N AND THE NERVOUS COW.

BY R.E.

"There was an old man who said 'How
Shall I 'scape from this horrible cow?
I will sit on the stile,
And continue to smile,
Which may soften the heart of the cow.'"

The old man was walking thoughtfully through the field, with his hands
behind him, when the nervous cow saw him. She wasn't ordinarily a
bad-natured cow, but she was mad just then. An aggravating fly had been
biting her half the morning, and, just as she was drinking at the
brook, a frog had jumped up with a cry and bitten her nose. These
things had completely unsettled her nerves.

She was ready to run at anything, and the old man being the only living
thing in sight, she plunged toward him.

[Illustration: "I WILL SIT ON THE STILE, AND CONTINUE TO SMILE."]

What could he do? He was a short, stout old man, and could not run very
fast, and, though he tried his best, he only just managed to reach the
stile and plump down on it, all out of breath, as the cow neared him.

Then he suddenly remembered reading somewhere that if you looked right
into an animal's eyes, it would run away from you.

"Ah!" thought he, "I'll look straight at her, and if I smile at the
same time, she wont have the heart to hurt me."

So he put on a smile (of course it was not a very beautiful one, for he
was in a hurry, but it was the best he could do), and stared straight
into the cow's eyes. She saw that smile, and it so touched her that she
stopped short. Then she sauntered back a little way, but the thought of
that aggravating fly, and that awful frog, was too much for her poor
nerves, and turning around, she dashed madly on again.

In another minute, the poor old man--cane, little legs, smile and
all--was up in the air.

He alighted in the top of a hickory-tree. One branch grazed his eye,
two ran into his legs, while another held his smile stiff and straight.

Thus he stayed until an eagle caught sight of him, pounced right down,
and flew off with him to her nest, which was on a huge rock that rose
straight up into the cold air and made the summit of a mountain.

When the old eagle plumped the little old man down into the nest, just
imagine, if you can, how astonished the eaglets were! They opened their
beaks as well as their eyes, and cried out:

"What's this, mother? What _is_ this?"

"Oh! it's only a man," cried the old eagle. "I found him roosting in
the top of a tree. Don't know how he