“You’ve got a sick goose over there,” Gene Fleming remarked to his sister-in-law as they walked to his car. He had stopped by Billee Schuck’s farm in Nebraska to pick up some ducklings for his pond, and he noticed a goose that kept toppling over.
Billee didn’t even look round. “No, that’s Andy,” she said. “He was born without feet.”
With the ducklings safely stowed, Fleming went over to look at the handicapped goose. “You’re a gutsy fella,” he said as Andy, flapping wildly, tried to run away. The grey goose looked like a little boy on his first pair of stilts. His legs, thin as twigs, ended in calloused knobs about five centimetres wide. The only way Andy could stay upright was to run as fast as he could until he pitched forwards on his breast.
He fell now, and Fleming reached out to smooth his feathers. Because geese tend to be peevish, he expected to get nipped; but Andy was quiet under his touch.
Gene kept thinking about the crippled goose as he headed home to his 37-hectare farm. He felt an appeal in those shoe-button eyes as Andy lay forlornly on the ground, his breast caked with mud. That goose is just as helpless as a little child, he told himself. I ought to be able to do something for him.
Gene put his inventive mind to work, just as he had years before when he saw cows tormented by insect bites. That time, he designed a scratching device that cows could rub against to release a dose of insecticide and soothing oil.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة March 2021 من Reader's Digest India.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة March 2021 من Reader's Digest India.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
From the King's Table to Street Food: A Food History of Delhi
Pushpesh Pant, one of India’s pre-eminent food writers, is back with a comprehensive food history of the capital.
Who Wants Coffee?
It’s bitter—but beloved around the world
Prevent The Pain Of Shingles
You don't have to suffer, as long as you take two important steps
The Best And Worst Diets For Your Heart
Dozens of diets are touted as ‘best’, but it’s easy to lose track of the fact that healthy eating needs to be about overall wellness, not just weight loss.
ME & MY SHELF
Journalist Sopan Joshi has worked in a science and environment framework for nearly three decades. His book Mangifera indica: A Biography of the Mango (Aleph Book Company) synthesizes the sensory appeal of India's favourite fruit with its elaborate cultural roots and natural history. He writes in English and Hindi.
SWITCHED
In 1962, nurses at a small Canadian hospital sent home two women with the wrong babies. Then, 50 years later, their children discovered the shocking mistake.
ECHOES OF THE PAST
A VISIT TO THE ANCIENT BARABAR CAVES IN BIHAR REVEALS A SURPRISING CONNECTION TO A LITERARY CLASSIC
Fathers of the Bride
A young woman finds a unique way to honour the many men who helped her survive her childhood
Fiction's Foresight
British-Bangladeshi author Manzu Islam's works reveal startling parallels to recent political upheavals in Bangladesh, begging the question: Besides helping us make sense of our world, can stories also offer a glimpse into the future?
It Happens ONLY IN INDIA
The Divine Defence Picture this: A tractor in Rajasthan‘s Banswara district,a group of loan agents closing in to seize it and the defaulting farmer and his family standing by.
