So he did help her every little bit. By that time we were interested
in seeing how much she could hold; and she looked so funny that Leon
sent me for more corn; but I told him I thought what she needed now was
water, so we held her to the trough, and she tried to drink, but she
couldn't swallow much. We set her down beside the corn, and she went
to eating again.
"Go it, old mill-hopper!" cried Leon.
Right then there was an awful commotion in the barn, and from the
squealing we knew one of the horses was loose, and fighting the others.
We ran to fix them, and had a time to get Jo back into his stall, and
tied. Before we had everything safe, the supper bell rang, and I bet
Leon a penny I could reach the house while he shut the door and got
there. We forgot every single thing about the goose.
At supper mother asked Leon if he fed the goose all she would eat, and
I looked at him guilty-like, for I remembered we hadn't put her back.
He frowned at me cross as a bear, and I knew that meant he had
remembered, and would slip back and put her inside when he finished his
supper, so I didn't say anything.
"I didn't feed her ALL she would eat!" said Leon. "If I had, she'd be
at it yet. She was starved sure enough! You never saw anything like
the corn she downed."
"Well I declare!" said mother. "Now after this, take her out alone,
for a few days, and give her as much as she wants."
"All right!" chuckled Leon, because it was a lot of fun to see her run
her bill around, and gobble up the corn, and stick up her head.
The next day was Saturday, so after breakfast I went with Leon to drive
the sheep and geese to the creek to water; the trough was so high it
was only for the horses and cattle; when we let out the geese, the blue
one wasn't there.
"Oh Leon, did you forget to come back and put her in?"
"Yes I did!" he said. "I meant to when I looked at you to keep still,
and I started to do it, but Sammy Deam whistled, so I went down in the
orchard to see what he wanted, and we got to planning how to get up a
fox chase, and I stayed until father called for night, and then I ran
and forgot all about the blame old goose."
"Oh Leon! Where is she? What will mother say? 'Spose a fox got her!"
"It wouldn't help me any if it had, after I was to blame for leaving
her outside. Blast a girl! If you ever amounted to anything, you
could have put her in while I fixed the horses. At least you could
have told me to."
I stood there dumblike and stared at him. He has got the awfulest way
of telling the truth when he is scared or provoked. Of course I should
have thought of the goose when he was having such a hard fight with the
horses. If I'd been like he was, I'd have told him that he was older,
mother told HIM to do it, and it wasn't my fault; but in my heart I
knew he did have his hands full, and if you're your brother's keeper,
you ought to HELP your brother remember. So I stood gawking, while
Leon slowly turned whiter and whiter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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