it was a perfect show: there was not
a tree at her castle of Schoenbrunn that bore so well; and she gave the
Grossmutterli a shining half thaler, which she never parted with.

The next day, Sunday, Kathi stood before us at noon with tears in her
eyes. The Jakobi, she said, had not only sent down for the cow's
crown and ornaments to go on Tuesday, but word as well that beautiful
Nageli, the queen cow, knocking her head against a rock, had broken
one horn off. "There's a pretty go!" she continued. "I wish it would
bud again. How she will take on! I know her ways: she is greedy of
praise. I should not wonder if the vexation dries her milk, for
she knows she can never wear a crown again. And Zottel, she's to be
queen--a sleek, comely cow, but never used to a crown. However, Jakobi
sends word we need not fear her disgracing herself, for he is training
her up and down with a milking-stool on her head. Cows are more like
mortals than brute beasts. See the way the two that have stayed at the
Hof behave when the rest come back. They make the stall purgatory to
them through their spite or jealousy. But they grow more good-tempered
after a time."

The glittering crown of which poor Nageli's unfortunate accident had
deprived her was now produced from its box for us to see--a barbaric
structure, in spite of the Christian symbols attached. It was two
feet high, a foot and a half wide--all gold wire, tinsel, artificial
flowers, tassels, fringes of colored worsted, and surrounded by a halo
of spun glass gay as a slice of the rainbow. There was a medallion of
the Virgin and Child, and another of Saint Anthony, tutelar saint
of the Hofbauer's father, himself and his son--patron, too, of the
chapel, and a great helper in the recovery of lost calves and sheep,
as well as of household goods. A red velvet gold-fringed pendant in
the form of a heart, handsomely embroidered with the cross and sacred
initials I.H.S., was suspended to all this grandeur. The great
massive cow- and ox-bells, some tulip-shaped, while others were of the
ordinary form, appeared better adapted for a belfry than the neck of
cattle, and the gay leather collars, embroidered with bright worsteds,
had likewise sacred symbols; thus displaying, when worn at the annual
procession, both the pride and piety of the bauer.

The wreaths made at the Olm for the chief oxen, of clustering berries,
leaves and ribbons, hung, as visible though withered trophies of
each triumphant des