“I have come to say farewell,” he breathed, hoarsely. “I have found one younger and fairer than you.” His soul revolted when he said “fairer,” for Jeremiah hates a lie, and even if Miss Dominie be a diamond it cannot be denied she is of the charcoal variety. “I may see you sometimes,” he continued, “for I do not expect to leave the farm, and I wish you to know that the bright particular star of my life has blazed out and henceforth I am hers alone.”
Jeremiah gushed on, rapturing over his new attraction until he half convinced himself; gushed on, rapturing, until Mrs. Cochin lifted her head and struck him with her bill.
“You make me very tired,” she said. “If you have any respect for your lady love, keep your mouth shut about her. Don’t let everybody know you are a goose. Of course, you would be just as big a goose if you kept your mouth shut, but everybody wouldn’t know it. Even a gander owes that much to himself: not to let it get out how big a goose he is.”
Saying this, she tucked her head and sang a soft lullaby to her fluffs, and their faint, sweet “peep, peep,” lost in a low croon of content, sounded to forlorn Jeremiah like music behind the locked gates of paradise.
Sadly he clambered upon the back of an old wagon seat, half way between the end coop and the black pullet; and the friendly dark came down; and old Jeremiah lost the ache of self in the oblivion of sleep.
Emily Frances Smith.
THE ORIOLE.
A flash of gold and black against the sky,
A perch upon the orchard’s topmost bough,
A strain of such unmingled ecstasy,