being the English
manner of pronouncing the place of his abode. If he "carries" as
energetically for the great public as he fetches for Phoebe, then he must be
a rising and a prosperous man. He brings her daily, wild strawberries,
cherries, birds' nests, peacock feathers, sea-shells, green hazel-nuts,
samples of hens' food, or bouquets of wilted field flowers tied together
tightly and held with a large, moist, loving hand. He has fine curly hair
of sandy hue, which forms an aureole on his brow, and a reddish beard,
which makes another inverted aureole to match, round his chin. One
cannot look at him, especially when the sun shines through him, without

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The Diary of a Goose Girl

thinking how lovely he would be if stuffed and set on wheels, with a little
string to drag him about.
Phoebe confided to me that she was on the eve of loving the postman
when the carrier came across her horizon.
"It doesn't do to be too hysty, does it, miss?" she asked me as we were
weeding the onion bed. "I was to give the postman his answer on the
Monday night, and it was on the Monday morning that Mr. Gladwish
made his first trip here as carrier. I may say I never wyvered from that
moment, and no more did he. When I think how near I came to
promising the postman it gives me a turn." (I can understand that, for I
once met the man I nearly promised years before to marry, and we both
experienced such a sense of relief at being free instead of bound that we
came near falling in love for sheer joy.)
The last and most important member of the household is the Square
Baby. His name is Albert Edward, and he is really five years old and no
baby at all; but his appearance on this planet was in the nature of a
complete surprise to all parties concerned, and he is spoiled accordingly.
He has a square head and jaw, square shoulders, square hands and feet.
He is red and white and solid and stolid and slow-witted, as the young of
his class commonly are, and will make a bulwark of the nation in course
of time, I should think; for England has to produce a few thousand such
square babies every year for use in the colonies and in the standing army.
Albert Edward has already a military gait, and when he has acquired a
habit of obedience at all comparable with his power of command, he will
be able to take up the white man's burden with distinguished success.
Meantime I can never look at him without marvelling how the English
climate can transmute bacon and eggs, tea and the solid household loaf
into such radiant roses and lilies as bloom upon his cheeks and lips.

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The Diary of a Goose Girl

CHAPTER III

July 8th.
Thornycroft is by way of being a small poultry farm.
In reaching it from Barbury Green, you take the first left-hand 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? -
My grandmother had a very fine farm 'Way down in the fields of
Older. With a cluck-cluck here, And a cluck-cluck there, Here and there a
cluck-cluck, Cluck-cluck here and there, Down in the fields at Older.
It goes on for ever by the simple subterfuge of changing a few words
in each verse.
My grandmother had a very fine farm 'Way down in the fields of
Older. With a quack-quack here, And a quack-quack there, Here and there
a quack-quack, Quack-quack here and there, Down in the fields at Older.
This is followed by the gobble-gobble, moo-moo, baa-baa, etc., as
long as the laureate's imagination and the infant's breath hold good. The
tune is pretty, and I do not know, or did not, when I was young, a more
fascinating lyric.
Thornycroft House must have belonged to a country gentleman once
upon a time, or to more than one; men who built on a bit here and there
once in a hundred years, until finally we have this charmingly irregular
and dilapidated whole. You go up three steps into Mrs. Heaven's room,
down two into mine, while Phoebe's is up in a sort of turret with long,
narrow lattices opening into the creepers. There are crooked little stair-
cases, passages that branch off into other passages and lead nowhere in
particular; I can't think of a better house in which to play hide and seek on
a wet day. In front, what was once, doubtless, a green, is cut up into
greens; to wit, a vegetable garden, where the onions, turnips, and potatoes
grow cosily up to the very door-sill; the utilitarian aspect of it all being
varied by some scarlet-runners and a scattering of poppies on either side of
the path.
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The Belgian hares have their habitation in a corner fifty feet distant;
one large enclosure for poultry lies just outside the sweetbrier hedge; the
others, with all the houses and coops, are in the meadow at the back,
where also our tumbler pigeons are kept.
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
same operation.
A Goose Girl, like a poet, is sometimes born, sometimes otherwise. I
am of the born variety. No training was necessary; I put my head on my
pillow as a complicated product of modern civilisation on a Tuesday night,
and on a Wednesday morning I awoke as a Goose Girl.
My destiny slumbered during the day, but at eight o'clock I heard a
terrific squawking in the direction of the duck-ponds, and, aimlessly
drifting in that direction, I came upon Phoebe trying to induce ducks and
drakes, geese and ganders, to retire for the night. They have to be driven
into enclosures behind fences of wire netting, fastened into little rat-proof
boxes, or shut into separate coops, so as to be safe from their natural
enemies, the rats and foxes; which, obeying, I suppose, the law of supply
and demand, abound in this neighbourhood. The old ganders are allowed
their liberty, being of such age, discretion, sagacity, and pugnacity that
they can be trusted to fight their own battles.
The intelligence of hens, though modest, is of such an order that it
prompts them to go to bed at a virtuous hour of their own accord; but
ducks and geese have to be materially assisted, or I believe they would
roam till morning. Never did small boy detest and resist being carried off
to his nursery as these dullards, young and old, detest and resist being
driven to theirs. Whether they suffer from insomnia, or nightmare, or
whether they simply prefer the sweet air of liberty (and death) to the odour
of captivity and the coop, I have no means of knowing.
Phoebe stood by one of the duck-ponds, a long pole in her hand, and a

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helpless expression in that doughlike countenance of hers, where aimless

contours and features unite to make a kind of facial blur. (What does the
carrier see in it?) The pole was not long enough to reach the ducks, and
Phoebe's method lacked spirit and adroitness, so that it was natural,
perhaps, that they refused to leave the water, the evening being warm, with
an uncommon fine sunset.
I saw the situation at once and ran to meet it with a glow of interest
and anticipation. If there is anything in the world I enjoy, it is making
somebody do something that he doesn't want to do; and if, when victory
perches upon my banner, the somebody can be brought to say that he
ought to have done it without my making him, that adds the unforgettable
touch to pleasure, though seldom, alas! does it happen. Then ensued the
delightful and stimulating hour that has now become a feature of the day;
an hour in which the remembrance of the table-d'hote dinner at the Hydro,
going on at identically the same time, only stirs me to a keener joy and
gratitude.
The ducks swim round in circles, hide under the willows, and attempt
to creep into the rat-holes in the banks, a stupidity so crass that it merits
instant death, which it somehow always escapes. Then they come out in
couples and waddle under the wrong fence into the lower meadow, fly
madly under the tool-house, pitch blindly in with the sitting hens, and out
again in short order, all the time quacking and squawking, honking and
hissing like a bewildered orchestra. By dint of splashing the water with
poles, throwing pebbles, beating the shrubs at the pond's edges, "shooing"
frantically with our skirts, crawling beneath bars to head them off, and
prodding them from under bushes to urge them on, we finally get the older
ones out of the water and the younger ones into some sort of relation to
their various retreats; but, owing to their lack of geography, hatred of
home, and general recalcitrancy, they none of them turn up in the right
place and have to be sorted out. We uncover the top of the little house, or
the enclosure as it may be, or reach in at the door, and, seizing the
struggling victim, drag him forth and take him where he should have had
the wit to go in the first instance. The weak ones get in with the strong
and are in danger of being trampled; two May goslings that look almost

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full-grown have run into a house with a brood of ducklings a week old.
There are twenty-seven crowded into one coop, five in another, nineteen in
another; the gosling with one leg has to come out, and the duckling
threatened with the gapes; their place is with the "invaleeds," as Phoebe
calls them, but they never learn the location of the hospital, nor have the
slightest scruple about spreading contagious diseases.
Finally, when we have separated and sorted exhaustively, an operation
in which Phoebe shows a delicacy of discrimination and a fearlessness of
attack amounting to genius, we count the entire number and find several
missing. Searching for their animate or inanimate bodies, we "scoop"
one from under the tool-house, chance upon two more who are being
harried and pecked by the big geese in the lower meadow, and discover
one sailing by himself in solitary splendour in the middle of the deserted
pond, a look of evil triumph in his bead-like eye. Still we lack one young
duckling, and he at length is found dead by the hedge. A rat has
evidently seized him and choked him at a single throttle, but in such haste
that he has not had time to carry away the tiny body.
"Poor think!" says Phoebe tearfully; "it looks as if it was 'it with some
kind of a wepping. I don't know whatever to do with the rats, they're
gettin' that fearocious!"
Before I was admitted into daily contact with the living goose (my
previous intercourse with him having been carried on when gravy and
stuffing obscured his true personality), I thought him a very Dreyfus
among fowls, a sorely slandered bird, to whom justice had never been
done; for even the gentle Darwin is hard upon him. My opinion is
undergoing some slight modifications, but I withhold judgment at present,
hoping that some of the follies, faults, vagaries, and limitations that I
observe in Phoebe's geese may be due to Phoebe's educational methods,
which were, before my advent, those of the darkest ages.

