The Golden Goose Read online

  While Farmer Skint was sitting at the kitchen table, Joy was standing beside his chair, looking up at him.

  “She's certainly taken a fancy to you, John,” said Mrs. Skint.

  The farmer put down a hand and stroked the gosling. Then he opened his newspaper. By chance it fell open at the sports pages, and by chance his gaze fell upon the runners and riders for the after-noon's racing at Ascot.

  “Well, would you believe it!” he cried loudly.

  “What?” asked Mrs. Skint.

  “Look here! Just look at this! I'm not a gambling man, Janet, you know that, but don't you think I ought to have a bet on this one? It's running in the four-thirty— I've just got time to get some money on it.” And he pointed at the name of one particular horse.

  Chapter Four

  “Goodness!” said Mrs. Skint. “You'll have to have a flutter on that, John, won't you!”

  Farmer Skint looked at his watch again.

  “I'd better get down to the betting shop straight away,” he said.

  “But, John, your tea?”

  “When I get back. It's ten past four already. I've got to get there before the race starts. I must find my wallet.”

  Farmer Skint had never been inside a betting shop before and didn't know quite what to do. He went to the counter and said, “Excuse me, I want to put some money on a horse.”

  The clerk handed him a slip.

  “Fill in the horse's name,” he said, “and the name of the meeting and the time of the race and the amount of your stake.”

  “Stake?” said Farmer Skint.

  “How much money you're going to bet.” How much money am I going to bet? the farmer asked himself. He took out his wallet, bulging these days thanks to the lottery win. Then he filled in the betting slip.

  He took a ten-pound note from the wallet.

  “Better hurry, sir,” said the clerk.

  “They're going down to the start now.”

  But then Farmer Skint suddenly thought, If I'm going to have a gamble, I'll have a real gamble. After all, I'm backing the golden gosling, aren't I? She'll make it come right. He took nine more notes from the wallet and altered the ten pounds to a hundred pounds. The clerk took the betting slip and the money without saying anything, but he couldn't help raising his eyebrows. Whatever's this country bump-kin up to? he thought. Never had a bet in his life before by the look of him, and now he's going to chuck away a hundred pounds on a horse that hasn't got a hope of winning. He looked at the starting prices:

  He looked at Farmer Skint and he shook his head sadly.

  “They'll be off in a minute, sir,” he said, “if you'd care to watch.”

  “Watch?” said the farmer.

  The clerk pointed to the rows of television screens on the walls of the betting shop.

  Farmer Skint watched open-mouthed as the runners in the four-thirty at Ascot burst from their starting stalls.

  “The early leader,” came the voice of the commentator, “is Sweet Thursday by a couple of lengths from Guardian Angel in second, followed by Merry Music. The rest are fairly tightly bunched, with the exception of John's Joy, who is bringing up the rear.”

  Farmer Skint watched the galloping horses, not knowing the number or the colors of John's Joy, let alone the odds against it winning. But he could see that there was one horse behind all the others. Before he could begin to worry, he heard the commentator saying, “They're coming to the halfway mark now and Sweet Thursday's dropping back. Merry Music takes up the running by a length from Guardian Angel, and the rest are getting a bit strung out as the leader passes the three-furlong post. The early front-runner, Sweet Thursday, has faded and John's Joy is beginning to make good progress through the field. In fact, as they reach the two-furlong post, John's Joy is only a couple of lengths off the lead and going well. Will there be an upset here, I wonder? Is the outsider going to get into the frame? John's Joy is on Merry Music's shoulder now at the furlong post. Now they're neck and neck—fifty yards to go—it's John's Joy! John's Joy's the winner! It's John's Joy by a length—the outsider's beaten the lot of them!”

  She did it! Farmer Skint said to himself. Joy did it! And he went to the counter and handed over his betting slip.

  “My horse won,” he said. “How much do I get?”

  “The starting price,” said the clerk in a strained voice, “was fifty to one.”

  “I'm no good at arithmetic,” said Farmer Skint.

