; "we would wait, but the Goslings
are in a hurry to take their first bath. Come as soon as you can."

The Gray Goose tried harder than ever to go the way that she had chosen,
but it only made her so out of breath that she had to lie down and rest.
Once she thought she heard somebody laugh, yet when she looked at the
Nigh Ox, who was the only person around, he was lying with closed eyes
and solemnly chewing his cud, so she decided that she must have been
mistaken.

Down by the brook the rest of the flock were cackling merrily, and she
could see the seven Goslings swimming with the Geese and the Gander.
"Oh," she cried, "how I wish I were with them! I don't see what is the
matter with this hole in the fence. The farmer ought to make it bigger."

She pushed and scolded and fussed until her neck was sore and she was
too tired to swim if she had a chance, so she sat down to rest. She did
remember what the Nigh Ox had said; still, if she couldn't go as she had
planned, she wouldn't go at all. She walked into the barn to find a cool
and shady place, lowering her head as she stepped over the threshold of
the high front door.

"What did you do that for?" twittered a Swallow.

"Because I don't want to hit my head on the top of the doorway;" she
replied. "I always do so. All of our flock do so."

"Tittle-ittle-ittle-ee," laughed the Swallow, as she darted away and
alighted on the fence by the Nigh Ox. "Why isn't the Gray Goose in
swimming with the rest?" asked she.

"Because she can't push her fat body through that hole in the fence,"
said the Nigh Ox, switching his tail toward it as he spoke.

"Why doesn't she go through the gateway, then?" asked the Swallow.

"Because she says she would rather go the other way, and that if she
can't go that way, she won't go at all."

"And she is missing all that fun?" said the Swallow.

"All of it," answered the Nigh Ox, "but then, you know, she is such a
Goose!"

WHY THE SHEEP RAN AWAY

It was during the hottest summer weather that the wind-storm came. The
farmyard people always spoke of it as "the" wind-storm, because not even
the Blind Horse, who had lived on the farm longer than any of his
neighbors, could remember anything like it. "I recall one time," he
said, "when a sweet-apple tree was blown down in the fall. The Hogs
found it and ate all the fruit before the farmer knew that it was down.
You should have heard them grunt over it. They were afraid the farmer
wou