n declaring that "cow or no cow they couldn't stay another minute,"
they strove to work their way out of the beautiful green of the
sedge.

On the meadow-land stood their mother. She had brought dinner for her
hungry children,--moreover, she had brought news.

The Yankee troops--the Jersey militia--had gone, but the British
soldiers had arrived and demanded beef--beef raw, beef roasted, beef
in any form.

The tears that the fiercest mosquito had failed to extort from Anna
came now. "I wish I'd let her go," she cried, fondly stroking Sleet.
"At least she wouldn't have been killed, and we'd had her again
sometime, maybe; but now--I say, Valentine, are _you_ going to give up
Snow?"

"No, I _ain't_," stoutly persisted the lad, slapping with his broad
palm the panting side of the calf, where mosquitoes still clung.

"But, my poor children," said Mother Kull, "you will _have_ to. It
_can't_ be helped. If we refuse them, don't you know, they will burn
our house down."

"_If they do, I'll kill them!_" The words shot out from the gunpowdery
temper of Anna Kull. Poor innocent girl of thirteen! She never in her
life had seen an act of cruelty greater than the taking of a fish or
the death of a chicken; but the impotent impulse of revenge arose
within her at the bare idea of having her pet, her pretty Sleet, taken
from her and eaten by soldiers.

"You'd better keep still, Anna Kull," said Valentine. "Mother, don't
you think we might hide the animals somewhere?"

"Where?" echoed the poor woman, looking up and looking down.

Truly there seemed to be no place. Already six thousand British
soldiers had landed and taken possession of the island. Hills and
forests were not high enough nor deep enough; and now the very marsh
had cast them out by its army of winged stingers--more dreadful than
human foe.

"I just wish," ejaculated the poor sunburned, mosquito-tortured,
hungry girl, who stood between marsh and meadow,--"I _wish_ I had 'em
every one tied hand and foot and dumped into the sedge where we've
been. Mother, I wouldn't use Sleet's milk to-night, not a drop of
it,--it's crazy milk, I know: she's been tortured so. Poor cow! poor
creature! poor, dear, nice, honest Sleet!" And Anna patted the cow
with loving stroke and laid her head on its neck.

"Well, children, eat something, and then we'll all go home together,--if
they haven't carried off our cot already," said the mother.

They sat down under a tree and ate with t