[THE END.]

A FLOCK OF GEESE.

by W. BERT FOSTER.

[Illustration]

“That Al Peck thinks he’s so smart,” remarked Nat Bascom, coming into the kitchen with a scowl of fearful proportions darkening his face.  “Just because he’s got a flock of geese, and expects to make some money on them Christmas.  I wish I had some geese—­or something, father.  I’d like to make some money as well as Al.”

Mr. Bascom looked up from the county paper, in which he had been reading a political article, and said, curtly: 

“You make money, Nat!  You haven’t a money-making bone in your body.  Wish you had.  Last spring I gave you that plot of ground back of the orchard to plant, and you let it grow up to weeds; and, a year ago, you had that cosset lamb, and let the animal die.  ’Most any other boy around these parts would have made quite a little sum on either of them.”

“Oh, well, the weeds got the start of me on that ground, and you know that lamb was weakly.  Ma said it was,” whined Nat.

“It was after you had the care of it,” reminded the elder Bascom.

“Well, pa, can’t I have some geese, same as Al Peck has?” at last inquired Nat, desperately.

“You may if you can catch them,” answered his father, smiling grimly.  “If you can trap a flock of wild ones, I reckon you can have them.  I ain’t going to waste any more money on your ventures.”

Nat flung out of the house in anything but a pleasant frame of mind and went over to stare longingly at Alvin Peck’s flock of geese, securely penned behind his father’s barn.

Until recently, the two boys, who were about of an age, had been the best of friends.  But within a fortnight, Alvin’s father had presented his son with a flock of thirteen geese, to fatten for market, and Al had, in Nat’s eyes, put on the airs of a millionaire.

Alvin Peck may have had some excuse for being proud of his geese, for they were all fine, handsome birds, but, in his pride, he had filled poor Nat’s breast with envy.

Nat wanted some Christmas money as well as his friend, and to hear Al loudly boast of what he intended doing with his was maddening.

Gradually the seeds of discord sown between the two boys had sprouted and taken root, and, being warmed and watered by Nat’s jealousy and Al’s selfishness, were soon in a flourishing condition, and before Thanksgiving the former chums refused even to speak to each other.

This state of affairs made Nat secretly very lonely, for Alvin was the only other boy within a number of miles, and, being without either brother or sister, Nat was absolutely companionless.  But his pride would not allow him to go to his former friend and “make up.”  Even when Al’s dog Towser came over to visit the Bascom’s Bose, Nat drove him home with a club, thus increasing the enmity between him and Towser’s master.

This deplorable state of affairs continued to grow worse instead of better as the holidays approached.  One evening, a week or ten days before Christmas, it commenced raining, but, becoming suddenly very cold in the night, the rain turned to ice, and the following morning the roofs, sheds, fences, trees—­everything, in fact—­was covered with a coating of ice.  With the beams of the rising sun shining over all, it seemed a picture of fairy land.