  “You've won five thousand pounds, sir,” said the clerk, and he began counting from a wad of fifty-pound notes.

  “… A hundred … a hundred and one … a hundred and two,” he finished, and handed over the thick packet of notes.

  “Wait a minute,” said Farmer Skint. “You said I'd won five thousand pounds, but you've given me a hundred and two fifty-pound notes. That makes five thousand, one hundred. You've given me too much.”

  The clerk sighed.

  “No, sir,” he said. “Your stake was a hundred pounds—that's what you bet— so, because you won, you get that back.

  Five thousand pounds plus one hundred equals five thousand, one hundred.”

  “So it does,” said Farmer Skint. “I'm much obliged.” And out of the betting shop he went.

  Country bumpkin, my foot! thought the clerk. He knew what he was doing all right.

  Farmer Skint did not go straight back to Woebegone Farm. He went first to a wine merchant's, then to a toyshop, and then to a jeweler's. As nearly as he could (for he was not very good at arithmetic), he spent the hundred pounds that he had staked on a horse— and very much enjoyed doing so.

  When he came into the farmhouse laden with parcels, his wife took one look at them and cried, “Oh, John, you must have won!”

  “I did,” said her husband, “or rather John's Joy did. So I've bought you all presents.”

  He put the parcels down on the kitchen table and said to his little daughter, “This is for you, Jill.” It was a beautiful doll.

  Then he said to his baby son, “And this is for you, Jack.” It was a big teddy bear.

  And to his wife he said, “There are lots of good things in small parcels, Janet,” and watched as she undid a very small packet. In it was a pretty necklace.

  “Oh, John,” she said, “how lovely! Fancy buying all these things for us. You must have won a lot.”

  “I did.”

  “Well, you'd better have that cup of tea then.”

  “No,” said Farmer Skint, “I think we'll have something a bit special, to celebrate,” and he unwrapped a large bottle of champagne.

  Mrs. Skint and her children and the golden gosling all watched as he eased off the cork, and all jumped when it came out with a very loud pop. Then Farmer Skint poured the golden wine into two glasses.

  “Cheers, Janet!” he said.

  “Cheers, John!” she replied. “My goodness me, you must have won an awful lot of money to be able to buy all these presents.”

  “I did,” said her husband, and he took from his wallet that thick wad of fifty-pound notes and laid it on the table.

  “Count those,” he said.

  Mrs. Skint did so, looking more and more amazed.

  “There's a hundred of them!” she said in a dazed voice.

  “Quite right,” said Farmer Skint.

  “That's what I won. Or I suppose I should say, John's Joy won it.” And he poured a little champagne into a saucer and set it on the floor before the golden gosling.

  “She won't drink that, John!” laughed Mrs. Skint.

  “She will,” said Farmer Skint.

  And she did.

  Chapter Five

  At first Farmer Skint only allowed Joy to be a house-goose by day. At night he shut her in the old hut with her family. But one evening he thought to himself, she's so good, never makes a mess in the house, always uses her litter tray, doesn't make a noise—she's no trouble at all. I'll let her stay in the kitchen tonight.

  After the children had been put to bed and it wa
s beginning to get dark, Mrs. Skint said, “Have you shut the geese up, John?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “But you've forgotten Joy.”

  “No, I haven't. I thought she could stop in with us.”

  “Oh, John, you make a fool of yourself over that bird!”

  “Maybe, Janet, but that bird's made a new man of me.”

  And it was true. Not only was it due to Joy, Farmer Skint thought, that he had won the lottery and the horse-race, but also, he thought, she had somehow changed him from a loser to a winner.

  Before May was out, he had bought a bunch of good-quality heifers, and a couple of well-bred sows, and a flock of handsome young chickens (which he housed in a fox-proof enclosure).

  He had not paid more than other people for this livestock, as he once would have done, but less. And later in the year, when he came to sell his eggs and his piglets and the occasional bull-calf, he did not sell for less than other people, as he once would have done, but for more.

