hristmas. The sun getting low. An old cow and a heifer
in the stock-yard. Dad in, admiring them; Mother and Sal squinting
through the rails; little Bill perched on one of the round posts,
nursing the steel and a long knife; Joe running hard from the barn with
a plough-rein.

Dad was wondering which beast to kill, and expressed a preference for
the heifer. Mother said, "No, kill the cow." Dad inspected the cow
again, and shook his head.

"Well, if you don't she'll only die, if the winter's a hard one; then
you'll have neither." That settled it. Dad took the rope from Joe,
who arrived aglow with heat and excitement, and fixed a running noose
on one end of it. Then--

"Hunt 'em round!" he cried.

Joe threw his hat at them, and chased them round and round the yard.
Dad turned slowly in the centre, like a ring-master, his eye on the
cow; a coil of rope was in this left hand, and with the right he
measuredly swung the loop over and over his head for some time. At
last the cow gave him a chance at her horns, and he let fly. The rope
whizzed across the yard, caught little Bill round the neck, and brought
him down off the post. Dad could hardly believe it. He first stared at
Bill as he rolled in the yard, then at the cow. Mother wished to know
if he wanted to kill the boy, and Joe giggled and, with a deal of
courage, assured Dad it was "a fine shot." The cow and the heifer ran
into a corner, and switched their tails, and raked skin and hair off
each other with their horns.

"What do you want to be always stuck in the road for?" Dad growled,
taking the rope off little Bill's neck. "Go away from here
altogether!" Little Bill went away; so did Mother and Sal--until Dad
had roped the cow, which was n't before he twice lassoed the
heifer--once by the fore-leg and once round the flanks. The cow
thereupon carried a panel of the yard away, and got out and careered
down the lane, bucking and bellowing till all the cattle of the country
gathered about her.

Dad's blood was up. He was hanging on to the rope, his heels ploughing
the dust, and the cow pulling him about as she liked. The sun was
setting; a beautiful sunset, too, and Mother and Sal were admiring it.

"Did y' never see th' blasted sun go--go down be----" Dad did n't
finish. He feet slid under a rail, causing him to relax his grip of the
rope and sprawl in the dust. But when he rose!

"Are y' going t' stand staring there all night?" They were beside