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CHAPTER IV

July 9th.
By the time the ducks and geese are incarcerated for the night, the
reasonable, sensible, practical-minded hens--especially those whose
mentality is increased and whose virtue is heightened by the
responsibilities of motherhood--have gone into their own particular rat-
proof boxes, where they are waiting in a semi-somnolent state to have the
wire doors closed, the bricks set against them, and the bits of sacking
flung over the tops to keep out the draught. We have a great many young
families, both ducklings and chicks, but we have no duck mothers at
present. The variety of bird which Phoebe seems to have bred during the
past year may be called the New Duck, with certain radical ideas about
woman's sphere. What will happen to Thornycroft if we develop a New
Hen and a New Cow, my imagination fails to conceive. There does not
seem to be the slightest danger for the moment, however, and our hens lay
and sit and sit and lay as if laying and sitting were the twin purposes of
life.
The nature of the hen seems to broaden with the duties of maternity,
but I think myself that we presume a little upon her amiability and natural
motherliness. It is one thing to desire a family of one's own, to lay eggs
with that idea in view, to sit upon them three long weeks and hatch out and
bring up a nice brood of chicks. It must be quite another to have one's
eggs abstracted day by day and eaten by a callous public, the nest filled
with deceitful substitutes, and at the end of a dull and weary period of
hatching to bring into the world another person's children-- children, too,
of the wrong size, the wrong kind of bills and feet, and, still more subtle
grievance, the wrong kind of instincts, leading them to a dangerous
aquatic career, one which the mother may not enter to guide, guard, and
teach; one on the brink of which she must ever stand, uttering dryshod
warnings which are never heeded. They grow used to this strange order
of things after a bit, it is true, and are less anxious and excited. When the
duck- brood returns safely again and again from what the hen-mother
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thinks will prove a watery grave, she becomes accustomed to the situation,
I suppose. I find that at night she stands by the pond for what she
considers a decent, self-respecting length of time, calling the ducklings out
of the water; then, if they refuse to come, the mother goes off to bed and
leaves them to Providence, or Phoebe.
The brown hen that we have named Cornelia is the best mother, the
one who waits longest and most patiently for the web-footed Gracchi to
finish their swim.
When a chick is taken out of the incubytor (as Phoebe calls it) and
refused by all the other hens, Cornelia generally accepts it, though she had
twelve of her own when we began using her as an orphan asylum.
"Wings are made to stretch," she seems to say cheerfully, and with a kind
glance of her round eye she welcomes the wanderer and the outcast. She
even tended for a time the offspring of an absent-minded, light-headed
pheasant who flew over a four-foot wall and left her young behind her to
starve; it was not a New Pheasant, either; for the most conservative and
old- fashioned of her tribe occasionally commits domestic solecisms of
this sort.
There is no telling when, where, or how the maternal instinct will
assert itself. Among our Thornycroft cats is a certain Mrs. Greyskin.
She had not been seen for many days, and Mrs. Heaven concluded that she
had hidden herself somewhere with a family of kittens; but as the supply
of that article with us more than equals the demand, we had not searched
for her with especial zeal.
The other day Mrs. Greyskin appeared at the dairy door, and when she
had been fed Phoebe and I followed her stealthily, from a distance. She
walked slowly about as if her mind were quite free from harassing care,
and finally approached a deserted cow-house where there was a great
mound of straw. At this moment she caught sight of us and turned in
another direction to throw us off the scent. We persevered in our
intention of going into her probable retreat, and were cautiously looking
for some sign of life in the haymow, when we heard a soft cackle and a
ruffling of plumage. Coming closer to the sound we saw a black hen
brooding a nest, her bright bead eyes turning nervously from side to side;

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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 co-mothers. We watch them every day now, through a
window in the roof. Mother Greyskin visits the kittens frequently, lies
down beside the home nest, and gives them their dinner. While this is
going on Mother Blackwing goes modestly away for a bite, a sup, and a
little exercise, returning to the kittens when the cat leaves them. It is
pretty to see her settle down over the four, fat, furry dumplings, and they
seem to know no difference in warmth or comfort, whichever mother is
brooding them; while, as their eyes have been open for a week, it can no
longer be called a blind error on their part.
When we have closed all our small hen-nurseries for the night, there is
still the large house inhabited by the thirty-two full- grown chickens which
Phoebe calls the broilers. I cannot endure the term, and will not use it.
"Now for the April chicks," I say every evening.
"Do you mean the broilers?" asks Phoebe.
"I mean the big April chicks," say I.
"Yes, them are the broilers," says she.
But is it not disagreeable enough to be a broiler when one's time comes,
without having the gridiron waved in one's face for weeks beforehand?
The April chicks are all lively and desirous of seeing the world as
thoroughly as possible before going to roost or broil. As a general thing,
we find in the large house sixteen young fowls of the contemplative,
flavourless, resigned-to-the-inevitable variety; three more (the same three
every night) perch on the roof and are driven down; four (always the same
four) cling to the edge of the open door, waiting to fly off, but not in, when

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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 sentry-work. I stroll to a safe distance, and, sitting
on one of the rat-proof boxes, watch the bushes with an eagle eye. Five
minutes go by, ten, fifteen; and then out steps the white cock, stealthily
tiptoeing toward the home into which he refused to go at our instigation.
In a moment out creeps the obstinate little beast of a black pullet from the
opposite clump. The wayward pair meet at their own door, which I have
left open a few inches. When all is still I walk gently down the field, and,
warned by previous experiences, approach the house from behind. I
draw the door to softly and quickly; but not so quickly that the evil-
minded and suspicious black pullet hasn't time to spring out, with a make-
believe squawk of fright--that induces three other blameless chickens to
fly down from their perches and set the whole flock in a flutter. Then I
fall from grace and call her a Broiler; and when, after some minutes of hot
pursuit, I catch her by falling over her in the corner by the goose-pen, I
address her as a fat, juicy Broiler with parsley butter and a bit of bacon.

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CHAPTER V

July 10th.
At ten thirty or so in the morning the cackling begins. I wonder
exactly what it means! Have the forest-lovers who listen so respectfully
to, and interpret so exquisitely, the notes of birds-- have none of them
made psychological investigations of the hen cackle? Can it be simple
elation? One could believe that of the first few eggs, but a hen who has
laid two or three hundred can hardly feel the same exuberant pride and joy
daily. Can it be the excitement incident to successful achievement?
Hardly, because the task is so extremely simple. Eggs are more or less
alike; a little larger or smaller, a trifle whiter or browner; and almost sure
to be quite right as to details; that is, the big end never gets confused with
the little end, they are always ovoid and never spherical, and the yolk is
always inside of the white. As for a soft-shelled egg, it is so rare an
occurrence that the fear of laying one could not set the whole race of hens
in a panic; so there really cannot be any intellectual or emotional agitation
in producing a thing that might be made by a machine. Can it be simply
"fussiness"; since the people who have the least to do commonly make the
most flutter about doing it?
Perhaps it is merely conversation. "Cut-cut-cut-cut-cut-DAHcut! . . .
I have finished my strictly fresh egg, have you laid yours? Make haste,
then, for the cock has found a gap in the wire-fence and wants us to
wander in the strawberry-bed. . . . Cut-cut-cut- cut-cut-DAHcut . . . Every
moment is precious, for the Goose Girl will find us, when she gathers the
strawberries for her luncheon . . . Cut-cut-cut-cut! On the way out we
can find sweet places to steal nests . . . Cut-cut-cut! . . . I am so glad I am
not sitting this heavenly morning; it IS a dull life.
A Lancashire poultry-man 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
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talking comfortably about laying and cackling and kindred matters when
he took his pipe from his mouth and told us the following tale--not a bad
one if you can translate the dialect:-
'Aw were once towd as, if yo' could only get th' hen's egg away afooar
she hed sin it, th' hen 'ud think it hed med a mistek an' sit deawn ageean
an' lay another.
'An' it seemed to me it were a varra sensible way o' lukkin' at it. Sooa
aw set to wark to mek a nest as 'ud tek a rise eawt o' th' hens. An' aw dud
it too. Aw med a nest wi' a fause bottom, th' idea bein' as when a hen hed
laid, th' egg 'ud drop through into a box underneyth.
'Aw felt varra preawd o' that nest, too, aw con tell yo', an' aw
remember aw felt quite excited when aw see an awd black Minorca, th'
best layer as aw hed, gooa an' settle hersel deawn i' th' nest an' get ready
for wark. Th' hen seemed quite comfortable enough, aw were glad to see,
an' geet through th' operation beawt ony seemin' trouble.
"Well, aw darsay yo' know heaw a hen carries on as soon as it's laid a
egg. It starts "chuckin'" away like a showman's racket, an' after tekkin' a
good Ink at th' egg to see whether it's a big 'un or a little 'un, gooas eawt
an' tells all t'other hens abeawt it.
"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.
"It woked reawnd th' nest as if it couldn't believe its own eyes.
"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' hen-coyt, it woked eawt, as mad a hen as aw've ever sin.
Aw fun' eawt after, what th' long stare meant. It were tekkin' farewell!
For if yo'll believe me that hen never laid another egg i' ony o' my nests.
"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

