MATTIE'S CHRISTIAN PAGES

THE OLD GOAT LADY

 

In a small town, there lived an old lady that everyone believed to be crazy as she kept goats which she allowed in her house.  She talked to the goats like they were people and scolded them when they did something she disapproved of.  She complimented them when they met with her approval.

 

The city managers decided they needed the old lady’s property to run a street through so they condemned the old goat lady’s property.  “It’s only an eye-sore, anyway,” they would say!  So they told the old goat lady that she had to move; but where could she go?  She had very little money and nowhere else to live.

 

Two old ladies lived across town, which had very little space of their own.  They heard about the problem and came to the old goat lady and told her that she could live with them; but that she would have to get rid of her goats.  Not having any choice, the goat lady moved in with the other two old ladies. 

 

Soon, however, she lost interest in everything because she no longer had her friends, the goats.  She never talked to anyone.  Finally, she became ill and had to be taken to a rest home and soon she died.

 

The townspeople were sad; but believed this is the price we pay for progress.  So, now the town had the street, and is rid of the old goat lady that cluttered up their town. 

 

A true story

Told by Verna Louise Danklefs

Oct. 8, 1981