"The cows were both black in color; so black that they would make a spot in the darkness of the blackest night that ever gloomed under the cypresses of the Guadaloupe. 'If those cows,' I said to myself as I looked them over, 'if those cows ever do bring forth calves at the rate that the Texan of whom I purchased them figured out on his saddle, they'll put the whole State under an eclipse.' "I cannot say,--speaking with that restraint which I have always cultivated,--I cannot say, ladies and gentlemen, that I regarded either cow with any great affection. There were peculiarities about them, which checked the outgoing of my emotional nature. They had a way of looking at me through the wire fence, that made me feel grateful to the inventor of barbed wire. I cannot describe the look exactly. It was a direct, earnest, steady, intense inspection of my person, that made me feel out of place, as it were, and caused me to remember that I had duties at home, which required me to get there as rapidly as possible. "One morning, seeing that the basis of my speculation was near the centre of the field, and busily feeding on the bountiful growths of nature, I crept softly through the wires of the fence that I might gather some pecan nuts under a big tree that stood some twenty rods away. I reached the tree in safety, and proceeded to pick up the nuts. I had filled one pocket only when I heard a noise behind me, and, looking up, I saw that all the profits of my stock speculation, and all my stock itself, were coming toward me on a jump. I was never more collected in my life. My mind instantly reached the conclusion that the pecan crop that year was so large in Texas that it would not pay to pick up another nut under that tree; that the whole thing should stand over, as it were, until another fall, and that, the sooner I retired from that field, the better it would be for me and the few pecans I had about me.