Daily Independent

Last New Year's, writes a correspondent, a very amusing event occurred in my poultry-yard, where I had a flock of geese, which I was planning to keep through the winter. That morning I fed them as usual, giving them two quarts of corn taken from a barrel in the shed. During the forenoon I had occasion to pass through the farm-yard, and, to my dismay, found the old gander stretched on the snow, apparently dead. The geese, too, appeared unusually dumpish, as if other deaths might be expected in a short time.

Annoyed at the loss of the gander, I resolved to make the damages as light as possible, and so picked him up, carried him to the house, and proceeded to pick off his feathers. This done, I left his body at the back door to be carried off by one of the men.

In the middle of the afternoon I heard a most unusual honking and squawking in the barnyard, and ran out to see what was the matter. Matter enough, surely! There was the old gander whom I had stripped and left for dead strutting about among the geese, who had recovered from their morning's stupidity, and evidently didn't like the novel appearance of their former "lord and master." They were chasing the poor, shivering, naked creature about the yard, giving him spiteful pecks at every opportunity.

I laughed till the tears came at the comical sight. Then I caught the poor creature, carried him to the house, and clothed him in red flannel, which I sewed on. He was a funny-looking gander.

The geese liked him little better than before, and pecked and chased him so badly that I kept the unfortunate biped by himself for a few days, till he had become a little accustomed to his red flannel plumage. After that he had little difficulty in recovering his former dignity and prestige.

What had caused the seeming death of the poor gander was soon apparent. The mischief was in the corn barrel. One of the farm laborers, an excellent fellow, says that once in three or four months he would have "a little bit of a good time," as he expressed it, had hidden his bottle of whisky, with which he intended to celebrate New Year's, in the corn barrel over night. The cork came out, the contents escaped and saturated the corn, and my unfortunate geese had the "little bit of a good time."

It was an amusing, yet pertinent temperance lesson to the man, and it was six months before he again indulged his appetite. I wish I could write that he completely reformed, but hereditary taint and habit were too strong to be thus overcome. The gander wore his flannel suit all winter, and was spoken of ever after as the "red flannel gander."

Youth's Companion.