My heart gave a bound!
Where did that sound come from?
Out of a cool cluster of innocent-looking lilac bushes I saw a dark object cautiously moving. It seemed to have no head. I knew, however, that it had a head. I had seen it; it had seized me once in the previous summer, and I had been in terror of it during all the rest of the season.
I looked down into the irregular grass, and saw the head and a very long neck running along on the ground, propelled by the dark body, like a snake running away from a ball. It was coming toward me, and faster and faster as it approached.
I dropped my bundles.
In a few flying leaps I returned to the road again, and armed myself with a stick from a pile of cordwood.
"Honk! honk! honk!"
It was a call of triumph. The head was high in the air now. My enemy moved grandly forward, as became the monarch of the great meadow farmyard.
I stood with beating heart, after my retreat.
It was Aunt Targood's gander.