on the back of a note,
signing his own death warrant. The next thing to being buried alive is to
have the sheriff sell you out when you have been honest and have tried
always to do right. There are so many envious ones to chuckle at your fall,
and come in to buy your carriage, blessing the Lord that the time has come
for you to walk and for them to ride.

But to us the auction reached its climax of interest when we went to the
barn. We were spending our summers in the country, and must have a cow.
There were ten or fifteen sukies to be sold. There were reds, and piebalds,
and duns, and browns, and brindles, short horns, long horns, crumpled horns
and no horns. But we marked for our own a cow that was said to be
full-blooded, whether Alderney, or Durham, or Galloway, or Ayrshire, I will
not tell lest some cattle fancier feel insulted by what I say; and if there
is any grace that I pride myself on, it is prudence and a determination
always to say smooth things. "How much is bid for this magnificent,
full-blooded cow?" cried the auctioneer. "Seventy-five dollars," shouted
some one. I made it eighty. He made it ninety. Somebody else quickly made
it a hundred. After the bids had risen to one hundred and twenty-five
dollars, I got animated, and resolved that I would have that cow if it
took my last cent. "One hundred and forty dollars," shouted my opponent.
The auctioneer said it was the finest cow he had ever sold; and not knowing
much about vendues, of course I believed him. It was a good deal of money
for a minister to pay, but then I could get the whole matter off my hands
by giving "a note." In utter defiance of everything I cried out, "One
hundred and fifty dollars!" "Going at that," said the auctioneer. "Going at
that! once! twice! three times! gone! Mr. Talmage has it." It was one of
the proudest moments of our life. There she stood, tall, immense in the
girth, horns branching graceful as a tree branch, full-uddered,
silk-coated, pensive-eyed.

We hired two boys to drive her home while we rode in a carriage. No sooner
had we started than the cow showed what turned out to be one of her
peculiarities, great speed of hoof. She left the boys, outran my horse,
jumped the fence, frightened nearly to death a group of schoolchildren, and
by the time we got home we all felt as if we had all day been put on a
fox-chase.

We never had any peace with that cow. She knew more tricks than a juggler.
She could let down any bars, o