"Father," exclaimed Katy Chittenden, the moment the buggy stopped in
front of the gate, "Bun Gates and Rube Hollenhouser were here this
morning just after you went away, and they said all our cows were in Mr.
Gates's pasture lot."
Deacon Chittenden and his wife and his son William were all in the
buggy, and the seat did not look uncomfortably full either. All three of
them answered Katy in the same breath, with,
"How did they get in?"
"Oh, I don't know. They didn't say. Rube didn't say anything. It was
Bun. He wanted me to tell you."
"It's all that new cow's doings," groaned her father, and the news
seemed to make him slow in getting out of the buggy.
"Bun Gates and Rube Hollenhouser are the roughest pair of fellows,"
began William, but his father checked him.
"They drive my cows for me half the time, William. They drove 'em up to
the lot this morning. I'd never have trusted you with that new cow."
It was a serious matter, and it had been on Katy Chittenden's mind all
the morning. She had formed an extraordinary idea concerning the "new
cow" for which her father had paid so much. So costly a creature, with
such horns, and so dreadfully brindled, and that kicked the milk-pail at
least three feet, was to be regarded with awe.
Dinner was hardly over before the Deacon solemnly remarked: "William,
put on your apron. I will put on mine. You take the axe and I will carry
the maul and some nails. We must fix that fence."
The day was warm, and it was a good walk, over the bridge, along past
the wagon shop, and away up the hill road to the bars that let down into
the pasture lot. It was only twenty yards from these to the bars that
led into Mr. Gates's lot, and Mr. Hollenhouser pastured his cows there
also.
The bars were all up, and the fence looked all right as far as they
could see.
"We must follow it up," said the Deacon. "The break is further on."
It was a large, roomy pasture, and so was that of Mr. Gates at the side
of it, but it was because they were both very long, for they were not
very wide. They reached up and over the hill, away to the cross-roads on
the upper level, so that there was a great deal of fence between them.
It was good fence, too, and in perfect order, but for all that, before
they reached the top of the slope, William suddenly exclaimed:
"Father, there are Mr. Gates's cows in our lot. Both of them."
"I declare! So they are. And there are both of Mr. Hollenhouser's beyond
them. There must be a bad gap somewhere."
"Wonder where our cows are?"
"It's a wonder. I haven't seen one of them, and that new cow--"
He stopped there, as if he did not wish to say anything against her just
then; but the mystery was getting deeper. There was no hole in the
fence, nor any sign of his own cattle until they had nearly reached the
cross-roads at the upper end of the pasture.
"There they are, father. All three of 'em. In the corner."
"Yes, my son. I see them. But how did they get there? They're in Mr.
Gates's lot."
"Guess he or Mr. Hollenhouser's been up here and fixed the fence before
we got home. Rube and Bun would have told them, sure."
"Of course they would. I never thought of that. I should have asked them
about it before we came. I can't understand it exactly now."
There certainly was a mystery about it, and one that only Rube and Bun
could have explained.
Early that morning the Deacon had roused himself out of bed, so as not
to miss Rube and Bun when they let out their cows. He would not have
trusted his new cow with any other boys in that neighborhood. They were
up good and early too, and were just fairly out in the road, with two
cows apiece, when Deacon Chittenden came along, and Bun's first remark
was,
"That's his new cow. Hasn't she got a pair of horns, though!"
"She's a brindle. Wonder if she's a good milker?"
However that might be, they were quickly informed that she was an animal
of uncommon value, and that they could have the privilege of driving her
that morning.
"All right," said Bun. "She'll go right along with ours. We'll turn her
into the lot for you."
The Deacon explained that he had a trip to make which would keep him
away until dinner-time, and hurried away.
The new cow must have kept an eye on him, for she behaved very well
until he was out of sight. Even a cow might feel more orderly for
looking at Deacon Chittenden. This one, moreover, might have done very
well after he disappeared, and gone along under good influences, if it
had not been for Watch Hollenhouser.
That dog was always doing more than anybody asked of him. The other cows
were so well used to having him bark at them, from their own yard gates
down to the bridge over the creek, that if he had not been there they
would have missed him.
It was all a matter of course, therefore, with Rube's cows and Bun's and
the old two of Deacon Chittenden's; but Watch was as new to the new cow
as she was to him.
The distance to the creek was made in safety, a rod or so at a time, and
then the little drove had all its seven noses in the water at once. It
was only for a moment, indeed, and it was a good deal a matter of
custom. All the cows of Prome Centre preferred to take a drink and wade
across in warm weather. The creek was very wide there, and so it was
very shallow, and half the teams from both ways drove right through.
The six cows that were used to it were quickly on their way over, and
Watch had already crossed the bridge, and stood now on the opposite
shore waiting for them, with his bark in full operation.
"Rube," suddenly exclaimed Bun, "there goes the Deacon's new cow!"
"Yes, sir, and she's heading right up stream."
