The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1881-04-15
miscellaneous.
Intoxicated Geese.

| When geese take to drink the result is pre-
p0stcrous. For nature never meant geese to
| get intoxicated. In the first place they have
no hands TO hold on to lamp posts with :;
while at the best of times their balance is
| prccariOus. Even when sober, Il fat goose, if
| travelling on uneven ground, constantly cants
forward on to its beak, or backward on to its
tail ; but when inebriated it is utterly help
less A short while ago farmers wife in
Germany had been making some cherry
brandy, but as she found, during the process
that the fruit was unsound, she threw the
whole mass out into the yard, and, without
looking what followed, shut the window
AS 1t fell, q party ofgeese, good fellows all of
them happened to be waGdling by at the time,
and, seeing the cherries trundling about, at
once investigated them The preliminary
Inquiry proving satisfactory, these misguided
poultry set to and ate the whole lot. mo
heel taps" was the order ofthe carouse and
so they finished all the cherries off at one
sitting, so to speak. The effect of the spirit
uous fruit was soon apparent, for on trying
to make the gate which led from the scene of
the debauch to the horse pond, they found
everything against them. Whether high
wind had got up, or what had happened, they
could not tell but it seemed to the geese as if
there was an uncommonly high sea running,
and the ground set in toward them with a
steady strong swell that was most embarrass-
ing to progress. To escape these difficulties
some dashed their rudders and hove to, others
tried TO run before the wind, while the rest
tackled for the pig stye But there was no
living in such weather, and one by one the
craft lurched over and went down all stand
ing. Meanwhile the dame, the unconscious
cause of this disaster was attracted by the
noise in the fowl yard and looking out saw
all her ten geese behaving as if they were
mad. The gander himself, usually so solemn
and decorous, was balancing himself on his
beak, and spinning around the while in a
prodigious furry of feathers and dust, while
the old gray goose, remarkable, even among
her kind for the circumspcction of her CON
duct, was lying stomach upward in the gutter,
iecbly gestlculatng with her legs Others of
the party were no less conspicuous for the
extravaganza of their attitude and gestures,
while the remainder were to be seen in n
helpless confusion of feathers in the lee SOUP
per-that is to say, the gutter by the pig
stye. PerpleXed by the spectacle, the dame
called in her neighbors, and, after careful in
vcstigation, it was decided in council that
the birds had died of poison. Under these
circumstances their carcasses were worth
nothing for food, but, as the neighbors said,
the feathers were not poisoned, and so they
6tb w Noih thtli hiIli tutiC anu inc
ten geese bare.
Next morning the old woman got up as
usual, and, remembering the feathers down
stairs, dressed betimes, for it was market day,
and she hoped to get them off her hands at
once. And then she bcthought her of the
pluckcd bodies lying in the porch, and re-
solved that they should be buried before she
went out. But DIS she approached the door,
on these decent rites intent and was turning
the key, there fell on her ears the sound of
familiar voice. and then another and another,
until at last the astonished dame heard in
full chorus the well-known accents of all her
pluckcd and poisoned geese. The throat of
the old gandcr Aas, no doubt, Il triilc husky,
and the gray goose spoke in muiiled tones
suggestive of II Christening headache; but
there was no installing those tongues and
the dame, fumbling at the door, wondered
what it all might mean. Has goose a
ghost? Did any one ever read or hear of
the spectre of II gandcr? The key turned at
last, the door opened, and there, quacking in
subdued tones, suppliant and shivering stood
all her flock There they stood, the ten mis-
cradle birds, with splitting headaches and
parched tongues, contrite and detected, ask
ing to have their feathers back again. The
situation was painful to both parties The
forlorn geese saw in each others persons
the Illuminating reflection OF their own con
dition, while the dame, guilty conscious of
that bagful of feathers and down, rcmem-
bered how that one lapse of Noah, in that
"aged surprisal of 600 years and unexpected
inebriation from the unknown effects of
wine," has been excused by religion and the
unanimous voice of his posterity She, and
her neighbors with her, however, had hastily
misjudged the geese and finding them dead
drunk had stripped them, without remem-
bering for moment, that if feathers are easy
to get Off they are very hard to put on. So
she called in her neighbors again, but they
proved only sorry comforters, for they re-
minded her that after all, the fault was her
own; that it was she, and no one else, who
had thrown the branded cherries to the
geese AS it was with job, these "obique
expostuations" of her friends were harder
| for the widow TO bear ethan the downright
blows of the devil" and so, turning from her
neghbors she gathered all her bald poultry
about her around the kitchen fire, and set
down to make them flannel jackets--Lon-
d0a Punch..