“Do not leave me, I beg of you,” implored old Jeremiah, standing guard
over the opening in the fence. “Believe me, there are dangers outside of
which you know not. Snakes frequent the tangle of these weeds and swine
lie in wait.”
“Stay, if you are afraid. Stay, anyway,” she answered, curtly, and
vaulting over him, she went through the fence and called her ten
children from the other side.
Jeremiah struck his white head in the dust, praying her to return. He
lunged at the fence and fell back, baffled, his feet beating the air. He
floundered upright and ran, entreating, along the fence, his head
thrusting between the interstices. The obdurate fair one paid no heed.
She was talking baby talk to her followers.
Jeremiah, after exhausting every maneuvre to get through, over or under
the fence, resigned himself to the inevitable and began looking around
for entertainment. He is a great gander to keep something going on. A
trim black pullet passed the orbit of his vision and he sauntered up to
her.
“Good evening, Miss Dominie. You are looking charming.”
Miss Dominie tossed her head. “Perhaps,” she cackled, “but I can only
charm you in the absence of Mrs. Cochin.”
“What do I care for Mrs. Cochin?” protested Jeremiah, and he looked Miss
Dominie over with the eye of a connoisseur. She was certainly well bred
and she carried herself erect. This was because she had been raised a
pet, but Jeremiah ascribed it all to her aristocratic lineage and
thought complacently that if any ill fate overtook Mrs. Cochin, Miss
Dominie would be a close second in his affections. “Mrs. Cochin is too
old,” he added.
“And that is a good thing for you,” retorted Miss Dominie. “She is too
old to be particular and she may tolerate you. For myself, I draw the
line at ganders. Chickens are good enough for me.”
“You talk like a preacher,” suavely answered Jeremiah, “and I agree with
you. They are good enough for me, too,” but Miss Dominie had darted
around the big coop and was lost to view. At that moment Dollie came out
of the house carrying a bucket of water and went from pan to trough,
pouring the chickens a fresh drink. With cries of delight, Jeremiah
fluttered in her rear, paddling and throwing the water, making it an
undrinkable mixture for the chickens. Suddenly his eyes dilated, his
neck straightened and stiffened, his wings slightly lifted and his large
feet passed each other in rapid succession, fence-ward. Dollie’s father
was coming from the barn, walking stiffly, his arm pressed against an
aching back. His eye caught Jeremiah’s and the pursuit began. The man
forgot his lame back and plunged forward, gathering small stones which
he aimed at Jeremiah. Round and round the fence they went, the man
throwing stones and execrations; the gander gabbling, ducking, dodging
until he bethought himself of the haven of gooseberry bushes, scrambled
under them and into the orchard, through the hedge into the open where,
joy inexpressible, Mrs. Cochin and her ten fluffs were tumbling in the
dog fennel.
“At last I have found you, my beloved,” gasped Jeremiah, and he rounded
up the chicks and drove them into the orchard. Mrs. Cochin followed,
protesting. She even flung herself at Jeremiah, with many a cluck and
scratch; but Jeremiah had constituted himself head of her household and,
serene in the consciousness of right, he took the family through the
orchard, under the gooseberry bushes and back into the yard.
Jeremiah knew that a little of him went a long way with Mrs. Cochin, yet
he never lost hope that his persistent devotion would win her favor. He
had been a lone gander many years. There was not another feather of his
kind in the poultry yard. It was sometimes marveled that he did not take
to the ducks, his next of kin, fat and wabbly, with raucous voices. It
was so much easier to love Mrs. Cochin, the perfection of grace and
beauty. She was large and stately. She wore always a buff robe that
flashed in the sun like burnished gold. Poor Jeremiah fell easily a prey
to her unconscious wiles and consecrated himself, body and soul, to her
personal attendance and protection.
Jeremiah’s first concern, again inside the yard, was to reconnoitre for
his friend, the enemy. He was nowhere in sight and Jeremiah turned
pleadingly to Mrs. Cochin. “Let us make up,” he urged. “Your coldness is
killing me. I honestly think I have not long to live.”
“Diet yourself,” suggested Mrs. Cochin, her feminine intuitions
connecting cause and effect. “And don’t be a goose.”
