e to see Mrs.
Came's new lamp lighted for the first time, to examine her last drawn-in
rug (a wonderful achievement produced entirely from dyed flannel
petticoats), and to hear the doctor's wife play "Oft in the Still
Night," on the dulcimer.

As they closed the sitting-room door opening on the piazza facing
the barn, the women heard the cow coughing and said to one another:
"Buttercup was too greedy, and now she has indigestion."

Elisha always went to bed at sundown, and Uncle Cash had gone to the
doctor's to have his hand dressed, for he had hurt it is some way in
the threshing-machine. Bill Peters, the hired man, came in presently and
asked for him, saying that the cow coughed more and more, and it must
be that something was wrong, but he could not get her to open her mouth
wide enough for him to see anything. "She'd up an' die ruther 'n obleege
anybody, that tarnal, ugly cow would!" he said.

When Uncle Cash had driven into the yard, he came in for a lantern, and
went directly out to the barn. After a half-hour or so, in which the
little party had forgotten the whole occurrence, he came in again.

"I'm blamed if we ain't goin' to lose that cow," he said. "Come out,
will ye, Hannah, and hold the lantern? I can't do anything with my right
hand in a sling, and Bill is the stupidest critter in the country."

Everybody went out to the barn accordingly, except the doctor's wife,
who ran over to her house to see if her brother Moses had come home from
Milltown, and could come and take a hand in the exercises.

Buttercup was in a bad way; there was no doubt of it. Something, one
of the turnips, presumably, had lodged in her throat, and would move
neither way, despite her attempts to dislodge it. Her breathing was
labored, and her eyes bloodshot from straining and choking. Once or
twice they succeeded in getting her mouth partly open, but before they
could fairly discover the cause of trouble she had wrested her head
away.

"I can see a little tuft of green sticking straight up in the middle,"
said Uncle Cash, while Bill Peters and Moses held a lantern on each side
of Buttercup's head; "but, land! It's so far down, and such a mite of a
thing, I couldn't git it, even if I could use my right hand. S'pose you
try, Bill."

Bill hemmed and hawed, and confessed he didn't care to try. Buttercup's
grinders were of good size and excellent quality, and he had no fancy
for leaving his hand within her jaws. He said he was no g