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owt sen."

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CHAPTER VI

One learns to be modest by living on a poultry farm, for there are

constant expositions of the most deplorable vanity among the cocks. We
have a couple of pea-fowl who certainly are an addition to the landscape,
as they step mincingly along the square of turf we dignify by the name of
lawn. The head of the house has a most languid and self-conscious strut,
and his microscopic mind is fixed entirely on his splendid trailing tail. If
I could only master his language sufficiently to tell him how hideously
ugly the back view of this gorgeous fan is, when he spreads it for the
edification of the observer in front of him, he would of course retort that
there is a "congregation side" to everything, but I should at least force him
into a defence of his tail and a confession of its limitations. This would be
new and unpleasant, I fancy; and if it produced no perceptible effect upon
his super-arrogant demeanour, I might remind him that he is likely to be
used, eventually, for a feather duster, unless, indeed, the Heavens are
superstitious and prefer to throw his tail away, rather than bring ill luck
and the evil eye into the house.
The longer I study the cock, whether Black Spanish, White Leghorn,
Dorking, or the common barnyard fowl, the more intimately I am
acquainted with him, the less I am impressed with his character. He has
more pride of bearing, and less to be proud of, than any bird I know. He
is indolent, though he struts pompously over the grass as if the day were
all too short for his onerous duties. He calls the hens about him when I
throw corn from the basket, but many a time I have seen him swallow
hurriedly, and in private, some dainty titbit he has found unexpectedly.
He has no particular chivalry. He gives no special encouragement to his
hen when he becomes a prospective father, and renders little assistance
when the responsibilities become actualities. His only personal message
or contribution to the world is his raucous cock-a-doodle-doo, which,
being uttered most frequently at dawn, is the most ill-timed and offensive
of all musical notes. It is so unnecessary too, as if the day didn't come
soon enough without his warning; but I suppose he is anxious to waken his
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hens and get them at their daily task, and so he disturbs the entire
community. In short, I dislike him; his swagger, his autocratic strut, his
greed, his irritating self-consciousness, his endless parading of himself up
and down in a procession of one.
Of course his character is largely the result of polygamy. His
weaknesses are only what might be expected; and as for the hens, I have
considerable respect for the patience, sobriety, and dignity with which they
endure an institution particularly offensive to all women. In their case
they do not even have the sustaining thought of its being an article of
religion, so they are to be complimented the more.
There is nothing on earth so feminine as a hen--not womanly, simply
feminine. Those men of insight who write the Woman's Page in the
Sunday newspapers study hens more than women, I sometimes think; at
any rate, their favourite types are all present on this poultry farm.
Some families of White Leghorns spend most of their time in the
rickyard, where they look extremely pretty, their slender white shapes and
red combs and wattles well set off by the background of golden hayricks.
There is a great oak-tree in one corner, with a tall ladder leaning against its
trunk, and a capital roosting-place on a long branch running at right angles
with the ladder. I try to spend a quarter of an hour there every night
before supper, just for the pleasure of seeing the feathered "women-folks"
mount that ladder.
A dozen of them surround the foot, waiting restlessly for their turn.
One little white lady flutters up on the lowest round and perches there
until she reviews the past, faces the present, and forecasts the future;
during which time she is gathering courage for the next jump. She
cackles, takes up one foot and then the other, tilts back and forth, holds up
her skirts and drops them again, cocks her head nervously to see whether
they are all staring at her below, gives half a dozen preliminary springs
which mean nothing, declares she can't and won't go up any faster, unties
her bonnet strings and pushes back her hair, pulls down her dress to cover
her toes, and finally alights on the next round, swaying to and fro until she
gains her equilibrium, when she proceeds to enact the same scene over
again.

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All this time the hens at the foot of the ladder are criticising her
methods and exclaiming at the length of time she requires in mounting;
while the cocks stroll about the yard keeping one eye on the ladder,
picking up a seed here and there, and giving a masculine sneer now and
then at the too-familiar scene. They approach the party at intervals, but
only to remark that it always makes a man laugh to see a woman go up a
ladder. The next hen, stirred to the depths by this speech, flies up
entirely too fast, loses her head, tumbles off the top round, and has to
make the ascent over again. Thus it goes on and on, this 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,
well-worn reflections upon femininity at large, I turned upon him and
revealed to him some of the characteristics of his own sex, gained from an
exhaustive study of the barnyard fowl of the masculine gender. He went
into the house discomfited, though chuckling a little at my vehemence; but
at least I have made it for ever impossible for him to watch his hens
without an occasional glance at the cocks.

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CHAPTER VII

July 12th.
O the pathos of a poultry farm! Catherine of Aragon, the black
Spanish hen that stole her nest, brought out nine chicks this morning, and
the business-like and marble-hearted Phoebe has taken them away and
given them to another hen who has only seven. Two mothers cannot be
wasted on these small families--it would not be profitable; and the older
mother, having been tried and found faithful over seven, has been given
the other nine and accepted them. What of the bereft one? She is
miserable and stands about moping and forlorn, but it is no use fighting
against the inevitable; hens' hearts must obey the same laws that govern
the rotation of crops. Catherine of Aragon feels her lot a bitter one just
now, but in time she will succumb, and lay, which is more to the point.
We have had a very busy evening, beginning with the rats' supper--
delicate sandwiches of bread-and-butter spread with Paris green.
We have a new brood of seventeen ducklings just hatched this
afternoon. When we came to the nest the yellow and brown bunches of
down and fluff were peeping out from under the hen's wings in the
prettiest fashion in the world.
"It's a noble hen!" I said to Phoebe.
"She ain't so nowble as she looks," Phoebe answered grimly. "It was
another 'en that brooded these eggs for near on three weeks and then this
big one come along with a fancy she'd like a family 'erself if she could
steal one without too much trouble; so she drove the rightful 'en off the
nest, finished up the last few days, and 'ere she is in possession of the
ducklings!"
"Why don't you take them away from her and give them back to the
first hen, who did most of the work?" I asked, with some spirit.
"Like as not she wouldn't tyke them now," said Phoebe, as she lifted
the hen off the broken egg-shells and moved her gently into a clean box,
on a bed of fresh hay. We put food and drink within reach of the family,
and very proud and handsome that highway robber of a hen looked, as she
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stretched her wings over the seventeen easily-earned ducklings.

