The Diary of a Goose Girl

The Diary of a Goose Girl, by
Kate Douglas

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Diary of a Goose Girl, by Kate
Douglas Smith Wiggin, Illustrated by Claude A. Shepperson
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Title: The Diary of a Goose Girl
Author: Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

Release Date: May 15, 2007 [eBook #1867]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DIARY
OF A GOOSE GIRL***

Transcribed from the 1902 Gay and Bird edition by David Price, email
[email protected]

{Book cover: cover.jpg}

THE DIARY OF A GOOSE GIRL
BY KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY CLAUDE A. SHEPPERSON
GAY AND BIRD 22 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND LONDON 1902
{I looked about me with what Stevenson calls a 'fine dizzy,
muddle-headed job': p01.jpg}
TO THE HENS, DUCKS, AND GEESE WHO SO KINDLY GAVE
ME SITTINGS FOR THESE SKETCHES THE BOOK IS
GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED
CHAPTER I.
{Thornycroft House: p1a.jpg}
THORNYCROFT FARM, near Barbury Green, July 1, 190-.
{Picture of woman and goose: p1b.jpg}
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 my purse--that was unromantic, of course, but it
simplified matters--and nine hours of daylight remaining in which to
find a lodging.
{Life converges there, just at the public duck-pond: p3.jpg}
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