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Chapter One
Farmer Skint was a poor unfortunate man.
He was poor because he was not a very good farmer. He always sold things for less than other people did, and he always paid more than other people for whatever he bought.
He was unfortunate because nothing ever seemed to go right for him. At haymaking or at harvest time, it always seemed to rain. His cows often got foul-in-the-foot, his pigs often got swine fever, and his chickens were always being eaten by foxes.
There came a time when Farmer Skint had lost nearly all his animals. He'd had to sell his remaining cows and pigs and what chickens were left, and all he had now on Woebegone Farm was a pair of geese: a gander called Misery and a goose called Sorrow.
“I'm sorry, Janet,” he said to his wife, “but things have got so bad that we shall have to sell the farm.”
“Oh no, John, no, John, no!” cried Mrs. Skint. “What shall we do then? The children have to be fed and clothed.”
Farmer Skint looked sadly at his two children, a little girl named Jill and a baby boy named Jack. Both looked very hungry. “I don't know about clothes,” said the farmer, “but at least we've still got something left to eat.”
“What?” asked Mrs. Skint.
“The geese.”
“Oh no, John! Not poor Misery and Sorrow!”
“Well, Misery anyway,” said Farmer Skint. “Not Sorrow. Not yet. She's sitting on a clutch of eggs. I'll have to let her hatch them out first.”
Later that day, he went into his orchard, where there was an old hut. Inside it, Sorrow was sitting on her eggs. Misery the gander was standing guard outside and he cackled angrily at the farmer.
“Sorry, old chap,” said Farmer Skint, “but you may be for the chop one of these fine days.”
Then he went into the hut and carefully lifted Sorrow off her eggs. She pecked at him furiously, but he was so low-spirited that he took no notice.
But he took notice quickly enough when he peeped in the nest.
He'd had a look the day before and there had been four eggs, four dirty-white goose eggs, and he was expecting to see a fifth. He was right. There were now five eggs.
But what made Farmer Skint gasp with surprise, what made his heart race and his breath come quickly, what made his eyes nearly pop out of his head, was the color of that fifth egg. Dirty-white it was not. It was golden.
In the weeks that followed, Sorrow sat steadily upon her five eggs, while Misery mounted guard outside the hut. At nights Farmer Skint shut him inside for fear of the fox.
Then there came a morning when the farmer went into his orchard and was about to open the door of the old hut to let Misery out. But then he thought that the time had come to sacrifice the gander. “At least,” he said to himself, “we can have one really good square meal before we all starve,” and he made ready to catch up the bird as he undid the bolt on the door.
Yet it was not Misery who came out first, but Sorrow, and behind her came five newly hatched goslings, and behind them marched their proud father.
Out of the darkness of the hut into the brightness of a lovely May morning they all came, and what he now saw made Farmer Skint catch his breath.
Four of the downy goslings were a pale yellowish color, like most goslings are, but the fifth one was a wonderful bright gold, all over. Even its beak was gold, as were its little webbed feet.
Out of the golden egg, thought Farmer Skint dazedly, has come a golden gosling that will grow into a golden goose!
As the geese stood around him, waiting for the food in the bucket that the farmer was carrying, the golden gosling waddled right up to his feet and stood looking at him with eyes that were not only bright with intelligence but also golden in color.
Something made poor unfortunate Farmer Skint squat down on his heels and put out a hand and stroke the gosling's golden back. Had he tried to do this to its brothers or sisters, they would surely have backed away, but the golden gosling stood quite still and even nodded its little head as though it was enjoying his touch.
But more than that, much more than that, as he stroked, Farmer Skint began gradually to feel happier. He looked at his little family of geese and knew, with certainty, that even to feed his own family he could not possibly kill Misery. It was his own misery, he felt, that had suddenly received its death blow.
He looked around his orchard and at his fields beyond and decided he could not possibly sell them. He looked up into the sky and saw what a glorious morning it was, with a sun as golden as his gosling.
Quickly he tipped the food for the geese out of the bucket and ran back to the farmhouse, calling for his wife. When she came out, carrying baby Jack and holding Jill by the hand, she wore a worried face.
“Oh, what is it now, John?” she cried. “What has happened? What has gone wrong?”
“It's Sorrow,” he said.
“Oh no, John! Not more bad news?”
But then Mrs. Skint looked more carefully at her husband and saw that he was smiling. It's ages since I saw him smile, she thought. For that matter, it's ages since I did.
“Come along with me, Janet,” said Farmer Skint, and he led the way out into the orchard, where Misery and Sorrow were finishing their breakfast while their five children pottered about in the sunshine.
“Now then,” said the smiling farmer to his worried wife, “what d'you think of that, eh?” and he pointed to the golden gosling. “Just look at the color of it!”