Going back to the old nesting-box, I found one egg forgotten among
the shells. It was still warm, and I took it up to run across the field with
it to Phoebe. It was heavy, and the carrying of it was a queer sensation,
inasmuch as it squirmed and "yipped" vociferously in transit, threatening
so unmistakably to hatch in my hand that I was decidedly nervous. The
intrepid little youngster burst his shell as he touched Phoebe's apron, and
has become the strongest and handsomest of the brood.
All this tending of downy young things, this feeding and putting to bed,
this petting and nursing and rearing, is such pretty, comforting woman's
work. I am sure Phoebe will make a better wife to the carrier for having
been a poultry-maid, and though good enough for most practical purposes
when I came here, I am an infinitely better woman now. I am afraid I
was not particularly nice the last few days at the Hydro. Such a lot of
dull, prosy, inquisitive, bothering old tabbies! Aunt Margaret furnishing
imaginary symptoms enough to keep a fond husband and two trained
nurses distracted; a man I had never encouraged in my life coming to stay
in the neighbourhood and turning up daily for rejection; another man
taking rooms at the very hotel with the avowed purpose of making my life
a burden; and on the heels of both, a widow of thirty-five in full chase!
Small wonder I thought it more dignified to retire than to compete, and so
I did.
I need not, however, have cut the threads that bound me to Oxenbridge
with such particularly sharp scissors, nor given them such a vicious snap;
for, so far as I can observe, the little world of which I imagined myself the
sun continues to revolve, and, probably, about some other centre. I can
well imagine who has taken up that delightful but somewhat exposed and
responsible position--it would be just like her!
I am perfectly happy where I am; it is not that; but it seems so strange
that they can be perfectly happy without me, after all that they--after all
that was said on the subject not many days ago. Nothing turns out as one
expects. There have been no hot pursuits, no rewards offered, no bills
posted, no printed placards issued describing the beauty and charms of a
young person who supposed herself the cynosure of every eye. Heigh-ho!

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What does it matter, after all? One can always be a Goose Girl!
***
I wonder if the hen mother is quite, quite satisfied with her ducklings!
Do you suppose the fact of hatching and brooding them breaks down all
the sense of difference? Does she not sometimes reflect that if her
children were the ordinary sort, and not these changelings, she would be
enjoying certain pretty little attentions dear to a mother's heart? The
chicks would be pecking the food off her broad beak with their tiny ones,
and jumping on her back to slide down her glossy feathers. They would
be far nicer to cuddle, too, so small and graceful and light; the changelings
are a trifle solid and brawny. And personally, just as a matter of taste,
would she not prefer wee, round, glancing heads, and pointed beaks,
peeping from under her wings, to these teaspoon-shaped things larger than
her own? I wonder!
We are training fourteen large young chickens to sit on the perches in
their new house, instead of huddling together on the floor as has been their
habit, because we discover rat-holes under the wire flooring occasionally,
and fear that toes may be bitten. At nine o'clock Phoebe and I lift the
chickens one by one, and, as it were, glue them to their perches,
squawking. Three nights have we gone patiently through with this
performance, but they have not learned the lesson. The ducks and geese
are, however, greatly improved by the application of advanced educational
methods, and the regime of perfect order and system instituted by Me
begins to show results.
There is no more violent splashing and pebbling, racing, chasing,
separating. The pole, indeed, still has to be produced, but at the first
majestic wave of my hand they scuttle toward the shore. The geese turn
to the right, cross the rickyard, and go to their pen; the May ducks turn to
the left for their coops, the June ducks follow the hens to the top meadow,
and even the idiot gosling has an inspiration now and then and stumbles
on his own habitation.
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

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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 self-government, is likely,
on the whole, to be leaner, not fatter. There is nothing like obeying the
voice of conscience for taking the flesh off one's bones; and, speaking of
conscience, Phoebe, whose metaphysics are of the farm farmy, says that
hers "felt like a hunlaid hegg for dyes" after she had jilted the postman.
As to the eggs, I am sure the birds will go on laying one a day for 'tis
their nature to. Whether the product of the intelligent, conscious, logical
fowl, will be as rich in quality as that of the uneducated and barbaric bird,
I cannot say; but it ought at least to be equal to the Denmark egg eaten
now by all Londoners; and if, perchance, left uneaten, it is certain to be a
very superior wife and mother.
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
newly-laid fresh egg, yolk, white, shell, and all; to realise that you have
fed, sheltered, chased, and occasionally run in, a being possessed of no
moral sense, a being likely to set a bad example, inculcate vicious habits
among her innocent sisters, and lower the standard of an entire poultry-
yard. 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 to-night. A chick has been ailing all day,
and when we shut up the brood we found him dead in a corner.

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Phoebe put him on the ground while she busied herself about the coop.
The other chicks came out and walked about the dead one again and again,
eyeing him curiously.
"Poor little chap!" said Phoebe. "E's never 'ad a mother! 'E was an
incubytor chicken, and wherever I took 'im 'e was picked at. There was
somethink wrong with 'im; 'e never was a fyvorite!"
I put the fluffy body into a hole in the turf, and strewed a handful of
grass over him. "Sad little epitaph!" I thought. "He never was a
fyvorite!"

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CHAPTER VIII

July 13th.
I like to watch the Belgian hares eating their trifolium or pea- pods or
grass; graceful, gentle things they are, crowding about Mr. Heaven, and
standing prettily, not greedily, on their hind legs, to reach for the clover,
their delicate nostrils and whiskers all a- quiver with excitement.
As I look out of my window in the dusk I can see one of the mothers
galloping across the enclosure, the soft white lining of her tail acting as a
beacon-light to the eight infant hares following her, a quaint procession of
eight white spots in it glancing line. In the darkest night those baby
creatures could follow their mother through grass or hedge or thicket, and
she would need no warning note to show them where to flee in case of
danger. "All you have to do is to follow the white night-light that I keep
in the lining of my tail," she says, when she is giving her first maternal
lectures; and it seems a beneficent provision of Nature. To be sure, Mr.
Heaven took his gun and went out to shoot wild rabbits to-day, and I noted
that he marked them by those same self- betraying tails, as they scuttled
toward their holes or leaped toward the protecting cover of the hedge; so it
does not appear whether Nature is on the side of the farmer or the
rabbit . . .
There is as much comedy and as much tragedy in poultry life as
anywhere, and already I see rifts within lutes. We have in a cage a
French gentleman partridge married to a Hungarian lady of defective sight.
He paces back and forth in the pen restlessly, anything but content with the
domestic fireside. One can see plainly that he is devoted to the
Boulevards, and that if left to his own inclinations he would never have
chosen any spouse but a thorough Parisienne.
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
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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 all-round character in the flock, for dignity of mien and large-
minded common-sense. What is the treatment vouchsafed to this
blameless husband and father? One that puts anybody out of sorts with
virtue and its scant rewards. To begin with, the others will not allow him
to go into the pond. There is an organised cabal against it, and he sits
solitary on the bank, calm and resigned, but, naturally, a trifle hurt. His
favourite retreat is a tiny sort of island on the edge of the pool under the
alders, where with his bent head, and red-rimmed philosophic eyes he
regards his own breast and dreams of happier days. When the others
walk into the country twenty-three of them keep together, and Burd Alane
(as I have named him from the old ballad) walks by himself. The lack of
harmony is so evident here, and the slight so intentional and direct, that it
almost moves me to tears. The others walk soberly, always in couples,
but even Burd Alane's rightful spouse is on the side of the majority, and
avoids her consort.
What is the nature of his offence? There can be no connubial
jealousies, I judge, as geese are strictly monogamous, and having chosen a
partner of their joys and sorrows they cleave to each other until death or
some other inexorable circumstance does them part. If they are ever
mistaken in their choice, and think they might have done better, the world
is none the wiser. Burd Alane looks in good condition, but Phoebe thinks
he is not quite himself, and that some day when he is in greater strength he
will turn on his foes and rend them, regaining thus his lost prestige, for
formerly he was king of the flock.
***
Phoebe has not a vestige of sentiment. She just asked me if I would
have a duckling or a gosling for dinner; that there were two quite ready--
the brown and yellow duckling, that is the last to leave the water at night,
and the white gosling that never knows his own 'ouse. Which would I
'ave, and would I 'ave it with sage and onion?
Now, had I found a duckling on the table at dinner I should have eaten

