Goose girl

“ 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. ”

“ A wretched hut is not a pleasant place, 'tis true, but your manners suit it better than the castle of your dreams."
"Hold your tongue, forward bird!" screamed the goose girl in anger. She seized a clod of earth and hurled it with such force that had it struck the gander, he would have fallen flat in his tracks; but luck was with him, and he dodged.
The next day and the next day after that the goose girl sat down to write before the flat rock in the meadow; but the quill was stubborn as ever. She spoiled all but one sheet of the precious pink paper. ”

“ The little goose-girl, since babyhood, had never beheld any other human being, and was never permitted to wander beyond sight of the hut; but she knew that other people existed, since she had heard the old dame speak of the folk she had seen in her own journeyings to and fro, and whom she often cursed when muttering her evil spells. ”

“ Though at first terrified, the goose-girl gazed in amazement at the stranger, her fear quickly vanishing in wonder, admiration, and delight; and when the youth laughed at her surprise and begged her [146] to give him greeting, she asked in awestruck tones:—"Are you a man?" ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ She always hangs her head.
C. E. C. Warner.
The Goose Girl. Gretchen was a goose girl. She lived in a tiny cottage with a red roof, all amidst the fields, and woods, and hills, and every day she took a big stick and drove her geese across the common to the pond on the other side.
One summer morning her mother said she might take a holiday, and go and visit her Auntie Jeanne. So Gretchen dressed herself in her best clothes, and set out to the village. She spent a happy time with her auntie, and after tea started for home. ”

“ The afterglow on the mountains across the valley was now in its prime glory; and once the two wayfarers paused and commented upon it. Once more the mountaineer was agreeably surprised; the average peasant is impervious to atmospheric splendor, beauty carries no message.
Arriving at length in the city, they passed through the crooked streets, sometimes so narrow that the geese were packed from wall to wall. Oft some jovial soldier sent a jest or a query to them across the now gray backs of the geese. But Gretchen looked on ahead, purely and serenely. ”

“ Then the Grand Master called him back and said: “Now, thou art worthy, thou hast overcome a worse enemy than the dragon—thyself!”
THE GOOSE GIRL Part One
One should always be helpful and respectful to the aged and infirm, regardless of any return or reward.
Once upon a time there was an old woman who lived with her flock of geese, in a small cottage [164] in the woods. Every day she went to the meadows and gathered a big bundle of grass to carry home to the geese. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Carmichael stepped confidently to her side and raised his hat.
"Did you get your geese together without mishap?" he asked.
The instinct of the child always remains with the woman. Gretchen smiled. This young man would be different, she knew.
"They were only frightened. But his highness"—eagerly—"was he very angry?"
"Angry? Not the least. He was amused. But he was nearly knocked off his horse. If you lived in America now, you might reap a goodly profit from that goose."
"America? How?"
"You could put him in a museum and exhibit him as an intimate friend of the grand duke of Ehrenstein." ”

“ 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, Phœbe, 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. ”

“ Versions of The Goose-Girl include: "The Goose-Girl" in German Popular Stories (1826) (transcription project) "The Goose-Girl" in Grimm's Goblins (1876) See also "The Goose Girl" (1912) , Taylor translation, revised by Marian Edwardes
This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content. ”

“ 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 Phœbe 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. ”

“ GAMES PLAYED BY BOYS
GAMES PLAYED BY GIRLS
THE TOYS CHILDREN PLAY WITH
BLOCK GAMES—KINDERGARTEN
CHILDREN'S SHOWS AND ENTERTAINMENTS
JUVENILE JUGGLING
STORIES TOLD TO CHILDREN
THE NURSERY AND ITS RHYMES
It is a mistake to suppose that any one nation or people has exclusive right to Mother Goose. She is an omnipresent old lady. She is Asiatic as well as European or American. Wherever there are mothers, grandmothers, and nurses there are Mother Gooses,—or; shall we say, Mother Geese—for I am at a loss as to how to pluralize this old dame. ”

“ Thy mother's heart would surely break
Were she to know of your heart-ache!"
And, further, he told how when they arrived in the meadow, she caused the wind to blow his hat off, so that he had to run after it ever so far. When he had finished his tale, the old King [254] ordered him to drive the geese out again the next morning; and he himself, when morning came, stationed himself behind the gloomy archway, and heard the servant talk to the head of Falada. Then he followed them also into the fields. There he saw with his own eyes the Goose Girl and boy drive in the geese ”

“ 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—Phœbe told me what a genius you have for getting them out of the muddy pond ”

“ 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 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 and tumbling and hissing all over creation, did not approve of my sending them back into the pond to start afresh. ”

“ 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.
CHAPTER XIV July 18th.
The day was Friday; Phœbe’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 Phœbe came in, a figure of woe. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The weak ones get in with the strong and are in danger of being trampled; two May goslings that look almost full-grown have run into a house with a brood of ducklings a week old. There are twenty-seven crowded into one coop, five in another, nineteen in another; the gosling with one leg has to come out, and the duckling threatened with the gapes; their place is with the “invaleeds,” as Phœbe calls them, but they never learn the location of the hospital, nor have the slightest scruple about spreading contagious diseases. ”

“ So Maud was called in to get ready; and Hannah, the good white horse, was harnessed into the buggy.
The buggy had but one seat: so mamma found a nice box, and folded her shawl and put on it; and that made a good place for the little girl, between her father and mother; and they all started on their ride.
They went along a shady road near the river, and soon they saw some geese. Several of them were swimming in the water, and one or two were on the bank. One of these [109] had a sort of frame around its neck, and was standing on one leg.
Maud said, "Why, see that poor goose! It has only one leg ”

“ 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 Phœbe 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 ”

“ All have knives and pistols in belts.
Alice, little girl in white.
White Rabbit, small boy in white canton flannel suit, rabbit face, or white hood with long ears. He carries white kid gloves in his hands.
Kings and Queens, are in white robes covered, respectively, with hearts and diamonds of red paper, and spades and clubs of black paper. They wear gilt crowns.
Suits for animals may be made over pattern for one piece pajamas with feet cut on them.
Characters should be grouped to form a pretty tableau for closing song. Mother Goose in center. ”

“ Sun and Mrs. Moon. Now, Aren’t You Glad You Came? We Do Not Like to Say Goodbye. We’ll Now Have to Say Goodbye.
Paine Publishing Co., Dayton, Ohio
[1]
A PARTY IN
MOTHER GOOSE LAND
A ONE-ACT PLAY FOR
PRIMARY CHILDREN
BY
EFFA E. PRESTON
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
L. M. PAINE
PAINE PUBLISHING COMPANY
DAYTON, OHIO
[2]
[3]
A Party in Mother Goose Land CHARACTERS AND COSTUMES
The costumes may be left to the discretion of the teacher and may be simple or elaborate, as desired. A few suggestions are given:
Mother Goose, large girl in old-fashioned dark dress with high pointed crowned hat. ”