  That bird has made a new man of him indeed! Mrs. Skint thought now. And a new woman of me, for that matter, and the children love her. It's almost as though I had another child in the house.

  “All right, John,” she said. “Try keeping her in the kitchen tonight, but mind—any messes, she's out.”

  “There won't be any,” said Farmer Skint.

  And there weren't.

  So Joy became a full-time house-goose. To be sure, she saw her parents every day, for she always followed the farmer down to the orchard when he went to feed them (he'd sold the other four goslings—for a handsome price, what's more), and Misery and Sorrow were always noisily pleased to see this golden child of theirs.

  But Farmer Skint was careful not to take Joy outside unless he was sure there was nobody about. As things were now, he no longer worried too much about foxes, but human thieves would be a different matter. If a dishonest person were to set eyes on his extraordinary bird, she might be stolen.

  Really, the only person likely to see Joy was the postman. Nobody else much ever came to the Skints' isolated farmhouse. When the new flock of chickens began to lay, Mrs. Skint took the eggs she had for sale to the market in town. She didn't want people knocking on her door.

  The postman didn't usually knock, he just shoved mail through the flap of the letter box in the front door—unless he had a parcel too big to go through the flap, in which case he'd press the bell.

  One morning toward the end of June, when Farmer Skint was making hay (no rain about now, the weather was glorious and stayed so throughout haymaking and, later, harvest), the postman came to Woebegone Farm with a biggish parcel and pressed the bell. Mrs. Skint didn't hear the ring because she was vacuuming, but Jill did and went to the front door. She was not tall enough to open it, but just the right height for talking through the flap of the letter box.

  “Who is it?” she asked.

  “Postman, dear,” said the postman. “I've got a parcel for your mummy.”

  “I can't open the door. I'm not tall enough.”

  “Well, don't worry, I'll leave it on the step and you'll tell her, will you?”

  “All right,” said Jill.

  “Bye-bye then,” said the postman.

  “We've got a golden goose,” said Jill.

  “You've got a what?”

  “A golden goose. She's called Joy.”

  “Fancy!” said the postman. Kids! he thought. They say some funny things. And he got in his van and drove away.

  Chance plays a great part in the lives of people, and of geese for that matter.

  If the postman hadn't had a parcel to deliver, he wouldn't have rung the bell.

  If Mrs. Skint hadn't been vacuuming, she'd have heard it and gone to the door instead of Jill.

  If the postman hadn't sounded so nice through the flap, Jill might not have told him about the golden goose.

  But the biggest “if” was to do with one of the Skints' nearest neighbors. Not that any of them lived very close to Woebegone Farm, but a couple of miles away there was a large country house that was also on the postman's rounds.

  It was called Galapagos House, and it belonged to a famous naturalist and broadcaster called Sir David Otterbury. And the final strange chance that came about that morning was that when the postman arrived at Galapagos House and knocked on its front door (for here too he had a parcel to deliver), the door was opened by Sir David himself.

  The postman knew him of course, as did millions of people who had watched his many television programs about all sorts of animals in all parts of the world, and it struck him that the great man might be amused to be told what the Skints' child had said.

  “Good morning, sir. Parcel for you,” he said.

  “Thank you,” replied Sir David Otterbury.

  “I heard a funny thing this morning, sir,” said the postman. “You know all about geese, I'm sure.”

  “I know a bit about them.”

  “Well, you know the Skints, sir? Woebegone Farm?”

  “I don't know them, but I had heard they'd fallen on hard times.”

  “Oh, their luck's changed,” said the postman, “so folks say. But anyway, what I was going to tell you was that I was talking to the Skints' little girl this morning, through their letter flap.”

  “Through their letter flap?”

  “Yes, she's not tall enough to open the door—and you'll never guess what she said to me. She told me they'd got a golden goose. Funny the things kids say, isn't it?”

  “A golden goose?” said Sir David Otterbury.

