By this time they must hurry to get home, and their farewells were hasty. Like many return journeys, the way back was the shortest; and before they knew it, the goslings were trailing through the bushes at the foot of their own pasture. And somehow the little hill and the pair of bars and the bit of road, even the farmyard strewn with straw and pleasingly disordered, suddenly looked better to them than the lonely home of the Bitterns far out in the great swamp.
"Ah, my dears," their mother said, as they waddled up to their home under the burdocks and the currant bushes, "that's what a day away from home does for you. It makes you glad for what you have."
And indeed they were happy to nestle under her ample wings, as the stars came out and the house dog bayed at the moon. And they were very happy to have heard their Cousin Bittern do his booming, and hoped, as many people hope after a great performance, that they would never have to hear it again!
[VII]
MRS. FOX STEALS ONE EGG TOO MANY
Once upon a time, long, long ago, Mrs. Rabbit lived down by the sea on a great sand-hill. She was a very kind neighbor and disturbed no one. She was poor, but she owned a great gray goose who laid wonderful big eggs.
The goose had come to her in the strangest way, years and years ago. For it happened one day that just as Mrs. Rabbit was locking up her house to go and visit her cousins, she heard a sad voice in the bushes cry, "Oh, Mrs. Rabbit, Mrs. Rabbit, please do help me in. I have broken my wing and fallen here, and all the other geese that were flying with me are gone. They left me where I fell."
At that Mrs. Rabbit gave up her intended visit, and took poor Downy Goose into the house, sent for Dr. 'Possum, and did her best to comfort her.
When Dr. 'Possum came, he took one look at the afflicted goose, shook his head, and declared he could do nothing for her. Mrs. Rabbit thereupon told the unfortunate wayfarer that she must live there always.