The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1907-07-05
THE oAMEKgEpER's DAUGHTER.
Did Ever a Little Girl Have Hap
pier Timer

I
Did Ever a Little Girl Have a Hap
pier Timer
In all the great, green, quiet park
there was no little girl or boy to play
with; but for all that. little Georgina,
the head gamekeeper's daughter, new
er knew what it was to feel lone
some. She had such a playground
and such playfellows as most of US
have at times dreamed of, but none
of us have had in reality.
In the first place, she lived with
her good father and mother in just
such thatch-roofed, diamond-paned,
rose-embowered cottage nesting be-
side a little mirror-like lake among
century-old trees, as one sees in pic
ture books, and reads of in poems
and songs of Old England.
Almost as far as she could see, the
level green park stretched away.
broken here and there by clamps OF
giant oaks, and beyond up against
the sky, was the blue line of kills that
formed the edge of the world; and
this lovely world was all her own,
for, of course, Georgina, the only
child, ruled in the pretty cottage as
completely as her father lorded it
over his many furred and feathere1
subjects.
In whatever direction she chose to
wander she saw her playmates, wait
;nr or Oh, oIxyovc c1,nn0cod for her
to come and L%ay with them.
On the littls lake by the, cottage,
fioated and quacked and honked ducks
Of every color, white geese and gray
and black geese, and graceful long
necked swans. At quite the other
side of the lake she might see at the
same time a herd of fallow deer, their
brown bodies dappled with spots Of
snowy white, their heavy horns con-
trasting strangely with the slender
treelike horns of the rel deer.
Innumerable little gray rabbits
hoped noiselessly about in all di-
rections, and English pheasants
hens in modest buff, the cocks in
gorgeous brown, blue and gold-dart-
ed swiftly about among the under
brush; but the queerest of all her
friends were the gray kangaroos-
"Hoppity-hops" Georgina called them.
The grounds around the cottage were
fenced off from the surrounding park,
but Georgina had so frequently ac-
companied her father outside in his
search for pheasapts' nests, or to see
how the deer Jared, that she felt per-
fectly at home there, even when alone.
Perhaps her greatest joy was in
coaxing acquaintance with the timid
baby deer If she came suddenly upon
one hiding in the grass, or behind
a stone, it frequently remained quite
motionless, curled Up into the small
est possible space and pressed fiat
to the ground, only its watchful eye
proving that it was wide awake and
very anxious. In the leafy forest this
would be it's safest course, for there
its protective coloring would render
1t almost invisible, but in the open
park, on the green grass, it's inherited
instinct for concealment failed it, and
1t was all too visible to friend or foe.
Georgina would creep up ever so
quietly and sit down beside it. Some
times she even succeeded in stroking
its soft coat. Then the mother deer
would circle anxiously around, COM
ing as near as she dared, her great
ears thrown forward, every nerve
tense and ready to spring away at
the least hostile. move; but it always
ended by the fawn suddenly scramb-
ling to its long thin legs. and, with
little cries Of alarm, dashing over the
green sward to join its mother and
find concealment in the deep shadows
Of the cool forest.-J. M. Gleason, in
ST. Nicholas.