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it without thinking at all, or with the thought that it had come from
Barbury Green. But eat a duckling that I have stoned out of the pond,
pursued up the bank, chased behind the wire netting, caught, screaming, in
a corner, and carried struggling to his bed? Feed upon an idiot gosling that
I have found in nine different coops on nine successive nights--in with the
newly-hatched chicks, the half-grown pullets, the setting hen, the
"invaleed goose," the drake with the gapes, the old ducks in the pen?--Eat
a gosling that I have caught and put in with his brothers and sisters (whom
he never recognises) so frequently and regularly that I am familiar with
every joint in his body?
In the first place, with my own small bump of locality and lack of
geography, I would never willingly consume a creature who might, by
some strange process of assimilation, make me worse in this respect; in
the second place, I should have to be ravenous indeed to sit down
deliberately and make a meal of an intimate friend, no matter if I had not a
high opinion of his intelligence. I should as soon think of eating the
Square Baby, stuffed with sage and onion and garnished with green apple-
sauce, as the yellow duckling or the idiot gosling.
Mrs. Heaven has just called me into her sitting-room, ostensibly to ask
me to order breakfast, but really for the pleasure of conversation. Why
she should inquire whether I would relish some gammon of bacon with
eggs, when she knows that there has not been, is not now, and never will
be, anything but gammon of bacon with eggs, is more than I can explain.
"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

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living, so far as I know; I know nothing to the contrary. I 'ope you are
not wearying of this solitary place, miss? It will grow upon you, I am
sure, as it did upon Mrs. Pollock, with all her peculiar fancies, and as it 'as
grown upon us.--We formerly had a butcher's shop in Buffington, and it
was naturally a great responsibility. Mr. Heaven's nerves are not strong,
and at last he wanted a life of more quietude, more quietude was what he
craved. The life of a retail butcher is a most exciting and wearying one.
Nobody satisfied with their meat; as if it mattered in a world of change!
Everybody complaining of too much bone or too little fat; nobody wishing
tough chops or cutlets, but always seeking after fine joints, when it's
against reason and nature that all joints should be juicy and all cutlets
tender; always complaining if livers are not sent with every fowl, always
asking you to remember the trimmin's, always wanting their beef well 'ung,
and then if you 'ang it a minute too long, it's left on your 'ands! I often
used to say to Mr. Heaven, yes many's the time I've said it, that if people
would think more of the great 'ereafter and less about their own little
stomachs, it would be a deal better for them, yes, a deal better, and make it
much more comfortable for the butchers!"
***
Burd Alane has had a good quarter of an hour to-day.
His spouse took a brief promenade with him. To be sure, it was
during an absence of the flock on the other side of the hedge so that the
moral effect of her spasm of wifely loyalty was quite lost upon them. I
strongly suspect that she would not have granted anything but a secret
interview. What a petty, weak, ignoble character! I really don't like to
think so badly of any fellow- creature as I am forced to think of that politic,
time-serving, pusillanimous goose. I believe she laid the egg that
produced the idiot gosling!

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CHAPTER IX

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
her cruelly, biting her and pushing her away from the food.
One day it happened that the two ducks--Sir Muscovy and Lady
Blanche--had come up from the water before the others, and having taken
their repast were sitting together under the shade of a flowering currant-
bush, when they chanced to see poor Miss Crippletoes very badly used
and crowded away from the dish. Sir Muscovy rose to his feet; a few
rapid words seemed to pass between him and his mate, and then he fell
upon the other drake and the heartless minions who had persecuted the
helpless one, drove them far away out of sight, and, returning, went to the
corner where the victim was cowering, her face to the wall. He seemed
to whisper to her, or in some way to convey to her a sense of protection;
for after a few moments she tremblingly went with him to the dish, and
hurriedly ate her dinner while he stood by, repulsing the advances of the
few brown ducks who remained near and seemed inclined to attack her.
When she had eaten enough Lady Blanche joined them, and they went
down the hill together to their favourite swimming-place. After that Miss
Crippletoes always followed a little behind her protectors, and thus
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shielded and fed she grew stronger and well- feathered, though she was
always smaller than she should have been and had a lowly manner,
keeping a few steps in the rear of her superiors and sitting at some distance
from their noon resting- place.
Phoebe noticed after a while that Lady Blanche was seldom to be seen,
and Sir Muscovy and Miss Crippletoes often came to their meals without
her. The would-be mother refused to inhabit the house Phoebe had given
her, and for a long time the place she had chosen for her sitting could not
be found. At length the Square Baby discovered her in a most ideal spot.
A large boulder had dropped years ago into the brook that fills our duck-
pond; dropped and split in halves with the two smooth walls leaning away
from each other. A grassy bank towered behind, and on either side of the
opening, tall bushes made a miniature forest where the romantic mother
could brood her treasures while her two guardians enjoyed the water close
by her retreat.
All this happened before my coming to Thornycroft Farm, but it was I
who named the hero and heroines of the romance when Phoebe had told
me all the particulars. Yesterday morning I was sitting by my open
window. It was warm, sunny, and still, but in the country sounds travel
far, and I could hear fowl conversation in various parts of the poultry-yard
as well as in all the outlying bits of territory occupied by our feathered
friends. Hens have only three words and a scream in their language, but
ducks, having more thoughts to express, converse quite fluently, so
fluently, in fact, that it reminds me of dinner at the Hydropathic Hotel. I
fancy I have learned to distinguish seven separate sounds, each varied by
degrees of intensity, and with upward or downward inflections like the
Chinese tongue.
In the distance, then, I heard the faint voice of a duck calling as if
breathless and excited. While I wondered what was happening, I saw
Miss Crippletoes struggling up the steep bank above the duck- pond. It
was the quickest way from the water to the house, but difficult for the little
lame webbed feet. When she reached the level grass sward she sank
down a moment, exhausted; but when she could speak again she cried out,
a sharp staccato call, and ran forward.

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Instantly she was answered from a distant knoll, where for some
reason Sir Muscovy loved to retire for meditation. The cries grew lower
and softer as the birds approached each other, and they met at the corner
just under my window. Instantly they put their two bills together and the
loud cries changed to confiding murmurs. Evidently some hurried
questions and answers passed between them, and then Sir Muscovy
waddled rapidly by the quickest path, Miss Crippletoes following him at a
slower pace, and both passed out of sight, using their wings to help their
feet down the steep declivity. The next morning, when I wakened early,
my first thought was to look out, and there on the sunny greensward where
they were accustomed to be fed, Sir Muscovy, Lady Blanche, and their
humble maid, Malardina Crippletoes, were scattering their own breakfast
before the bills of twelve beautiful golden balls of ducklings. The little
creatures could never have climbed the bank, but must have started from
their nest at dawn, coming round by the brook to the level at the foot of
the garden, and so by slow degrees up to the house.
Judging from what I heard and knew of their habits, I am sure the
excitement of the previous morning was occasioned by the hatching of the
eggs, and that Lady Blanche had hastily sent her friend to call Sir
Muscovy, the family remaining together until they could bring the babies
with them and display their beauty to Phoebe and me.

