At each question the “mother” would shake her head very soberly, and say, “No, my daughter;” or, “Not at present, my daughter.”
“Good!” cried Mr. Tompkins,—“very good for ‘mother’! Now who’s going to be ‘goose’?”
“I will,” said Clarence.
“Come, then,” said Floy. “If cousin Hiram will help me, I’ll dress you up for ‘goose’ in the way they dressed up their ‘goose’ last night.”
Hiram and Floy took Clarence into the house, and got an old light-colored calico dress of Mrs. Plummer’s, and held it bottom up, and told Clarence to step in, and put his legs through the sleeves. Next they gathered the bottom of the skirt around his neck, keeping his arms inside. Then they tied a thin pocket-handkerchief over his head, covering face and all. Then they fastened a tin tunnel to the front side of his head, and called that the “bill of the goose;” and then pinned on two feather fans for wings, and hung a feather duster on behind for a tail. Floy told him he must stoop far over, and go waddling around, pecking with his bill like a goose.
The instant the “goose” appeared, all the people began to laugh: and when they saw it waddling around in the grass, pecking with its bill as if it were pecking at little bugs, they fairly shouted; some crying out, “Oh, what a goose!—oh, what a goose!” Josephus shouted too, and made his feet fly and his hands fly, and patted cakes enough for his supper. Snip barked, and ran this way and that way; keeping away from the “goose,” though.
The next thing was to put the two words together, and act “Mother Goose.”
“Mr. Tompkins,” said Mr. Doty, “why don’t you be ‘Mother Goose’?”
“I don’t believe Mr. Tompkins could keep from laughing,” said Hiram.
“Oh, yes, I could! I could keep from laughing,” said Mr. Tompkins; “but my nose is too short.”