, and give her something better than
kicks;--food, if, as he thought, he could procure some. Saying nothing
to any one, he tied the tub-line to a bed-post, as being more
trustworthy still than the heavy chair, and carried with him the great
knife that the meat had been cut with the evening before. He made for
the stable first, and joined the rope he knew to be there to his line,
so as to make it twice the length it was before. He could now reach the
field behind the stable, where the corn, just turning from green to
yellow, had been standing high at this hour yesterday. He had to paddle
very carefully here, lest his tub should be knocked to pieces against
the stone wall. But the wall, though not altogether thrown down, had so
many breaches made in it, that he found himself in the field, without
exactly knowing whether he had come through the gate-posts or through
the wall. He lost no time in digging with his paddle; and, as he had
hoped, he turned up ears of corn from under the water, which he could
catch hold of, a handful at a time, and cut off with his knife. It was
very tiresome, slow work; and sometimes he was near losing his paddle,
and sometimes his knife. He persevered, however: now resting for a
minute or two, and then eating a few of the ears, and thinking that only
very hungry people could swallow them, soaked as they were with bad
water. He ate more than he would have done, remembering that the more
he took now, the less he should want of the portion he meant to carry to
the house, when he should have fed the cow. He hoped they should obtain
some better food; but, if no flour was to be had, and no other vegetable
than this, it would be better than none.

When he reached the cow, she devoured the heads of corn ravenously. She
could not have appeared better satisfied with the sweetest spring grass.
It was a pleasure to see her eyes as she lay, receiving her food from
Oliver's hand. He emptied out all he had brought beside her, and patted
her, saying he hoped she would give George some milk in the afternoon,
in return for what had been done for her now.

Oliver felt so tired and weak when he got home with his tub half full of
soaked corn ears, that he felt as if he could not do anything more. He
was very near crying when he found that there was not a morsel to eat;
that the very water was too bad to drink; and that there was no fire,
from Roger having carried off the tinder-box. But George was cry