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CHAPTER X

July 14th.
We are not wholly without the pleasures of the town in Barbury Green.
Once or twice in a summer, late on a Saturday afternoon, a procession of
red and yellow vans drives into a field near the centre of the village. By
the time the vans are unpacked all the children in the community are
surrounding the gate of entrance. There is rifle-shooting, there is fortune-
telling, there are games of pitch and toss, and swings, and French bagatelle;
and, to crown all, a wonderful orchestrion that goes by steam. The water
is boiled for the public's tea, and at the same time thrilling strains of
melody are flung into the air. There is at present only one tune in the
orchestrion's repertory, but it is a very good tune; though after hearing it
three hundred and seven times in a single afternoon, it pursues one,
sleeping and waking, for the next week. Phoebe and I took the Square
Baby and went in to this diversified entertainment. There was a small
crowd of children at the entrance, but as none of them seemed to be
provided with pennies, and I felt in a fairy godmother mood, I offered
them the freedom of the place at my expense.
I never purchased more radiant good-will for less money, but the
combined effect of the well-boiled tea and the boiling orchestrion
produced many village nightmares, so the mothers told me at chapel next
morning.
***
I have many friends in Barbury Green, and often have a pleasant chat
with the draper, and the watch-maker, and the chemist.
The last house on the principal street is rather an ugly one, with
especially nice window curtains. As I was taking my daily walk to the
post-office (an entirely unfruitful expedition thus far, as nobody has taken
the pains to write to me) I saw a nursemaid coming out of the gate,
wheeling a baby in a perambulator. She was going placidly away from
the Green when, far in the distance, she espied a man walking rapidly
toward us, a heavy Gladstone bag in one hand. She gazed fixedly for a
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moment, her eyes brightening and her cheeks flushing with pleasure,--
whoever it was, it was an unexpected arrival;--then she retraced her steps
and, running up the garden- path, opened the front door and held an
excited colloquy with somebody; a slender somebody in a nice print gown
and neatly- dressed hair, who came to the gate and peeped beyond the
hedge several times, drawing back between peeps with smiles and
heightened colour. She did not run down the road, even when she had
satisfied herself of the identity of the traveller; perhaps that would not
have been good form in an English village, for there were houses on the
opposite side of the way. She waited until he opened the gate, the
nursemaid took the bag and looked discreetly into the hedge, then the
mistress slipped her hand through the traveller's arm and walked up the
path as if she had nothing else in the world to wish for. The nurse had a
part in the joy, for she lifted the baby out of the perambulator and showed
proudly how much he had grown.
It was a dear little scene, and I, a passer-by, had shared in it and felt
better for it. I think their content was no less because part of it had
enriched my life, for happiness, like mercy, is twice blessed; it blesses
those who are most intimately associated in it, and it blesses all those who
see it, hear it, feel it, touch it, or breathe the same atmosphere. A
laughing, crowing baby in a house, one cheerful woman singing about her
work, a boy whistling at the plough, a romance just suspected, with its
miracle of two hearts melting into one--the wind's always in the west
when you have any of these wonder-workers in your neighbourhood.
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 kind, I often think.
He has been married thirty years, he tells me; thirty years, spent in the
one little house with the bricks painted red and grey alternately, and the
scarlet holly-hocks growing under the windows. I am sure they have been
sweet, true, kind years, and that his heart must be a quiet, peaceful place
just like his house and garden.
"I was only eleven years old when I fell in love with my wife," he told

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me as we sat on the seat under the lime-tree; he puffing cosily at his pipe, I
plaiting grasses for a hatband.
"It was just before Sunday-school. Her mother had dressed her all in
white muslin like a fairy, but she had stepped on the edge of a puddle, and
some of the muddy water had bespattered her frock. A circle of children
had surrounded her, and some of the motherly little girls were on their
knees rubbing at the spots anxiously, while one of them wiped away the
tears that were running down her pretty cheeks. I looked! It was fatal!
I did not look again, but I was smitten to the very heart! I did not speak
to her for six years, but when I did, it was all right with both of us, thank
God! and I've been in love with her ever since, when she behaves herself!"
That is the way they speak of love in Barbury Green, and oh! how
much sweeter and more wholesome it is than the language of the town!
Who would not be a Goose Girl, "to win the secret of the weed's plain
heart"? It seems to me that in society we are always gazing at magic-
lantern shows, but here we rest our tired eyes with looking at the stars.

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CHAPTER XI

July 16th.
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 poultry-dealer came along and offered
to sell me a silver Wyandotte pullet and cockerel. This was a new breed
to me and I asked the price, which proved to be more than I should pay for
a hat in Bond Street. I hesitated, thinking meantime what a delightful
parting gift they would be for Phoebe; I mean if we ever should part,
which seems more and more unlikely, as I shall never leave Thornycroft
until somebody comes properly to fetch me; indeed, unless the "fetching"
is done somewhat speedily I may decline to go under any circumstances.
My indecision as to the purchase was finally banished when the
poultryman asserted that the fowls had clear open centres all over, black
lacing entirely round the white centres, were free from white edging, and
each had a cherry-red eye. This catalogue of charms inflamed my
imagination, though it gave me no mental picture of a silver Wyandotte
fowl, and I paid the money while the dealer crammed the chicks,
squawking into my five-o'clock tea-basket.
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
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encouraged, and agreed solemnly to abstain from Danish eggs in any form,
and made a resolution stating that our loyalty to Queen Alexandra would
remain undiminished, we argued the subject of hen diet. There was a
great difference of opinion here and the discussion was heated; the
honorary treasurer standing for pulped mangold and flint grit, the chair
insisting on barley meal and randans, while one eloquent young woman
declared, to loud cries of "'Ear, 'ear!" that rice pudding and bone chips
produce more eggs to the square hen than any other sort of food.
Impassioned orators arose here and there in the audience demanding
recognition for beef scraps, charcoal, round corn or buckwheat. Foods
were regarded from various standpoints: as general invigorators, growth
assisters, and egg producers. A very handsome young farmer carried off
final honours, and proved to the satisfaction of all the feminine poultry-
raisers that green young hog bones fresh cut in the Banner Bone Breaker
(of which he was the agent) possessed a nutritive value not to be expressed
in human language.
Phoebe was distinctly nervous when I rose to say a few words on
poultry breeding, announcing as my topic "Mothers, Stepmothers, Foster-
Mothers, and Incubators." Protected by the consciousness that no one in
the assemblage could possibly know me, I made a distinct success in my
maiden speech; indeed, I somewhat overshot the mark, for the Countess in
the chair sent me a note asking me to dine with her that evening. I
suppressed the note and took Phoebe away before the proceedings were
finished, vanishing from the scene of my triumphs like a veiled prophet.
Just as we were passing out the door we paused to hear the report of a
special committee whose chairman read the following resolutions:-
WHEREAS,--It has pleased the Almighty to remove from our midst
our greatest Rose Comb Buff Orpington fancier and esteemed friend,
Albert Edward Sheridain; therefore be it
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 sympathy.
The handsome young farmer followed us out to our trap, invited us to

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attend the next meeting of the R. C. B. O. Club, of which he was the

secretary, and asked if I were intending to "show." I introduced Phoebe
as the senior partner, and she concealed the fact that we possessed but one
Buff Orpington, and he was a sad "invaleed" not suitable for exhibition.
The farmer's expression as he looked at me was almost lover-like, and
when he pressed a bit of paper into my hand I was sure it must be an offer
of marriage. It was in fact only a circular describing the Banner Bone
Breaker. It closed with an appeal to Buff Orpington breeders to raise and
ever raise the standard, bidding them remember, in the midst of a low-
minded and sordid civilisation, that the rose comb should be small and
neat, firmly set on, with good working, a nice spike at the back lying well
down to head, and never, under any circumstances, never sticking up.
This adjuration somewhat alarmed us as Phoebe and I had been giving our
Buff Orpington cockerel the most drastic remedies for his languid and
prostrate comb.
Coming home we alighted from the trap to gather hogweed for the
rabbits. I sat by the wayside lazily and let Phoebe gather the appetising
weed, which grows along the thorniest hedges in close proximity to nettles
and thistles.
Workmen were trudging along with their luncheon-baskets of woven
bulrushes slung over their shoulders. Fields of ripening grain lay on
either hand, the sun shining on their every shade of green and yellow,
bronze and orange, while the breeze stirred the bearded barley into a
rippling golden sea.
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 her awe-stricken tongue, as I
intended.
"They are obeying my wish to be let alone, there's no doubt of that," I
was thinking. "For my part, I like a little more spirit, and a little less
"letter"!"
As the word "letter" flitted through my thoughts, I pulled one from my
pocket and glanced through it carelessly. It arrived, somewhat tardily,

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only last night, or I should not have had it with me. I wore the same
dress to the post-office yesterday that I wore to the Hen Conference to-day,
and so it chanced to be still in the pocket. If it had been anything I valued,
of course I should have lost or destroyed it by mistake; it is only silly,
worthless little things like this that keep turning up and turning up after
one has forgotten their existence.
"You are a mystery!" [it ran.] "I can apprehend, but not comprehend
you. I know you in part. I understand various bits of your nature; but
my knowledge is always fragmentary and disconnected, and when I
attempt to make a whole of the mosaics I merely get a kaleidoscopic effect.
Do you know those geographical dissected puzzles that they give to
children? You remind me of one of them.
"I have spent many charming (and dangerous) hours trying to "put you
together"; but I find, when I examine my picture closely, that after all I've
made a purple mountain grow out of a green tree; that my river is running
up a steep hillside; and that the pretty milkmaid, who should be wandering
in the forest, is standing on her head with her pail in the air
"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!" . . .
Ah, well, it is no wonder that he wonders! So do I, for that matter!

