o comfort the little fledgling in the dark. I choked still
further, and turned hurriedly out on to the low, wide old porch that ran
all the way across the back of the house and which apparently was
bath-room, refrigerator, seed-rack as to its beams, and the general
depositing-place of the farm; but not before I had remarked, hanging by
his door, a grass basket I had woven for Sam to bring locust pods to the
hollyhock family. Then I fled, only stopping to squeeze Mammy over her
dish-pan and get my hat off the cedar pegs that stuck out of the side of
the old chimney to serve just such a purpose.

I found Dr. Chubb and the Byrd, who was now attired in overalls of the
exact shade and cut of Sam's, standing by Redwheels with their mouths
and eyes wide open in rapture.

"Well, 'fore I die I've saw a horse with steel innards and rid it,"
remarked the old doctor. "Machines is jest the common sense of God
Almighty made up by men, 'ste'd er animals made up by His-self. But I
must git on, missie, or some critter over at Spring Hill will have a
conniption and die in it fer lack of a drench or a dose."

I left Sam and the Byrd standing in the sunshine at the gate of cedar
poles that Sam had set up at the entrance of his wilderness, and I
don't believe I would have had the strength of character to go until I
had been introduced to every stick and stone on the farm if I hadn't
wanted so much to find out all about cows from Dr. Chubb. I drove slowly
and extracted the whole story from his enthusiastic old mind. What I
don't know about the bovine family now is not worth knowing, and I
believe I would enjoy undertaking to doctor a Texas herd. We parted with
vows of eternal mutual interest, and I expect to cherish that
friendship. It is not every day a girl has the chance to meet and profit
by such wisdom as a successful seventy-year-old veterinary surgeon is
obliged to possess.

As I went up the stairs to my room I met mother coming down to her
half-after-eight breakfast, and she was mildly surprised that I had not
come home at a proper time and gone to bed; but when she heard that I
had been with Sam's sick cows all night she was perfectly satisfied,
even pleased. Mother rarely remembers that I am a girl. She has thought
in masculine terms so long that it is impossible for her to get her mind
to bear directly on the small feminine proprieties.

"That's right, Betty, be a doer, no matter whom you do, even if it is
Sam's cow," said da