Mrs. Skint looked in wonder, and then, letting go of Jill's hand and holding Jack in her other arm, she bent down and stroked that downy golden back. As she did so, the look of worry gradually left her face and she too began to smile.
Husband and wife looked at one another.
“D'you feel as happy as I do?” asked the farmer.
“Oh yes, John, yes, John, yes! I felt it the moment I touched her.”
“Her?”
“Yes. Something tells me it's a little goose, not a gander.”
“Well, we'd better think of a name for her,” said Farmer Skint. “She may be the daughter of Misery and Sorrow, but she'll have to have a happier name than that.”
“How about Joy?” suggested his wife.
“Joy,” said Farmer Skint. “That's perfect. Just what we need.”
Chapter Two
As they walked back up to the farmhouse, they met the postman, who had parked his van by the garden wall and was just about to walk up the path to the front door. Instead, he handed the letters to the farmer.
“Thank you! Thank you very much!” said Farmer Skint. “It's a beautiful morning, isn't it? Makes you glad to be alive!”
Whatever's come over him? thought the postman as he drove away. Usually
he's a miserable sort of fellow. In fact, I've never seen him smile before, but just now he was grinning like a Cheshire cat.
Farmer Skint ate his breakfast, the letters lying unopened on the table beside him. It
was his habit not to look at anything the postman might have brought until he'd finished eating. By then he'd feel more able to deal with the post, which consisted mostly of bills.
“A good dish of bacon and eggs for breakfast,” Farmer Skint's father used to say, “and a man can face up to anything. Bacon and eggs give a good lining to the stomach.”
But now there were no pigs or chickens on Woebegone Farm, so the poor unfortunate farmer had to make do with toast and a scrape of jam. Unfortunate he may have been, and poor, at that moment, he still was, yet he ate his food with gusto. Then he took a paper-knife and slit open the three envelopes that the postman had brought.
The first two contained bills and for a moment his smiles were replaced by a frown, but then he opened the third envelope and the frown vanished, to be replaced by a look of total amazement.
After a while he raised his head and looked around the kitchen table, at baby Jack in his high chair, at little Jill, at his wife.
“Would you believe it!” said Farmer Skint in a hoarse whisper.
“Believe what, John?” asked Mrs. Skint, her smile now changing to a frown.
“I've been and gone and won the lottery, that's all,” said her husband.
“What d'you mean?”
“Well, years and years ago, when I was a boy, my old dad bought me a lottery ticket. A one-pound ticket it was. It never won anything of course. Till now.”
Farmer Skint looked at his wife and his face broke into the biggest smile you can imagine.
“Till now,” he said again. “Now it has won something, Janet, that old one-pound ticket has. Guess how much.”
“Oh, I don't know, John,” said Mrs. Skint. “Ten pounds perhaps?”
“A lot more than that.”
“A hundred pounds?”
“Not enough zeroes.”
“Oh no, John, don't tell me—you've never won a thousand pounds, have you?”
“No,” said Farmer Skint. “This letter is to say that that old lottery ticket that my old dad bought me has won ten thousand pounds! Look, here's the check.” And he waved it in front of his wife.
“Oh, John!” gasped Mrs. Skint in a choked voice. “Our luck has changed at last.”
“Looks like it,” said the farmer. “We shall have money in the bank again. Or we shall have once I put this check in. There's still a drop of gas left in the old car, so leave the washing-up—we'll all go straight into town.”
“And buy some new clothes for the children,” Mrs. Skint said.
“And food, all sorts of food, 'specially bacon and eggs. We'll have a second breakfast when we get back.”
“And we'll get sweets for the children.”
“And gas for the car.”
“And new shoes for the children.”
“And, Janet, you could have a new washing machine.” “And a new fridge.”
“And a new television.”
“And toys for the children.”
“And it's Market Day tomorrow. I could buy a couple of cows.”
“And some hens.”
“And a pig or two.”
“And perhaps a pet rabbit for the children. Oh, John, everything in the garden is lovely, and you know why, don't you?”
“Yes. I've just won ten thousand pounds.”
“Yes, but why have you? What's happened to change you from a poor unfortunate man to a rich and lucky one? Who is the cause of all this luck?”
“It must be Joy,” said Farmer Skint.
Chapter Three
What a shopping spree the Skints had that day! As well as buying some of the things they'd talked about, Farmer Skint bought a big sack of corn for the geese and a few sacks of meal and bran that he would mix together to make their daily mash. Misery and Sorrow had been living on rather poor rations recently and they were obviously delighted to be given much more food.
“Kark! Kark!” they cried in their pleasure.
But one morning, after the farmer had given them their breakfast and was eating his own (a good dish of bacon and eggs), he suddenly heard them making quite a different noise—a loud, urgent honking that meant, he knew, that there was danger about. Geese are good watchdogs, which is why the ancient Romans kept them to guard their most important temple. They knew the geese would make a great din if enemies approached.
