Читать книгу My Year In A Log Cabin - William Dean Howells - Страница 7

IV

The geese were not much profit—they had to be sold, finally, for little or nothing; but their soft and woolly goslings were a great pleasure to all the children, who were plunged in grief when the miller’s sow made a foray among them.

This was a fierce and predatory, animal that was in some sort a neighborhood terror. She made her lair in the reeds by the river-side, breaking out a perfect circle, which she kept against all comers, especially boys, till her young were born; then she returned to her sty near the miller’s house, convenient to the young turkeys, chickens, and goslings, leading forth her brood in a savage defiance which no one dared to front, except the miller, who did so with a shot-gun at times, when her depredations became outrageous. Wherever she appeared the children ran screaming, and the boldest boy was glad of the top rail of a fence.