Page:The Country Boy.djvu/96

88, but finally spring was approaching and I had noticed how he could fly around the barnyard. Father came to me one day and warned me that if I wanted to keep that goose I had better clip his wings, but he said, “I hope you won’t. You say that you love animals; now show it by letting this goose alone, then when his kind come by in a few weeks going north for the breeding season, he will join them and be happier than he is here.”

I replied that “of course an outsider might think he would leave, but in reality he would not. The goose and I have talked it over and he don’t care for anything better than I am, so he ain’t goin’ away.”

“Well,” said father, “when I see you two together I think as much, but when you go downtown loitering around with people that aren’t half as smart as this goose, it’s then that he misses you, and it’s on that account that I wish you would leave his