“I ’ll go’long with you.” But Mrs. Sanders touched her husband on the arm as he was rising. “It ‘u’d look more decent ef you’d leave ‘em to the’rselves, Alf,” she whispered. He sat down without a word, and Bradley walked away in the dusk to meet his mother. There was a blur before the strong man’s eyes, and a strange weakness came over him as he leaned against the cow-lot fence and tried to think how he would make himself known to her. Beneath the low shed, a part of the crude stable, he saw the figure of a woman crouched down under a cow. “So, so, Brin’!” she was saying softly. “Cayn’t you stan’ still a minute? That ain’t no way to do. So, so!” His heart sank. It was her voice, but it was shrill and quivering, and he recognized it only as one does a familiar face under a mask of age. Just then, with a sudden exclamation, she sprang up quickly and placed her pail on the ground out of the cow’s reach. He comprehended the situation at a glance. The calf had got through the bars and was sucking its mother. “Lord, what ’ll I do?” cried the old woman, in dismay; and catching the calf around the neck, she exerted all her strength to separate it from the cow. Bradley sprang over the fence and ran to her assistance. “Le’ me git a hold o’ the little scamp,” he said, and the next instant he had the sleek little animal up in his strong arms. “Whar do you want ‘im put?” he asked, drily, turning to her. “Outside the lot,” she gasped, so astonished that she could hardly utter a word. He carried his struggling burden to the fence and dropped it over, and fastened up the bars to keep it out. “Well, ef that don’t beat all!” she laughed, in great relief, when he turned back to her. “I am very much obleeged. I ‘lowed at fust you was one o’ the field hands.” He looked into her wrinkled face closely, but saw no sign of recognition there. She put the corner of her little breakfast-shawl to her poor wrinkled mouth and broke out into a low, childlike laugh. “I cayn’t help from being amused at the way you tuk up that calf; I don’t know” (and the smile left her face) “what I’d ‘a’ done ef you hadn’t ‘a’ come along. I never could ‘a’ turned it out, an’ Alf’s wife never kin be pacified when sech a thing happens. We don’t git enough milk, anyway.” “Le’ me finish milkin’,” he said, keeping his face half averted. She laughed again. “Yo’ ‘re a-jokin’ now; I never seed a _man_ milk a cow.” “I never did nuther tel I went out West,” he replied. “The Yankees out thar showed me how. I’m a old bach’, an’ used to keep a cow o’ my own, an’ thar wasn’t nobody but me to tend ‘er.” She stood by his side and laughed like a child amused with a new toy when he took her place at the cow, and with the pail between his knees and using both hands, began to milk rapidly.