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CHAPTER XII

July 17th.
Thornycroft Farm seems to be the musical centre of the universe.
When I wake very early in the morning I lie in a drowsy sort of dream,
trying to disentangle, one from the other, the various bird notes, trills, coos,
croons, chirps, chirrups, and warbles. Suddenly there falls on the air a
delicious, liquid, finished song; so pure, so mellow, so joyous, that I go to
the window and look out at the morning world, half awakened, like
myself.
There is I know not what charm in a window that does not push up,
but opens its lattices out into the greenness. And mine is like a little
jewelled door, for the sun is shining from behind the chimneys and
lighting the tiny diamond panes with amber flashes.
A faint delicate haze lies over the meadow, and rising out of it, and
soaring toward the blue is the lark, flinging out that matchless matin song,
so rich, so thrilling, so lavish! As the blithe melody fades away, I hear
the plaintive ballad-fragments of the robin on a curtsying branch near my
window; and there is always the liquid pipe of the thrush, who must quaff
a fairy goblet of dew between his songs, I should think, so fresh and
eternally young is his note.
There is another beautiful song that I follow whenever I hear it,
straining my eyes to the treetops, yet never finding a bird that I can
identify as the singer. Can it be the -
"Ousel-cock so black of hue, With orange-tawny bill"?
He is called the poet-laureate of the primrose time, but I don't know
whether he sings in midsummer, and I have not seen him hereabouts. I
must write and ask my dear Man of the North. The Man of the North, I
sometimes think, had a Fairy Grandmother who was a robin; and perhaps
she made a nest of fresh moss and put him in the green wood when he was
a wee bairnie, so that he waxed wise in bird-lore without knowing it. At
all events, describe to him the cock of a head, the glance of an eye, the tip-
up of a tail, or the sheen of a feather, and he will name you the bird.
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Near- sighted he is, too, the Man of the North, but that is only for people.
The Square Baby and I have a new game.
I bought a doll's table and china tea-set in Buffington. We put it
under an apple-tree in the side garden, where the scarlet lightning grows
so tall and the Madonna lilies stand so white against the flaming
background. We built a little fence around it, and every afternoon at tea-
time we sprinkle seeds and crumbs in the dishes, water in the tiny cups,
drop a cherry in each of the fruit-plates, and have a the chantant for the
birdies. We sometimes invite an "invaleed" duckling, or one of the baby
rabbits, or the peacock, in which case the cards read:-
Thornycroft Farm. The pleasure of your company is requested at a
The Chantant Under the Apple Tree. Music at five.
It is a charming game, as I say, but I'd far rather play it with the Man
of the North; he is so much younger than the Square Baby, and so much
more responsive, too.
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
fantastic, difficult, hard to please, unreasonable!
I believe the saints must have lived in the country mostly (I am certain
they never tried Hydropathic hotels), and why anybody with a black heart
and natural love of wickedness should not simply buy a poultry farm and
become an angel, I cannot understand.
Living with animals is really a very improving and wholesome kind of
life, to the person who will allow himself to be influenced by their sensible
and high-minded ideals. When you come to think about it, man is really
the only animal that ever makes a fool of himself; the others are highly
civilised, and never make mistakes. I am going to mention this when I
write to somebody, sometime; I mean if I ever do. To be sure, our human

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life is much more complicated than theirs, and I believe when the other
animals notice our errors of judgment they make allowances. The bee is
as busy as a bee, and the beaver works like a beaver, but there their
responsibility ends. The bee doesn't have to go about seeing that other
bees are not crowded into unsanitary tenements or victimised by the
sweating system. When the beaver's day of toil is over he doesn't have to
discuss the sphere, the rights, or the voting privileges of beaveresses; all
he has to do is to work like a beaver, and that is comparatively simple.

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CHAPTER XIII

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 poultry-yard and identified the malady on three hens and a cock.
Phoebe joined me in the diagnosis and we treated the victims with a
carbolic lotion and scrubbed them with vaseline.
As Phoebe and I grow wise in medical lore the case of Cannibal Ann
assumes a different aspect. As the bibulous man quaffs more and more
flagons of beer and wine when his daily food is ham, salt fish, and
cabbage, so does the hen avenge her wrongs of diet and woes of
environment. Cannibal Ann, herself, has, so far as we know, been raised
in a Christian manner and enjoyed all the advantages of modern methods;
but her maternal parent may have lived in some heathen poultry-yard
which was asphalted or bricked or flagged, so that she was debarred from
scratching in Mother Earth and was forced to eat her own shells in self-
defence.
***
The Square Baby is not particularly attracted by the poultry as a whole,
save when it is boiled with bacon or roasted with bread- sauce; but he is
much interested in the "invaleeds." Whenever Phoebe and I start for the
hospital with the tobacco-pills, the tin of paraffin, and the bottle of oil, he
is very much in evidence. Perhaps he has a natural leaning toward the
medical profession; at any rate, when pain and anguish wring the brow, he
is in close attendance upon the ministering angels.
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 wire-covered "run"
attached to a coop occupied by the youngest goslings. A couple of
bottles and a box stood by his side, and I should think he had administered
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a cup of sweet oil, a pint of paraffin, and a quarter of a pound of tobacco

during his clinic. He had used the remedies impartially, sometimes
giving the paraffin internally and rubbing the patient's head with tobacco
or oil, sometimes the reverse.
Several goslings leaned languidly against the netting, or supported
themselves by the edge of the water-dish, while others staggered and
reeled about with eyes half closed.
It was Mrs. Heaven who caught her son red-handed, so to speak. She
was dressed in her best, and just driving off to Woodmucket to spend a day
or two with her married daughter, and soothe her nerves with the uproar
incident to a town of six hundred inhabitants. She delayed her journey a
half-hour--long enough, in fact, to change her black silk waist for a loose
sacque which would give her arms full and comfortable play. The joy
and astonishment that greeted the Square Baby on his advent, five years
ago, was forgotten for the first time in his brief life, and he was treated
precisely as any ordinary wrongdoer would have been treated under the
same circumstances, summarily and smartly; the "wepping," as Phoebe
would say, being Mrs. Heaven's hand.
All but one of the goslings lived, like thousands of others who recover
in spite of the doctors, but the Square Baby's interest in the healing art is
now perceptibly lessened.

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CHAPTER XIV

July 18th.
The day was Friday; Phoebe's day to go to Buffington with eggs and
chickens and rabbits; her day to solicit orders for ducklings and goslings.
The village cart was ready in the stable; Mr. and Mrs. Heaven were in
Woodmucket; I was eating my breakfast (which I remember was an egg
and a rasher) when Phoebe came in, a figure of woe.
The Square Baby was ill, very ill, and would not permit her to leave
him and go to market. Would I look at him? For he must have dowsed
'imself as well as the goslings yesterday; anyways he was strong of
paraffin and tobacco, though he 'ad 'ad a good barth.
I prescribed for Albert Edward, who was as uncomfortable and
feverish as any little sinner in the county of Sussex, and I then promptly
proposed going to Buffington in Phoebe's place.
She did not think it at all proper, and said that, notwithstanding my
cotton gown and sailor hat, I looked quite, quite the lydy, and it would
never do. "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,
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and it is my experience that they always have to be, at whatever price.

