The Diary of a Goose Girl | Page 9

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
owt sen."
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.
{More pride of bearing, and less to be proud of: p43.jpg}
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