A TOUGH GOOSE-YARN

It is hard to tell whether the biggest liars live by the sea or on the mountain, but certainly the sailor folk will have a time of it to match one Bob Sempers, one of the most elastic of all the prevaricators on the Pocono Mountain. Here is a story Bob told a party of gentlemen hunters not long ago:

“You know where I live. About three mile from the Big Lake. Well—one evenin’ last spring when I was goin’ home, I see a flock o’ geese a-settlin’ on the lake. I got up bright an’ early next mornin’, took down my shootin’ iron an’ started for the lake to try my luck. When I got there I found they were out o’ gun shot, an’ I knowed ’twan’t no use to shoot at that distance. I’d jist skeer ’em away if I did. So, I stood there thinkin’ what best to do. I see a fox come down to the water edge and stand there a minnit or so a-snuffin’ the air. I’d a mind to shoot him, but I thought I’d wait an’ see what he’d do. Well, sir, he just plumped into the water an’ made for them geese. They were all huddled together about a half a mile from the shore. After swimmin’ up to within a few yards of ’em, he suddenly disappeared, and in a few minnits a goose was drawn under water. Then the fox swum ashore an’ laid the dead goose on the bank, and went back fer another snap, an’ so he kep on till he got the whole flock, an’ I waited till he brought in the last one, an’ then I shot him.

“Well, sir, I found when I come to count ’em, that I had just fifty nice fat geese, which I lugged home together with my gun an’ the dead fox. An’ when I got home I found my old woman hadn’t the breakfast quite ready yet.”

“‘But, Bob,’ said some one, ‘the fox had to swim a mile for each goose—half a mile each way—consequently he had to swim just fifty miles. And the geese averaged, say, six pounds; so that you had three hundred pounds of goose-flesh to carry three miles, to say nothing of the dead fox and your gun—impossible!’

“‘Impossible or not,’ maintained Bob, ‘every word is truth, and I can prove it, too, by more than a dozen of my neighbors, to each of whom I sold enough feathers to fill a feather-bed.’”