The Gray Gooses Story | Page 7

kind of you to say so," Mrs. Goose replied with a smirk. "If I keep on at this rate you'll think I like to talk as well as Mamma Speckle does; but I've heard of you so often from our people around here, that it seemed as if I must have a whole lot of stories to tell, else you'd say I wasn't much of anybody after all. But about Mr. Dorking Rooster: it seems that one night he couldn't sleep, on account of having eaten too much, and for the first time in his life he saw the moon and the stars.
"The next day, when he was going across the front yard, he saw one of those large rubber balls, painted in bright colors, such as Mr. Man's children use to play with in the house, and after looking it over carefully he decided that he knew what it was.
[Illustration: Mr. Dorking Finds the Moon.]
"'This must be the moon I saw last night,' he said to himself; 'but it don't seem to shine as it did then. Perhaps it doesn't give out any light till after sunset, so I'll wait till then to see it.'
"So Mr. Dorking sat down and waited. The sun set, and black clouds covered the sky, but, yet the ball did not shine. All the other chickens had gone to roost hours before; but Mr. Dorking kept on watching. It began to rain; the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled. The rooster was wet to the skin, and terribly frightened.
"'I'll save the moon,' he cried, and picking up the ball in his beak, which wasn't an easy task, he ran as fast as he could to the hen-house; but when he got there the storm had cleared away. Looking up, Mr. Dorking saw the moon in the sky, and throwing the ball into the house, he cried out to his wife:
"'What kind of a thing is this, anyway? I've been lugging it around for an hour or more, and now there's another moon come to take its place.'
"'Come straight up here to your roost, you foolish old thing.' Mrs. Dorking said angrily. 'If you had half as much sense as Mr. Monkey, you could have taken the children and me on a picnic, instead of fooling your time away with a rubber ball.'
"What did she mean by 'having as much sense as Mr. Monkey,'" your Aunt Amy asked, and Mrs. Goose replied:

WHEN MRS. MONKEY WAS DISSATISFIED.
"Oh, it was an idea she got from some of Mr. Crow's poetry. All the fowls on our farm have laughed at it time and time again. This is the way it goes:
Said old Mrs. Monk one morning, "Look at me. I am tired of living in this cocoa tree, You have got to go to work and rent a flat, For I'll not live in this manner, mind you that."
Then when Mister Monkey heard all that she said, He thought of many trades, and scratched his head What on earth could monkeys do to bring in gold So a loving monkey wifey wouldn't scold?
Now what do you suppose the Monkey did? Do you think he climbed the cocoa tree and hid? No; upon a jungle trolley he is there Hanging by his legs and tail collecting fare."
Mrs. Goose would have been blind if she had not seen that your Aunt Amy thought the jingle was very foolish, and she hastened to say:
[Illustration: Mr. Monkey listening to his Wife.]

HOW BUNNY RABBIT FOOLED GRANDFATHER STORK.
"I guess you think the same as does Grandfather Stork about some of Mr. Crow's verses. He says that nobody but foolish geese would listen to them, and yet there isn't anybody around here who doesn't like them. Grandfather Stork don't know everything there is to be learned in this world, else Mr. Bunny Rabbit couldn't have fooled him the way he did."
"I have never heard that Mr. Bunny Rabbit fooled Grandfather Stork," your Aunt Amy said, and Mrs. Goose almost laughed when she replied:
"Then you haven't seen the old fellow lately, for he spends all his time running around the neighborhood telling of it. He thinks he was very smart, and I'm not saying but that it was more than one would have expected of him, for Mr. Bunny Rabbit isn't the wisest animal living near the pond, by a good deal. Poor old Grandfather Stork was the most harmless bird that ever lived. He had carried babies from one place to another till he was all worn out, and hadn't more than six feathers left on his head.
"He hadn't a tooth to his bill, and seemed to have forgotten how to hunt for his dinner, so one day when he met Bunny Rabbit, he said to him as polite as could be:
"'Good morning, Mr. Rabbit.