if anybody can."

The children listened to this conversation, and, young as they were, the
elder ones understood the calamity involved in the possible loss of the
cow. They had but one, and that was relied upon to furnish milk for the
family, and, besides a small amount of butter and cheese, not for
home consumption, but for sale at the store in exchange for necessary
groceries. The Waltons were too poor to indulge in these luxuries.

The father was a farmer on a small scale; that is, he cultivated ten
acres of poor land, out of which he extorted a living for his family, or
rather a partial living. Besides this he worked for his neighbors by
the day, sometimes as a farm laborer, sometimes at odd jobs of different
kinds, for he was a sort of Jack at all trades. But his income, all
told, was miserably small, and required the utmost economy and good
management on the part of his wife to make it equal to the necessity of
a growing family of children.

Hiram Walton was a man of good natural abilities, though of not much
education, and after half an hour's conversation with him one would say,
unhesitatingly, that he deserved a better fate than his hand-to-hand
struggle with poverty. But he was one of those men who, for some
unaccountable reason, never get on in the world. They can do a great
many things creditably, but do not have the knack of conquering fortune.
So Hiram had always been a poor man, and probably always would be poor.
He was discontented at times, and often felt the disadvantages of his
lot, but he was lacking in energy and ambition, and perhaps this was the
chief reason why he did not succeed better.

After breakfast Elihu Perkins, the "cow doctor," came to the door.
He was an old man with iron-gray hair, and always wore steel-bowed
spectacles; at least for twenty years nobody in the town could remember
ever having seen him without them. It was the general opinion that he
wore them during the night. Once when questioned on the subject, he
laughingly said that he "couldn't see to go to sleep without his specs".

"Well, neighbor Walton, so the cow's sick?" he said, opening the outer
door without ceremony.

"Yes, Elihu, she looks down in the mouth. I hope you can save her."

"I kin tell better when I've seen the critter. When you've got through
breakfast, we'll go out to the barn."

"I've got through now," said Mr. Walton, whose anxiety for the cow had
diminished his appetite.

"May I go too, father?"