32 CROOKED LAKE. 



family, had dropped into the habit of alluding to her as 

 "Aunt Fatty," and although this nickname described 

 the dear old soul's appearance pretty accurately, yet 

 she was never offended at the nickname. I never see 

 Crooked Lake without thinking of a piece of water 

 the very counterpart of Crooked Lake in size, shape 

 and surroundings upon Aunt Fatty's Irish domain, 

 filled with the finest lot of large pickerel I have ever 

 seen. 



Dear old Aunt Fatty, she is dead and gone now many, 

 many years, and among her many peculiarities was that 

 of not allowing any game to be killed upon the estate, 

 or a fish to be taken from the river and lake upon the 

 estate. Yet she was the warmest-hearted and most 

 charitable landowner in Ireland, and during many a 

 severe Winter it would have gone hard with her 

 tenants if Aunt Fatty had not grub-staked them. 

 PJvery New Year's Day she would drive around to her 

 tenants and ask them which they preferred, a pair of 

 ducks or a goose, for their New Year's present. She in- 

 variably gave them one or the other at this period of 

 the year. 



I recollect one year every tenant wanted a goose, and 

 how to raise sixty geese was a problem which sadly 

 puzzled her on her homeward journey; so when on 

 reaching home one of the giirls told her Andy O'Leary 

 was below, waiting to see her about some geese he was 

 wanting to sell, down she went, right away, to inter- 

 view him. 



"Shure, Mrs. O'Dowd," said Andy, "it's some fat 

 gee&e ye'll be after wanting for your New Year's 

 prisintations? 



"Yes, I do," said Aunty; "sixty birds." 



"Sixty bhurds, Is it?" Andy echoed; "why, shure, 

 Ma'am, its jist the selfsame amount I'm after offering; 

 every blessed bhurd as tender as a colleen's conscience 

 and plump and foine-looking as your own swate silfj 

 and," added Andy, sinking his voice to a confidential 

 whisper, "the price to you is only a shilling apiece, but 



