Social activities were at a standstill during these late autumn days.  People were recovering from the strain of the summer season and storing up strength for winter entertainments.  Before these began there was an interregnum of several weeks, the slaughtering and baking times, the latter coinciding with the Christmas period.  First came the slaughtering of geese.  A regular household without a goose-killing time could hardly have been thought of.  Many things had to be taken into account.  First of all, perhaps, were the feathers to make new beds, which were always needed for guest chambers; but the chief concern were the smoked goose-breasts, almost as important articles as the hams and sides of bacon hanging in the chimney.  Shortly before St. Martin’s day, if enough geese had been collected to supply the needs, they were penned up for fattening, in the court, which gave rise to a horrible cackling, well calculated to rob us of our night’s rest for a whole week.  But a day was straightway set for the beginning of the feast, about the middle of November.  In the court, in a lean-to built near the end of the house, and, strange to say, with a dove-cote over it, was the servants’ room, in which, beside the cook, two house-maids slept, provided always they did any sleeping.  The coachman was supposed, according to a rule of the house, to occupy the straw-loft, but was happy to forego the independence of these quarters, which went with his position, preferring by his presence to crowd still worse the already crowded space of the servants’ room, in full accord with Schiller’s lines,

  “Room is in the smallest hovel
  For a happy, loving pair.”

But when goose-killing time came it meant a very considerable further overcrowding, for on the evening that the massacring was to begin there was added to the number of persons usually quartered in the servants’ room a special force of old women, four or five in number, who at other times earned a living at washing or weeding.

Then the sacrificial festivities began, always late in the evening.  Through the wide-open door—­open, because otherwise it would not have been possible to endure the stifling air—­the stars shone into the smoky room, which was dimly lighted by a tallow candle, with always a thief in the candle.  Near the door stood in a semi-circle the five slaughter priestesses, each with a goose between her knees, and as they bored holes through the skullcaps of the poor fowls, with sharp kitchen knives—­a procedure, the necessity of which I have never understood—­they sang all sorts of folk-songs, the text of which formed a strange contrast, as well to the murderous act as to the mournful melody.  At least one had to suppose this to be the case, for the maids, who sat on the edge of the bed with their guest from the straw-loft between them, followed the folksongs with never-ending merriment, and at the passages that sounded specially mournful they even burst into cheers.  Both my