The Very Proper Gander
by James Thurber
Not so very long ago there was a very fine gander°. He was
strong and smooth° and beautiful and he spent most of his
time singing to his wife and children. One day somebody
who saw him strutting up° and down in his yard and
singing remarked, "There is a very proper° gander." An
old hen° overheard this and told her husband about it that
night in the roost°. "They said something about
propaganda," she said. "I have always suspected that,"
said the rooster°, and he went around the barnyard° next
day telling everybody that the very fine gander was a
dangerous bird, more than likely a hawk° in gander's
clothing. A small brown hen remembered a time when at a
great distance she had seen the gander talking with some
hawks in the forest. "They were up to no good," she said.
A duck remembered that the gander had once told him he
did not believe in anything. "He said to hell with the flag,
too," said the duck. A guinea hen recalled that she had
once seen somebody who looked very much like the
gander throw something that looked a great deal like a
bomb. Finally everybody snatched up° sticks and stones
and descended on° the gander's house. He was strutting in
his front yard, singing to his children and his wife. "There
he is!" everybody cried. "Hawk-lover! Unbeliever! Flaghater!
Bomb-thrower!" So they set upon him and drove
him out of the country.
Moral: Anybody who you or your wife thinks is going to
overthrow the government by violence must be driven out of the
country.