clared
Uncle Enoch.

For the better part of four unproductive years had the life of Calico
run to commonplaces. Then, early one June morning, came an hour big
with events. Being the nigh horse in Uncle Enoch's pair, Calico caught
first glimpse of the weird procession which met them as they turned into
the Bangor road at Sherburne's Corners.

Now it was Calico's habit to be on the watch for unusual sights, and
when he saw them to stick his ears forward, throw his head up, snort
nervously and crowd against the pole. Generally he got one leg over a
trace. There was a white bowlder at the top of Poorhouse Hill which
Calico never passed without going through some of these manoeuvres.

"Hi-i-ish there! So-o-o! Dern yer crazy-quilt hide. Body'd think yer
never see that stun afore in yer life. Gee-long a-a-ap!" Uncle Enoch
would growl, accenting his words by jerking the lines.

A scarecrow in the middle of a cornfield, an auction bill tacked to a
stump, an old hat stuffing a vacant pane and proclaiming the
shiftlessness of the Aroostook Billingses, would serve when nothing else
offered excuse for skittishness. Even sober Old Jeff, the off horse,
sometimes caught the infection for a moment. He would prick up his ears
and look inquiringly at the suspected object, but so soon as he saw what
it was down went his head sheepishly, as if he was ashamed of having
again been tricked.

This morning, however, it was no false alarm. When Old Jeff was roused
out of his accustomed jog by Calico's nervous snorts he looked up to see
such a spectacle as he had never beheld in all his goings and comings up
and down the Bangor road. Looming out of the mist was a six-horse team
hitched to the most foreign-looking rig one could well imagine. It had
something of the look of a preposterous hay-cart, with the ends of
blue-painted poles sticking out in front and trailing behind. Following
this was a great, white-swathed wheeled box drawn by four horses. It was
certainly a curious affair, whatever it was, but neither Calico nor Old
Jeff gave it much heed, nor did they waste a glance on the distant tail
of the procession, for behind the wheeled box was a thing which held
their gaze.

In the gray four o'clock light it seemed like an enormous cow that
rolled menacingly forward; not as a cow walks, however, but with a
swaying, heaving motion like nothing commonly seen on a Maine highway.
Instinctively both horses thrust their muzzles toward the thing