Amanda had no idea why her dreadful brother Harold and even her own parents called her “A Silly Goose” right to her face. She certainly didn’t think she was in the least like a silly goose even though she was not quite sure what a silly goose did.

She would be the first to admit that she often got into hot water because she was a bit impulsive and did things without thinking them through to the end but she had always been like that from as far back as she could remember and she didn’t think she was about to change.

Of course, there was the incident with learning how to milk the cow and she knew it was a long time for her to live down her shameful reaction to a simple chore. Then, there was the missing cupcakes and how her guilt was written all over her crumb stained face despite her repeated excuses about how some small animal came in the window and taken them for their lunch.

She blamed her brother Harold for almost everything but lately her stories were met with skepticism because her brother was studying to be a priest and went to confession every morning telling all his sins and sworn to never tell a lie. Amanda knew that in almost every “He said, she said” scenario, she would come out the big loser due to a lack of trust.

When the opportunity came to go to the town market and make some purchases for her mother’s kitchen, she jumped at the chance and even ran upstairs and washed her face and put on clean underwear in case she got in an accident and the doctor needed to check her over. Her mother was a fanatic about that ever since her own sister Cornelia was hit by a carriage and was found to have dirty undies beneath her spotless dress.

The dirt road into town was empty this early in the morning but she spied the McDonald brothers sitting on a fence acting like they didn’t see her walking straight at them.

“Good morning, Tom and Dick, don’t you boys have any chores to do on your place?”

The two troublemakers laughed and almost fell off the fence together but they quickly answered,

“You are certainly a silly goose, Miss Amanda, our Pa won’t let us near any of the equipment ever since his best tools were broken because we were playing soldiers and using them as spears. He thinks we are more hindrance than help and told us to stay out of the way until dinner time.”

Amanda jumped up on the fence and rocked back and forth making certain the two rowdy boys didn’t get a chance to peek at her new undies. She really didn’t know why most boys wanted to do such foolishness but her mum told her it was important to be safe instead of sorry. Even that was a mystery to her because she certainly didn’t feel sorry about anything.

She liked Dick better than Tom but would never have the nerve to let him know that because it would give him a swollen head. After she jumped off the fence, she checked her pocket to make certain the list and the money were still pinned inside and that she hadn’t accidently lost it on the ground.

Amanda started to skip in order to make up for lost time spent chatting to the two brothers just to break up the boredom. Shortly after that she saw the spires of the town church and knew the small town was just around the corner of the hill ahead. The sound of the blacksmith shoeing a team of horses drowned out the voices of the children playing in the dusty street reciting rhymes that had been in use for several generations. Some of them waved at Amanda but didn’t stop their games because the games were more important than a silly goose girl.