Geese were plenty, dull, and weak. Old cocks,--why don't they say
roosters?--declined to threepence ha'penny on Thursday in sympathy with
fowls,--and who shall say that chivalry is dead? Turkeys were a trifle
steadier, and there was a speculative movement in limed eggs. All this
was illuminating, and I only wished I were quite certain whether the
sympathetic old roosters were threepence ha'penny apiece, or a pound.
Everything happened as it should, on this first business journey of my
life, which is equivalent to saying that nothing happened at all.
Songhurst's Tea Rooms took five dozen eggs and told me to bring six
dozen the next week. Argent's Dining Parlours purchased three pairs of
chickens and four rabbits. The Six Bells found the last poultry somewhat
tough and tasteless; whereupon I said that our orders were more than we
could possibly fill, still I hoped we could go on "selling them," as we
never liked to part with old customers, no matter how many new ones
there were. Privately, I understood the complaint only too well, for I
knew the fowls in question very intimately. Two of them were the
runaway rooster and the gadabout hen that never wanted to go to bed with
the others. The third was Cannibal Ann. I should have expected them to
be tough, but I cannot believe they were lacking in flavour.
The only troublesome feature of the trip was that Mrs. Sowerbutt's
lodgers had suddenly left for London and she was unable to take the four
rabbits as she had hoped; but as an offset to that piece of ill-fortune the
Coke and Coal Yard and the Bicycle Repairing Rooms came out into the
street, and, stepping up to the trap, requested regular weekly deliveries of
eggs and chickens, and hoped that I would be able to bring them myself.
And so, in a happy frame of mind, I turned out of the Buffington main
street, and was jogging along homeward, when a very startling thing
happened; namely, a whole verse of the Bailiff's Daughter of Islington:-
"And as she went along the high road, The weather being hot and dry,
She sat her down upon a green bank, And her true love came riding by."
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

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Barbury Green postmistress, on the morning of my arrival, not to give the

Thornycroft address to anybody whatsoever, but finding, as the days
passed, that no one was bold enough or sensible enough to ask for it, I
haughtily withdrew my prohibition. About this time I began sending
envelopes, carefully addressed in a feigned hand, to a certain person at the
Oxenbridge Hydro. These envelopes contained no word of writing, but
held, on one day, only a bit of down from a hen's breast, on another, a
goose-quill, on another, a glossy tail-feather, on another, a grain of corn,
and so on. These trifles were regarded by me not as degrading or
unmaidenly hints and suggestions, but simply as tests of intelligence.
Could a man receive tokens of this sort and fail to put two and two
together? I feel that I might possibly support life with a domineering and
autocratic husband,--and there is every prospect that I shall be called upon
to do so,--but not with a stupid one. Suppose one were linked for ever to
a man capable of asking,--"Did 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 eternal
celibacy than marriage with such a being!
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 self-respect to shriek

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recriminations into a woman's ear from a distance.

He approached with deliberation, reined in his horse, and lifted his hat
ceremoniously. He has an extremely shapely head, but I did not show
that the sight of it melted in the least the ice of my resolve; whereupon we
talked, not very freely at first,--men are so stiff when they consider
themselves injured. However, silence is even more embarrassing than
conversation, so at length I begin:-
Bailiff's Daughter.--"It is a lovely day."
True Love.--"Yes, but the drought is getting rather oppressive, don't
you think?"
Bailiff's Daughter.--"The crops certainly need rain, and the feed is
becoming scarce."
True Love.--"Are you a farmer's wife?"
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 vocation!"
Bailiff's Daughter.--"It was certainly through no desire to please YOU
that I chose it."
True Love.--"I am quite sure of that! Are you staying in this part?"
Bailiff's Daughter.--"Oh no! I live many miles distant, over an
extremely rough road. And you?"
True Love.--"I am still at the Hydropathic; or at least my luggage is
there."
Bailiff's Daughter.--"It must be very pleasant to attract you so long."
True Love.--"Not so pleasant as it was."
Bailiff's Daughter.--"No? A new proprietor, I suppose."
True Love.--"No; same proprietor; but the house is empty."
Bailiff's Daughter (yawning purposely).--"That is strange; the hotels
are usually so full at this season. Why did so many leave?"
True Love.--"As a matter of fact, only one left. "Full" and "empty"
are purely relative terms. I call a hotel full when it has you in it, empty
when it hasn't."
Bailiff's Daughter (dying to laugh, but concealing her feelings).-- "I

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trust my bulk does not make the same impression on the general public!
Well, I won't detain you longer; good afternoon; I must go home to my
evening work."
True Love.--"I will accompany you."
Bailiff's Daughter.--"If you are a gentleman you will remain where you
are."
True Love.--"In the road? Perhaps; but if I am a man I shall follow
you; they always do, I notice. What are those foolish bundles in the back
of that silly cart?"
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 morning."
True Love.--"Thanks; I don't like mine shot so early."
Bailiff's Daughter.--"Oh, well! doubtless I shall be able to dispose of
them on my way home, though times is 'ard!"
True Love.--"Do you mean that you will "peddle" them along the
road?"
Bailiff's Daughter.--"You understand me better than usual,--in fact to
perfection."
He dismounts and strides to the back of the cart, lifts the covers, seizes
the rabbits, flings some silver contemptuously into the basket, and looks
about him for a place to bury his bargain. A small boy approaching in the
far distance will probably bag the game.
Bailiff's Daughter (modestly).--"Thanks for your trade, sir, rather
ungraciously bestowed, and we 'opes for a continuance of your past
fyvors."
True Love (leaning on the wheel of the trap).--"Let us stop this
nonsense. What did you hope to gain by running away?"
Bailiff 's Daughter.--"Distance and absence."
True Love.--"You knew you couldn't prevent my offering myself to
you sometime or other."
Bailiff's Daughter.--"Perhaps not; but I could at least defer it, couldn't
I?"

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True Love.--"Why postpone the inevitable?"

Bailiff's Daughter.--"Doubtless I shrank from giving you the pain of a
refusal."
True Love.--"Perhaps; but do you know what I suspect?"
Bailiff's Daughter.--"I'm not a suspicious person, thank goodness!"
True Love.--"That, on the contrary, you are wilfully withholding from
me the joy of acceptance."
Bailiff's Daughter.--"If I intended to accept you, why did I run away?"
True Love.--"To make yourself more desirable and precious, I
suppose."
Bailiff's Daughter (with the most confident coquetry).--"Did I
succeed?"
True Love.--"No; you failed utterly."
Bailiff's Daughter (secretly piqued).--"Then I am glad I tried it."
True Love.--"You couldn't succeed because you were superlatively
desirable and precious already; but you should never have experimented.
Don't you know that Love is a high explosive?"
Bailiff's Daughter.--"Is it? Then it ought always to be labelled
"dangerous," oughtn't it? But who thought of suggesting matches? I'm
sure I didn't!"
True Love.--"No such luck; I wish you would."
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 somebody, sometime."
Bailiff's Daughter.--"I confess I don't see the necessity."
True Love (morosely).--"You're the sort of woman men won't leave in
undisturbed spinsterhood; they'll keep on badgering you."
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 find obnoxious."
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
better--but the pertinacity of the one! Ah, well! I can't drop that
without putting an end to my existence."

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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
Mistress Perversity."
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 to take you away?"
Bailiff's Daughter (sighing).--"It's like asking me to leave Heaven."
True Love.--"I know it; she told me where to find you,--Thornycroft is
the seventh poultry-farm I've visited,--but you could never leave Heaven,
you can't be happy without poultry, why that is a wish easily gratified.
I'll get you a farm to-morrow; no, it's Saturday, and the real estate offices
close at noon, but on Monday, without fail. Your ducks and geese,
always carrying it along with you. All you would have to do is to admit
me; Heaven is full of twos. If you shall swim on a crystal lake--Phoebe
told me what a genius you have for getting them out of the muddy pond;
she was sitting beside it when I called, her hand in that of a straw-
coloured person named Gladwish, and the ground in her vicinity
completely strewn with votive offerings. You shall splash your silver sea
with an ivory wand; your hens shall have suburban cottages, each with its
garden; their perches shall be of satin- wood and their water dishes of
mother-of-pearl. You shall be the Goose Girl and I will be the Swan
Herd--simply to be near you--for I hate live poultry. Dost like the picture?
It's a little like Claude Melnotte's, I confess. The fact is I am not quite
sane; talking with you after a fortnight of the tabbies at the Hydro is like
quaffing inebriating vodka after Miffin's Food! May I come to-morrow?"
Bailiffs Daughter (hedging).--"I shall be rather busy; the Crossed
Minorca hen comes off to-morrow."
True Love.--"Oh, never mind! I'll take her off to-night when I escort
you to the farm; then she'll get a day's advantage."
Bailiff's Daughter.--"And rob fourteen prospective chicks of a mother;

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nay, lose the chicks themselves? Never!"

True Love.--"So long as you are a Goose Girl, does it make any
difference whose you are? Is it any more agreeable to be Mrs. Heaven's
Goose Girl than mine?"
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. Why did you run away?"
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
accomplish what I supposed you would do in three days!"
True Love (after a well-spent interval).--"To-morrow, then; shall we
say before breakfast? All, do! Why not? Well, then, immediately
after breakfast, and I breakfast at seven nowadays, and sometimes earlier.
Do take off those ugly cotton gloves, dear; they are five sizes too large for
you, and so rough and baggy to the touch!"

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