The Goose Girl is a young lady who, in seek of the safe haven and a place to rest her thoughts, becomes a paying guest at a Thornycroft Farm, a small poultry farm near the Barbury Green village in Sussex. After a quarrel with her suitor and upset with her family, she jolts around charming Sussex roads and stumbles upon the village of Barbury Green. She finds a lodging at a Thornycroft Farm, and thought she is a paying visitor, she soon integrates into the household and begins shepherding the geese. During her three week adventure she keeps a diary and records amusing little anecdotes and some of her observations about farm life Kate Douglas Wiggin (1856-1923) was an American educator and author of children's stories, most notably the classic children's novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. She started the first free kindergarten in San Francisco in 1878 (the Silver Street Free Kindergarten). With her sister during the 1880s, she also established a training school for kindergarten teachers. Kate Wiggin devoted her adult life to the welfare of children in an era when children were commonly thought of as cheap labor.