



Transcribed from the 1902 Gay and Bird edition by David Price, email
ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

{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 <DW72> 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 work in them,
there is such a riotous profusion of colour and bloom.  To add to the