  “Don't suppose you've ever heard of such a bird, sir?” said the postman. “I thought you'd be amused.”

  After the postman had driven away, Sir David went to his study to open his parcel and to read the rest of his mail. But all the time, as he was always interested to hear about different beasts and birds, he kept thinking about what the child had said. A golden goose? No such bird, surely. Yet the phrase rang a bell in his mind. Was it a story he'd heard on his travels? Was it something he'd heard as a child—a fairy story, perhaps? No, don't be so silly, he said to himself. The little girl was talking nonsense or perhaps just talking about one of her toys. Maybe she'd got her birds muddled and it was a golden pheasant that the Skints had. But a golden goose! Rubbish! Still, thought Sir David, I'd quite like to go and have a look and see what bird it is.

  Chapter Six

  Sir David Otterbury was, of course, a very busy man. He was abroad a good deal, making nature programs in various parts of the world, and even in England he was often away from Galapagos House on business of one sort or another. So it was in fact many months before he was reminded of the postman's story of the little girl who said she had a golden goose.

  But then one day he was driving along a country road not too far from his home and there was the signpost for WOEBEGONE FARM. It pointed up a very narrow lane. Ah, thought Sir David, the golden goose! I'll have a peep and see if I can spot this ridiculous bird. I'll pretend I've come to buy some hens' eggs. And he turned up the lane.

  Nearing the farmhouse, he saw an orchard with an old hut in it and a pond and a pair of geese, grazing side by side.

  Ordinary white geese, thought Sir David. No more golden than I am. Why am I wasting my time? I'll turn round and go back.

  But just at that moment Farmer Skint came out of the farmhouse and approached the car.

  “Looking for me?” he asked, and then he recognized the face of the driver—a face that he had seen so many times on his television set. The driver smiled at him.

  “Good afternoon,” he said. “My name's David Otterbury.”

  “Yes, sir, I know,” said the farmer. What's he want? he thought.

  “Could you sell me a dozen eggs? I'd be most grateful.”

  “Certainly,” replied Farmer Skint. “I'll fetch them right away.”

  Thought for a moment he might have heard about Joy, he said to himself as he went to get a tray of eggs. Don't see how he could have, though. But
then he suddenly thought how interested Sir David Otterbury would be. Of all the people in the land, he'd be the one who'd be the most interested. Shall I let him see her? thought Farmer Skint. But then he'd tell the world about her, wouldn't he? Not if I swore him to secrecy, though—if I made him promise not to tell.

  Farmer Skint still hadn't made his mind up what to do when he came back with the tray of eggs.

  “Here you are, sir,” he said to Sir David, who had got out of his car and was leaning on the wall of the orchard, looking at Misery and Sorrow.

  “Thank you, Mr. Skint,” he said.

  “You know my name, Sir David?”

  “Yes.”

  “Everybody knows yours,” said the farmer. He looked at that pleasant smiling face and made up his mind in a flash.

  “You know all about geese, I'm sure,” he said.

  “I know a bit about them. You've got a handsome pair out there. Have you bred from them?”

  “Yes, sir, I have,” said Farmer Skint. He took a deep breath. “I'd like to show you what I've bred from them, if you've got a minute.”

  “Certainly.”

  “There's just one thing, sir. I don't want anyone else to know. Will you promise not to breathe a word of it to anybody else?”

  Don't tell me, thought Sir David, that your little daughter was telling the truth to the postman! Golden goose indeed! It'll just be a brownish sort of bird, I expect. But I would like to see it.

  “Certainly, Mr. Skint,” he said. “I promise not to tell a soul.”

  Farmer Skint went back into the farmhouse and a few minutes later came out again, followed by Joy.

  Never, for the rest of his life, did Sir David Otterbury forget the thrill of delight he felt at the sight that met his astonished eyes. For walking sedately at the heels of Farmer Skint of Woebegone Farm was a full-grown goose, a goose that was a wonderful bright gold color all over. Even its beak was gold, as were its large webbed feet, and it stared up at him with its golden eyes.