29 june 2024

THE JOLLY GOOSE

Did you see the geese stretching their necks outside the coop? Well, that's me, or rather, was me, because I'm certainly less stupid now than I was then! I have in fact learnt a lot of things recently. There, in the drawing, I was travelling for the first time. I was being moved with the whole family to another farm. I was very curious and Mum was always anxious that something would happen to me. And indeed, when suddenly a locomotive whistled, I gave a startled "Quack!" and fell to the floor. At the farm, I showed all my vanity: every caterpillar, every hairy worm I found, I wrapped around my neck, as if it were a fur coat, and then I ran and mirrored myself in the puddles left in the furrows of the field. The rooster in the henhouse was also angry with me, because one day, while he was resting, I had plucked the most beautiful feathers from his tail to put them in a hat I had found in the yard. As soon as I could, I used to look at myself in the little window in the cellar and one day I distinctly heard mother's voice explaining to my sisters how to prepare the nest for laying eggs. "Phew!" said I, "they will take care of that, to lay eggs; I have much else to do." But mother heard me and was already about to give me a resounding smack when a suitor of mine arrived and asked for my hand. And what did I do? I took his bouquet of flowers and gave it to the goat who devoured it in one bite.