fed peacefully enough, for some time, then, doubtless believing
herself unobserved, she took a brief promenade along the wall until she
came to what looked like a promising place, and simply walked over it,
like a goat.

We herded her into the barn, and I engaged a man to put a string of wire
above the wall. That was effective as long as it was in repair. But it
was Mis' Cow's business to see that it did not remain in repair
permanently. She would examine it during idle moments, pick out a weak
spot in the entanglement, and pull it flat with her horns. Or where the
wall was broad enough at the top she would climb up and walk it, just
for exercise, stepping over when she got ready. If she could have been
persuaded to do those things to order I could have sold her to a circus.
It was necessary to reinforce the wire and add another string.

Even that was not always a cure. I came home from the city one night,
after a hard day. Elizabeth and the Joy, with Old Beek, had met me at
the station, and as we drove up the hill in the dim evening I said how
glad I was to get home, and that Elizabeth had milked, so that I could
drop into a chair and eat my supper and rest, the minute I entered the
house. We reached the top of the hill just then, and a dim gray shadow
met and passed us in the velvet dusk. It was Mis' Cow, starting out to
spend the night. She was moving with a long, swinging trot, and in
another second I was out and after her.

She had several rods' start and could run downhill better than I could,
especially in the dark. It seemed to me that every step I went plunging
out into space. My empty stomach became demoralized, the blood rushed to
my head. "Gosh dern a cow, anyway!" By the time we had reached
Westbury's and started up the next hill I had made up my mind to sell
her--to give her away--to drive her off the premises. Some people were
standing in front of the next house and they laughed as we went by, we
being about neck and neck at the time. Westbury was in that crowd, and
for the moment our friendship was in grave danger. But then we came to
the house of the man who had made a failure of book chicken-farming,
and she darted in. She had remembered it as her home and wanted to
return to it. Imagine wanting to go back to such a home!

Westbury came, and we got a rope on her and led her uphill. I suppose I
felt better in the morning, and it was about this time that William
arrived on the scene. William loved Mis