"The law allowed us two pigs and a cow with her calf. Our cow was a grand good critter, capital for milk, and gentle as a lamb--you don't know how the children took to her, and well they might--she more than half supported them. "Marm did her best for the children, and I worked as hard as she did, spinning and carding wool, which she wove into cloth on a hand-loom. "Well, in a year or two the calf grew into a fine heifer, and we calculated on having milk from her after a little. So we began to fat up the old cow, though I hain't no idea that we should ever have made up our minds to kill her. "There was some debts, still, but we had given up everything once, and neither marm nor I thought of any body's coming on us agin. So we were proud enough of our two cows, and as long as the children had plenty of milk, never thought of wanting beef, and the old cow might have lived to this time for what I know if we'd been left to ourselves." Here Salina's voice became disturbed, and the girls settled themselves in an attitude of profound attention. "Well, as I was saying, things began to brighten with us, when one day in came the town-constable with a printed writ in his hand. "He'd found out that we had one more cow than the law allowed, and came after it. "I thought poor marm would a-gone crazy, she felt so bad, and no wonder, with all them children, and she a widder. It came hard, I can tell you. "But the constable was determined, and what could she do but give up. There stood the little children huddled together on the hearth, crying as if their hearts were broke, at the bare thought of having the cow drove off, and there was poor marm, with her apron up to her face, a-sobbing so pitiful! "I couldn't stand it; my heart rose like a yeasting of bread. I detarmined that them children and that hard-working woman should have enough to eat, constable or no constable. "'Wait,' says I to the constable, 'till I go drive up the cow; she's hard to find.' "He sat down. Marm and the children began to sob and cry agin. I tell you, gals, it was cruel as the grave. "I went to the wood-pile and took the axe from between two logs. Across the clearing and just in the edge of the woods I saw the old cow and heifer browsing on the undergrowth. The old cow had a bell on and every tinkle as she moved her head went to my heart. I had to think of marm and the children before I could get courage to go on, and with that to encourage me, I shook and trembled, like a murderer, all the way across the clearing. "The old cow and the heifer were close by each other, browsing on the sweet birch undergrowth that grew thick there. When I came up they both stopped and stood looking at me with their great earnest eyes, so wistfully, as if they wondered which I was after." Here Salina dashed a hand across her eyes and the color rushed into her face, as if she were opposing a pressure of tears with great bravery.