reated gently by Uncle Coffin from behind, I crawled to the little
store-room adjoining the kitchen.

The door was slightly ajar; and with whatever shame I have only to
record that I stood with delectation by this door and waited for the
Man-Who-had-Been-in-California to tell "The Story of the Sacred Cow."

"Arter all, Jane," said he, plunging his knife into a choice pear,
"you'd orter seen the winter fruit we use' ter have in Californy!"

Miss Fray's face fell. We heard Captain Pharo groan silently;
moreover, his pipe had gone out, and he dared not relight it.

"I thought you was goin' to tell a new one--about the Sacred Cow?" said
Miss Pray.

"So I will, Jane," said Pershal; "but the fact is, it 's sech a true,
sech a solemn an' myster'ous thing, that I fa'rly dread to tackle it!"

Belle O'Neill would have gasped, had she dared. She kicked the calf of
my lame leg convulsively instead.

"Thar's been a great many stories," continued Pershal, "about sacred
cows. Folks has claimed t' seen 'em. Circuses has claimed t' had 'em:
but the fact, an' the solemn fact, is, thar wa'n't never but one Sacred
Cow, and that was raised on my farm in Californy.

"She was white, and nothin' monst'ous, jest about the size of an
ordinary cow"--Captain Pharo drew an inaudible sigh of relief--"it was
the intellex of her and the sacredness; wal, the go-to-meet'n-ness of
her, as ye might say, that was so monst'ous an' so strange that I
trem'le to call it up ag'in; but I've promised, an' I will."

Belle O'Neill, pale in the darkness, stifled another gasp.

"She wa'n't nothin' byordinar' as a calf; run an' gambil around with
the other calves, bunt everythin', an' shake her heels out with the
sinfullest. It was when she got to be a cow, and a old cow, that these
here ructions o' sacredness, as ye might say, begun to develop
themselves in her.

"First I knew, she wouldn't eat nothin': we warmed her mess an' we
salted it; no, nothin' 'u'd do. We tried all manner o' gimcracks an'
fussin' with her. Finally says Jim--my man--say she: 'Perhaps she's
the Sacred Cow,' says he, laffin', an' went in an' got a hymn-book an'
sot it up afore her, and"--Belle O'Neill shivered--"what does the old
cow do but pitch in and eat her mess regalar! Minit we took that
hymn-book away or shet it up, she'd stop eatin'."

Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin nudged each other in voiceless agony. I
felt, but could not see, the calm irradiance of Captain Leezu