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Show ARY GTiWA -BOMNER. CCTYIiom It VI1IUN N!VlfFU union - GOOSE AND ELEPHANT Billie Brownie had two Invitations. One was to call on a Mrs. Gray-Lag Goose in the zoo pond and the other w-as to call on an elephant from Asia. lie thought he would call on Mrs. Gray-Lag Goose first. It was always more polite to call on a lady and pay her one's respects before anything else. Mrs. Gray-Lag was shrieking and every one in the pond was looking at her when Billie Brownie arrived. "What Is t, Mrs. Goose?" they asked. "Please do not call me Mrs. Goose," she said. "You are always calling me that and I prefer to be called by my whole magnificent name. I am Mrs. Gray-Lag Goose." "A funny name," remarked the others, oth-ers, "but still If you like it so much, we will call you by that name." "How-do-you-do, Billie Brownie," she said. "I've settled that question, I hope. "One has to put one's foot down sometimes." "True," said Billie Brownie, "and there is no reason why you shouldn't be called by your right name, Mrs. Gray-Lag Goose. Now won't you tell me about yourself?" "We are wild, our family," said Mrs. Gray-Lag Goose. "But we are more than that. We are the family belonging to those who are the ancestors ances-tors of the regular geese that live on farms and In farmyards. "They're like us except that we are larger and whiter but they're like us In almost all other ways. Think of that, Billie Brownie, think of being a sort of an ancestor to the geese known by every one. "Ancestors, of course, are the much older people or animals from whom present-day creatures are descended ; our grandmothers and great-grandmothers, and great-great-grandfathers are ancestors. "We're not the grandmothers or tha grandfathers of the farmyard geese but we're of the huge family from which the ordinary ones came originally. Isn't that glorious?" And as Billie Brownie thanked her politely for having told him this he thought to himself that It all depended on whether one was a goose or not "How Do You Do, Billie Brownie," She Said. In order to get such delight from belonging be-longing to a family of ancestor geese. Then he paid his second call on an elephant from Asia. "I used to be afraid of something when I was free, Billie Brownie," he said, "and not a big animal such as myself at all. "I was afraid of rats. "Just a moment ago I was talking with another elephant from Asia about this very thing and he agreed with me that he was afraid of rats. In fact we both shook trunks having no hands to shake on it. "They used to go after my feet. My grandmother had her feet so badly bitten by rats that she never lived to tell the tale. Others had to tell It for her. "Was It any wonder that we are afraid of them?" "I would have been afraid of them, too," said Billie Brownie. "I most certainly would have been." "They weren't big enough to fight as we might have been able to deal with creatures our size. "They Just got at our feet. It was dreadful. "But we needn't be afraid any more, for they won't have rats like those In the zoo. Those were strange Jungle-like rats. "Oh, you don't know what rats are like, Billie Brownie. Not our kind! "But it does seem a little strange to think of elephants being afraid of rats, doesn't It? "Yet it's quite, quite true." "Well I am glad you have nothing to worry about now," Billie Brownie said. "And the Queen of the Fairies will be glad to hear you have no worries now. "Goodness me, but those must have been rats! "They most certainly nnist have been rats." |