"You stand here, Rube, and pelt her if she tries to come ashore on this
side. I'll run for old Harms's boat and head her off. The water's too
cold yet for wading."
Bun Gates could do a thing about as quickly as some people could say
they were going to do it, and in half a minute more he was shoving an
old narrow-built punt of a boat after the slow but very wrong-headed
wading of the new cow. She had the whole length of the creek before her
when she started, but now Bun Gates and his boat were ahead of her in no
time, and Bun's troubles were just ahead of him.
The cow seemed determined to dodge past that boat. The water ran very
fast, and it was so shallow that even the punt ran aground every two
minutes. It was by no means easy to push a boat in a swift current and
drive a new cow at the same time.
"Run right against her," shouted Rube. "She'll have to turn then."
Bun did so, and the cow did turn down stream. It looked as if the battle
were half won, but the water was nearly three feet deep a little below.
Right there the cow slipped and floundered, and the punt received so
sudden a shove at one end from her, just as Bun gave it a sharp push at
the other end, that it also "turned." It turned so nearly over that the
best thing Bun could do was to jump. After that he did not care so much
whether he was in the boat or out of it, but he could drive the cow
better. He had a good deal of driving to do, but he got her out at last
on the right side of the creek.
"Is the water cold?" asked Rube.
"Awful cold. But I guess I'll keep that cow warm the rest of the way to
the pasture."
He pulled the boat ashore, and then Rube helped him, and so did Watch,
but it looked as if an unruly temper was spreading from Deacon
Chittenden's costly brindle all around among the other cows.
They did very well, but it was harder work than common, especially for
Watch, until they got within a few rods of the two sets of bars of the
pasture lots.
"Rube," said Bun, "I'll run ahead and let down the Deacon's bars and
ours. Don't you let that new cow get away from you."
The bars were down in a twinkling, and beyond them were acres and acres
of tempting green grass. Surely no cow in her senses would prefer the
dusty road to all that hill-side of breakfast.
Still, it might have occurred to Rube and Bun that cows could have
preferences. Their own, indeed, had always marched on into the right lot
without a blunder, and so had the Deacon's old ones. Even the new cow
might now have been rightly guided if it had not been for her disturbed
state of mind. So might all the rest but for the "worry" they were in.
As it was, however, Watch had no sooner made his last dash at the head
of the brindle than she made her last rush at him, and when she was met
by Bun Gates and a long stick, she wheeled sharply to the right. There
was the open gap before her. All the bars were down, and on she went
into Mr. Gates's pasture at a gallop that was full of angry
head-shaking. Both of Deacon Chittenden's orderly and sedate old cows
followed as if she had called them.
"There they go!" shouted Rube. "Run in, Bun, and drive 'em out."
It would have been better if he had attended only to his other cattle,
for Watch saw at once how badly things were going, and charged upon his
old acquaintances in the road as if the confusion were driving him
crazy.
The storm of bark he raised was enough to have made any cow nervous at
any time, and those four were already "so worried." Well, in ever so few
seconds Mr. Hollenhouser's cows and Mr. Gates's, all four of them, were
scampering up the hill-side in Deacon Chittenden's lot. All Bun Gates
could do over there beyond the partition fence only served to make the
Deacon's new prize and the two others scatter in three different
directions.
"What'll we do now?" shouted Rube.
"Put up the bars and go home," responded Bun, at the top of his voice.
"I want to get some breakfast, and dry myself. We'll swap grass with
Deacon Chittenden to-day."
That seemed fair; but after they had been to breakfast it looked like a
duty to leave word at Deacon Chittenden's where his cows were, and Bun
Gates did it. Rube did not see but what the news was told correctly, and
so Katy Chittenden's forenoon was just spoiled for her, and her father
and brother spent their afternoon looking for a gap that was not in the
pasture fence.
Even when the Deacon on his way home stopped to ask Mr. Gates about it,
all he learned was that Bun had complained that the new cow drove him
all around the creek in a boat, and upset him.
"But that does not account for her being in your lot."
"Yes," said Mr. Gates; "a cow that would do that would take down a fence
and let the other cows through, and then put it up after them."
It was a great mystery, and when Rube and Bun came along from school
that afternoon there was Katy Chittenden at the gate, and Bill
Chittenden was in the yard, and the Deacon was on the stoop, and Mrs.
Chittenden was at the window.
"Katy," asked Bun, "did you tell your father what I told you?"
"Yes; and he and William have been up there all the afternoon mending
the pasture."
"Audubon," exclaimed the Deacon, "how did those cows get mixed?"
"No, sir," said Bun; "the cows ain't mixed, it's the lots."
"How did they get in?"
"Through the bars. It's all that new cow. She tipped me into the creek,
and Watch Hollenhouser can't but just bark; but we can get 'em all right
when we go for 'em."
The Deacon looked puzzled even after that explanation, and so did Katy
and the rest; but it was soon made plain to them, and, after all, as
Rube Hollenhouser remarked, "It's only trading grass for one day."