Mrs. Cochin went scratching in a flower bed. Ignored, he followed at a
respectful distance, hissing at the pup who ambled near, striking a cat
whose lithe body was poised for a spring at one of the chickens, and
frightening away a brood of ducklings. All afternoon the faithful
sentinel executed his self-imposed duty, and finally followed his
charmer across the yard to the old workshop.
“Do not go in there,” he cried, sharply.
For answer Mrs. Cochin tripped over the threshold, clucking to her
chicks. She flew upon the work bench, thence to a rafter and settled
herself as if for the night.
“What do you think I am going to do with these chickens?” grumbled
Jeremiah, trying to arouse her maternal solicitude. “Let the rats catch
them, I don’t care. They are not my chickens.”
Mrs. Cochin looked down. She drooped a wing and shut an eye. Her
attitude indicated that she would take proper care of her offspring as
soon as their company had taken his welcome leave.
Again Jeremiah went through the scene at the fence. He gabbled his vain
protestations. He groveled in the dust. He flung his unwieldly weight
against the work bench and made many futile attempts to rise to Mrs.
Cochin’s superior elevation.
“You distract, humiliate me,” he hissed. “Your heart is no larger than
your head. You may stay there. I wash my feet of you,” and suiting the
action of the word, he waddled into the water trough and fluttered
there.
The black pullet drew near. She was really a comely creature, Jeremiah
thought, and he stopped fluttering. If it were not for the fatal glitter
of Mrs. Cochin’s blonde beauty, he might learn to care for demure Miss
Dominie. He didn’t know but he could, anyway, and gracefully curving his
kingly neck he approached her.
“Good evening, Miss Dominie. You are looking very charming.”
Miss Dominie pretended not to hear. She was too young to be entirely
unmoved by his apparent admiration and she felt vaguely sorry for him;
but the sun was very low and the sand man had passed her twice. She was
looking for a spring bed on one of the low limbs of the cottonwood tree.
Jeremiah followed her, babbling the story of his wretched loneliness,
until they unwittingly crossed the path of his enemy, the man.
Jeremiah’s voice sank to a whisper and he hid behind a tree. Jeremiah is
a goose about a good many things, but he knows when to lay dead.
The black pullet brushed against him and his heart warmed—but she was
only enflight to the limb overhead. She leaned forward and spoke to him,
drowsily: “I am sorry, Jeremiah. It is the old story and I can only
advise you to get used to it. Don’t you give up. Remember, you can have
anything in this world you want if you keep after it until you get it;
that is one of the fixed laws of the universe. I think you will find
Mrs. Cochin in the end coop now. I saw Dollie gathering the chickens
into her apron and carrying Mrs. Cochin by the wing. It might be well to
excite her jealousy. You may say to her that I have at last consented to
be yours. Tell her that you have come to bid her a final farewell. Give
her back that scar she made on your neck and assure her that I am a
jealous god and object to your even passing the time of day with her.”
Jeremiah hastened to the end coop. Between the slats he recognized the
profile of his beloved, hovering her fluffs. He tried to get his head
inside, but the openings were too small and he could get in only as far
as his eyes.
“I have come to say farewell,” he breathed, hoarsely. “I have found one
younger and fairer than you.” His soul revolted when he said “fairer,”
for Jeremiah hates a lie, and even if Miss Dominie be a diamond it
cannot be denied she is of the charcoal variety. “I may see you
sometimes,” he continued, “for I do not expect to leave the farm, and I
wish you to know that the bright particular star of my life has blazed
out and henceforth I am hers alone.”
Jeremiah gushed on, rapturing over his new attraction until he half
convinced himself; gushed on, rapturing, until Mrs. Cochin lifted her
head and struck him with her bill.
“You make me very tired,” she said. “If you have any respect for your
lady love, keep your mouth shut about her. Don’t let everybody know you
are a goose. Of course, you would be just as big a goose if you kept
your mouth shut, but everybody wouldn’t know it. Even a gander owes that
much to himself: not to let it get out how big a goose he is.”
Saying this, she tucked her head and sang a soft lullaby to her fluffs,
and their faint, sweet “peep, peep,” lost in a low croon of content,
sounded to forlorn Jeremiah like music behind the locked gates of
paradise.
Sadly he clambered upon the back of an old wagon seat, half way between
the end coop and the black pullet; and the friendly dark came down; and
old Jeremiah lost the ache of self in the oblivion of sleep.
Emily Frances Smith.