



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