“Patrick,” answered Tattine seriously, “we do not want this to be a city ‘At Home.’ I don’t care for them at all. Everybody stays for just a little while, and everybody talks at once, and as loudly as they can, and at some of them they only have tea and a little cake or something like that to eat,” and Tattine glanced at the kitchen-table over by the window with a smile and a shake of the head, as though very much better pleased with what she saw there. A pair of chickens lay ready for broiling on a blue china platter. Several ears of corn were husked ready for the pot they were to be boiled in. A plate of cold potatoes looked as though waiting for the frying-pan, and from the depths of a glass fruit-dish a beautiful pile of Fall-pippins towered up to a huge red apple at the top.
“Indade, thin, but we’ll do our best,” said Mrs. Kirk, “to make it as different from what you be calling a city ‘At Home’ as possible, and now suppose you let Patrick take you over our bit of a farm, and see what you foind to interest you, and I’m going wid yer, while ye have a look at my geese, for there’s not the loike of my geese at any of the big gentlemin’s farms within tin miles of us.”
And so, nothing loth, the little party filed out of the house, and after all hands had assisted in unharnessing Barney and tying him into his stall, with a manger-full of sweet, crisp hay for his dinner, they followed Mrs. Kirk’s lead to the little pond at the foot of the apple-orchard. And then what did they see! but a truly beautiful great flock of white geese. Some were sailing gracefully around the pond, some were pluming their snowy breasts on the shore beside it, and three, the finest of them all, and each with a bow of ribbon tied round its long neck, were confined within a little picket-fence apart from the others.
“Why, what beauties, Mrs. Kirk!” exclaimed Tattine, the minute she spied them, “and what are the ribbons for? Do they mean they have taken a prize at some show or other? And why do they each have a different color?”
“They mane,” said Mrs. Kirk proudly, standing with her hands upon her hips and her face fairly beaming, “they mane as how they’re to be presinted to you three children. The red is for Master Rudolph, the white is for Miss Mabel, and the blue is for you, Miss Tattine.”
“Oh, Mrs. Kirk!” the three children exclaimed, with delight, and Mabel added politely, “But do you really think you can spare them, Mrs. Kirk?”
“Why, of course she can! can’t you, Mrs. Kirk?” cut in Rudolph warmly, for the idea of relinquishing such a splendid gift was not for a moment to be thought of. “I wonder how we can get them home,” he added, by way of settling the matter.
“Indade, thin, and I have this foine crate ready to go right in the back of your cart,” and there, to be sure, was a fine sort of cage with a board top and bottom and laths at the sides, while other laths were lying ready to be nailed into place after the geese should have been stowed away within it. The children were simply wild over this addition to their separate little sets of live-stock, and although the whole day was delightful, there was all the while an almost impatient looking forward to the supreme moment when they should start for home with those beautiful geese in their keeping. And at last it came.
“I wonder if my goose will be a little lonely,” said Tattine, as they all stood about, watching Patrick nail on the laths.
“Faith and it will thin,” said Mrs. Kirk. “It never came to my moind that they wouldn’t all three be together. Here’s little Grey-wing to keep Blue-ribbon company,” and Mrs. Kirk seized one of the smaller geese that happened to be near her, and squeezed it into the cage through the small opening that was left.