it, an tuk me into his yard, where he pointed to a beauty av a crathur. How much? says I. Three pounds, says he, Done, says I, an’ puttin my hand in my pocket I pays him the money in his fisht. Sure the baste wud have cost tin poun in Ireland. Confound it all, says he, ye’re a dacint fellow; come in an have a bite to ate. An afther I had my dinner I started for my farm, adrivin my springer afore me through the woods, feelin proud as Punch over my bargain. It was not until I stood afore the bit shanty I had got raised, that the thought came on me all at once, that I had nothing to feed the baste. Och, it takes an Irishman to jump before seeing where his feet will fall. Well, I held my whisht, and my woman and her good mother comes out and falls admirin the baste. There was only another cow in the settlement; wan ould Armstrong had. Sure, I cries, won’t the nabors be invying us! Thim here long afore us an widout a four-footed baste, barrin pigs an dogs an cats, an here, the firsht month we come, we have an illigant heifer, new come in. “She’s a beauty, sure,” says my wife’s mother, “an as like the wan I sould when I left the Ould Counthry (bad luck to the day I left it) as a red wan can be like a black; lave her to me, I’ll look afther her.” Indeed an I will, says I, for if you don’t she’ll die, for sorra a bite hev I got for her. An so it was, the ould woman took charge and tended her as if she had been her child, herdin her in the woods an atakin her to the creeks where she could get a bellyful, a drivin her home against nightfall. It divarted the ould woman, who had all the time been lamenting laving Ireland, and sarved us, for me wife an mysilf were workin hard in makin a clearance to get in a few praties. It was on in August that wan night the ould woman an the cow did not come home. She’ll hev lost her way, says my wife to me. Not at all, I tells her, she knows the woods as well by this time as ever she did the bog of Dorroghmore. Thin, why’s she not here? asks she. Och, she’ll have shtrayed furder than ordinar an daylight has failed her. Niver throuble yer mind; she’ll be here with the sun tomorrow. I was more consarned than I let on, but what could I do? It was dark an there was no use going looking for her in the woods wid a candle, seein’ we hadn’t wan. My wife couldn’t get a wink o’ sleep, an sot at the door, shouting whiniver she thought she heard a rustlin in the bush. The day broke an the sun climbed up until he was high enough to look over the tree tops at us an say Good mornin, an nivir a sign o’ the ould woman or the cow. We waited an waited, expectin ivery minute to see her, until I got afeard, an wint an tould the nearest nabors. They were consarned at the news an agreed if she did come back afore, they would warn the settlement an ivery man jack o’ thim would turn out next mornin to luk. An they did; och but there was a crowd ov them, some wid guns an some wid horns an some wid pitchforks. There was grain awaitin to be shore,