l service they so willingly, wisely rendered; by their
intelligent, alert curiosity, manifested in listening to strange
sounds; their love of play; the attachments they made; and their
mourning, long continued, when a companion was killed.

When we went to Portage, our nearest town, about ten or twelve miles
from the farm, it would oftentimes be late before we got back, and in
the summer-time, in sultry, rainy weather, the clouds were full of
sheet lightning which every minute or two would suddenly illumine the
landscape, revealing all its features, the hills and valleys, meadows
and trees, about as fully and clearly as the noonday sunshine; then as
suddenly the glorious light would be quenched, making the darkness
seem denser than before. On such nights the cattle had to find the way
home without any help from us, but they never got off the track, for
they followed it by scent like dogs. Once, father, returning late from
Portage or Kingston, compelled Tom and Jerry, our first oxen, to leave
the dim track, imagining they must be going wrong. At last they
stopped and refused to go farther. Then father unhitched them from the
wagon, took hold of Tom's tail, and was thus led straight to the
shanty. Next morning he set out to seek his wagon and found it on the
brow of a steep hill above an impassable swamp. We learned less from
the cows, because we did not enter so far into their lives, working
with them, suffering heat and cold, hunger and thirst, and almost
deadly weariness with them; but none with natural charity could fail
to sympathize with them in their love for their calves, and to feel
that it in no way differed from the divine mother-love of a woman in
thoughtful, self-sacrificing care; for they would brave every danger,
giving their lives for their offspring. Nor could we fail to
sympathize with their awkward, blunt-nosed baby calves, with such
beautiful, wondering eyes looking out on the world and slowly getting
acquainted with things, all so strange to them, and awkwardly learning
to use their legs, and play and fight.

Before leaving Scotland, father promised us a pony to ride when we got
to America, and we saw to it that this promise was not forgotten. Only
a week or two after our arrival in the woods he bought us a little
Indian pony for thirteen dollars from a store-keeper in Kingston who
had obtained him from a Winnebago or Menominee Indian in trade for
goods. He was a stout handsome bay with long black ma