MRS. GOOSE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 146, 10 September 1927, Page 29 (Supplement)

MRS. GOOSE

Mrs. Goose was a most terrible gossip. She always knew far more about other birds’ business than they did themselves, and if you were in a hurry, you had to avoid Mrs. Goose’s nest for she’d always come out and talk and talk and talk. The worst of it all was that like most gossips she nearly always got her facts wrong. One day Mrs. Goose met Mr. Stork. She was on her way to market, carrying a basket of eggs and he’d got his best hat on, so she guessed he was going that way as well. “Quack, quack,” she said, “have you heard the news? There’s a bus running to town now and I hear that they carry birds free. Of course I’m going by bus, aren’t you?” “If \t’s free,” said Mr. Stork; “but are you sure it is?” “Oh ; quite sure,” said Mrs. Goose. “There’s young Robin. I’ll just tell him the news and he can come along, too.” So Mrs. Goose and Mr. Stork and Robin all jumped into the bus when it came along and felt very pleased with themselveS until the conductor came along saying: “Fares, please.” “Birds ride free,' don’t they?” quacked Mrs. Goose. “Nobody rides free on this bus except infants in arms,” said the conductor, very angrily. “Ou*t you get, all of you,” and he pulled the bell for the driver to stop and hustled them out. “Wrong as usual,” growled Mr. Stork, very annoyed to find he’d got to walk after all. But Mrs. Goose insisted that she’d distinctly heard that birds could ride free in buses, and that the conductor was the one who -was wrong. “I’ll tell you how I heard it,” she said. “Mrs. Farmer Jones was going along the road with her baby the other day and I heard her say, Tired, my pet?’ Well, we’ll take a bus then. Mother won’t have to pay anything for you, duckie.’ Now, doesn’t that mean that birds can ride free?”