Jathrop Lathrop was just the style and build of young man to be easily persuaded into taking a kicking cow in full payment of a good debt. Jathrop having taken the cow, it naturally fell to the lot of his mother to milk her. The reader can quickly divine what event formed the third of these easily to be foreseen developments of the most eventful day in the life of the cow's new proprietor. The kicking cow kicked Jathrop Lathrop's mother, not out of any especial antipathy towards that most innocuous lady, but just because it was of a kicking nature and Mrs. Lathrop was temptingly kickable. The sad part of the matter was that Mrs. Lathrop was not only kickable but breakable as well. It followed that at twelve o'clock that noon Miss Clegg, returning from a hasty trip to the city, was greeted at the depot by the sad tidings, and it was not until various of the town folk had finished their versions of the disaster that she was at last allowed to hasten to the bedside of her dear friend, whom she found not only in great bodily distress but also already cast in plaster. Miss Clegg's attitude as she stood in the doorway was one of blended commiseration and disgust. "Well, I never would 'a' believed it o' Jathrop!" she burst forth at last. "'T wa'n't Jathrop," Mrs. Lathrop protested feebly; "it was the--" "I know, but the cow never come of her own free will, 'n' it strikes me 't Jathrop's the one to blame. I never was so done up in my life 's I was when I hear this about you. You kin believe me or not jus' 's you please, Mrs. Lathrop, but I was so nigh to struck dead 't I stopped short with one leg on the station 'n' the other on the train. It was Johnny 's dodged out o' the ticket-office to tell me the minute the train stopped, 'n' I d'n' know but I'd be there yet--f'r I was clean struck all in a heap--only a man jus' behind jammed me with a case o' beer 't he was bringin' home. To think 's I see you goin' to the barn jus' 's I was lookin' f'r a place to hide my keys afore leavin', 'n' then to think 's them was your last legs 'n' you usin' 'em 's innocent 's a grasshopper on a May mornin'!--I tell you I was so used up I thought some o' askin' to be druv up here, but Johnny didn't have no time to give pertickilers 'cause the telegraph begin to work jus' at that very minute 'n' he had to dodge back to see what they wanted to tick him about, so I see 't the wisest thing was to walk up 'n' find out f'r myself. Besides, you c'n understand 't if you was beyond hope I'd be nothin' but foolish to pay a quarter to get to you in a hurry, 'n' I never was one to be foolish nor yet to waste quarters, 'n' so I come along through town, 'n' as a consequence I guess 't I know 's much 's you know yourself now." Mrs. Lathrop looking duly inquisitive for details of her own accident, Miss Clegg advanced forthwith upon a seat and occupied it before beginning.