Farmer Skint was neither ancient nor a Roman, but as soon as he heard the row that Misery and Sorrow were making, he jumped up from the breakfast table. On his way out of the farmhouse, he grabbed his gun, for he had a pretty good idea of what the approaching enemy was.
He was right. Sneaking among the orchard trees was a red bushy-tailed figure.
Misery and Sorrow stood bravely side by side facing the fox, their children grouped behind them. Farmer Skint ducked down behind the low wall of the orchard. His two geese would, he knew, do their best to protect their family, even at the cost of their own lives, but the goslings would be easy meat for the red raider, who was by now very close.
Long muzzle pointed ahead, eyes fixed upon its intended prey, the fox was poised for a final deadly rush when Farmer Skint fired both barrels.
The alarm cries of the geese now changed to shouts of triumph as the farmer came forward to pick up the limp body of their enemy.
“And d'you know what, Janet?” he said to his wife later. “Misery and Sorrow and four of the goslings just went off down to the pond as though nothing had happened. But the golden one—”
“Joy,” said Mrs. Skint.
“Yes, Joy—she stood looking at that old dead fox and then she looked up at me, and it seemed almost as though …”
“What?” asked Mrs. Skint.
“As though she was saying thank you.”
“Well, you saved her life.”
“Thank goodness,” said Farmer Skint. “I couldn't bear to lose her.”
“I suppose we could shut them all up in the daytime,” said Mrs. Skint.
“Shut them up? Where?”
“Well, in the empty cowshed. Then, if another fox comes, they'd be safe.”
“But the old ones would be miserable, Janet. You know how they like grazing the orchard grass and swimming in the pond. We'll just have to be on the lookout from now on, or rather on the listen-out, because
Misery and Sorrow will give the alarm if there's any danger in the daytime. I wouldn't worry all that much if it wasn't for Joy.”
“Well, put her in the cowshed.”
“All on her own? No, no. But I don't know what to do. It's a problem.”
But that very afternoon the problem was solved. Farmer Skint had just given the geese their midday mash and was standing, watching them eat. He was thinking, as he so often did, how beautiful the golden gosling was. She's safe at night, he thought. If only I could be sure that she'd be safe by day.
As he walked back up to the farmhouse, he had a sudden feeling that he was being followed. He looked round, and there was Joy, pattering along at his heels. He stopped. She stopped. He went on again. She came after him.
Reaching the door of the farmhouse, Farmer Skint opened it and, turning, said to Joy, by way of a joke, “Do come in, won't you?”
She did.
“Oh look, Mummy!” cried little Jill, and she ran forward and began to stroke the gosling's golden back. As she did so, she broke into a huge smile.
Then baby Jack came crawling across the floor and touched Joy. As he did so, he began to chortle with delight.
“Look at them!” said the children's mother. “They love her, don't they? I don't know what we'd do without her now.”
“She'd be quite safe in here,” said Farmer Skint.
“In here, John?” asked his wife. “Whatever do you mean? You're surely not thinking of having her live in the house? Only dogs and
cats live in people's houses. She's a goose. Just think of the messes she'd make.”
“I could house-train her, Janet,” said Farmer Skint.
“What, to go outside to do her business, like you'd teach a puppy to do?”
“Yes, or better still, we could give her a litter tray, like you would for a kitten. I bet she'd soon learn to use it. Come to think of it, there's an old plastic seed tray in the greenhouse that would do fine. I'll get it now,” said the farmer, and he went out. Joy followed him. Before long he came back with the seed tray, in which he'd put a layer of peat. Joy was still following him.
He placed the tray in a corner of the room.
“Now then,” he said to the golden gosling, “if you want to do something, you do it in there, okay?”
Mrs. Skint laughed. “Don't be silly, John,” she said. “How could the poor little thing possibly understand what you're saying?”
Hardly were the words out of her mouth when Joy waddled over to the seed tray, climbed into it, and did a poo. Somehow neither of the Skints was all that surprised to see that, instead of the usual dirty-white color that birds' droppings are, these were golden.
“Clever girl!” said Farmer Skint to his gosling, and to his wife, “I bet you she would, didn't I?”
He sat down and looked at his watch. “It would have been time for afternoon milking now,” he said, “after I'd fed the pigs and the chickens. But now there are no animals left, so there's no hurry to do anything. I could get used to a life like this, Janet.”
“That lottery money's not going to last us forever, you know,” his wife said.
“You're right,” said her husband. “But then, you never know, Joy might bring us another bit of luck. So shall I put the kettle on? We'll have a cup of tea while I have a look at today's paper.”
The Golden Goose Page 1
