"You poor thing! I'll make you some when we go in. But do tell me, how did you _ever_ get around here again from the back of the farm that way?" "Easy enough," said Jonathan. "I drove her along to the pasture in great shape, only we were going a little fast. She tried to dodge the bars, but I turned her in through them all right. But some idiot had left the bars down at the other end of the pasture--between that and the back lots, you know--and that blamed cow went for that opening, just as straight--" I began to shake again. "Oh, that brought you out by the huckleberry knoll, and the ledges! Why, she could go anywhere!" "She could, and she did," said Jonathan grimly. He leaned back against the doorpost, immersed in bitter reminiscence. "She--certainly--did. I chased her up the ledges and through the sumachs and down through the birches and across the swamp. Oh, we did the farm, the whole blamed farm. What time is it?" "Half-past ten," I said gently; and added, "What are you going to do with her now?" His jaw set in a fashion I knew. "I'm going to put her in that lower pasture." I saw it was useless to protest. Church was a vanished dream, but I began to fear that Sunday dinner was also doomed. "Do you want me to help?" I asked. "Oh, no," said Jonathan. "I'll put her in the barn till I can get a rope, and then I'll lead her." However, I did help get her into the barn. Then while he went for his rope I unharnessed. When he came back, he had changed into a flannel shirt and working trousers. He entered the barn and in a few moments emerged, pulling hard on the rope. Nothing happened. "Go around the other way," he called, "and take a stick, and poke that cow till she starts." I went in at the back door, slid between the stanchions into the cow stall, and gingerly poked at the animal's hind quarters and said, "Hi!" until at last, with a hunching of hips and tossing of head, she bounded out into the sunny barnyard. "She'll be all right now," said Jonathan. I watched them doubtfully, but they got through the bars and as far as the road without incident. At the road she suddenly balked. She twisted her horns and set her front legs. I hurried down from my post of observation in the carriage-house door, and said "Hi!" again. "That's no good," panted Jonathan; "get your stick again. Now, when I pull, you hit her behind, and she'll come. I guess she hasn't been taught to lead yet." "If she has, she has apparently forgotten," I replied. "Now, then, you pull!" The creature moved on grudgingly, with curious and unlovely sidewise lunges and much brandishing of horns, where the rope was tied. "Hit her again, now!" said Jonathan. "Oh, _hit_ her! Hit her harder! She doesn't feel that. _Hit_ her! There! Now, she's coming." Truly, she did come. But I am ashamed to think how I used that stick. As we progressed up the road, over the hill, and down to the lower pasture, there kept repeating themselves over and over in my head the lines:--