When Life Was Young Part 6

At the time I made the acquaintance of this broad-headed Hereford calf he was five weeks old, and the soft buds of his horns were beginning to show in the curly hair of his forehead. His color was dark red, except for a milk-white face, two white feet, a white ta.s.sel on his tail, and a little belt of white under his body. Grandfather had unexpectedly sold this calf's mother, a fine, large, line-backed cow, to a friend at the village on that very morning.

The old gentleman kindly showed me how to milk and how to hold the pail, then gave me a milking-stool and sat me down to milk "Lily-Whiteface."

She was not a hard milker, but it did seem to me that after I had extracted about three quarts of milk, my hands were getting paralyzed.

Halstead, who sat milking a few yards away, had, meanwhile, been adding to my troubles by squirting streams of milk at my left ear, till Gramp caught him in the act and bade him desist.

The old gentleman presently finished with his two cows, and went away with his buckets of milk toward the house. Then, with soothing guile which I had not yet learned to detect, Halstead offered to finish milking my cow for me. I was glad to accept the offer. My untrained fingers were aching so painfully that I could now hardly draw a drop of milk. My knees, too, were tremulous from my efforts to clasp the pail between them.

"It made mine ache at first," said Halstead with comforting sympathy as he sat down on my stool and took my pail between his knees. I stood gratefully by, and after a few moments he looked up and said, "While I finish milking your cow, you run over to the west barn and get Little Dagon. He is dreadfully hungry. His mother was sold this morning, and we have got to teach him to drink his milk to-night."

"He had better not try to lead that calf!" Addison called out from his stool, at a distance.

"Why not?" Halse exclaimed. "Oh, he can lead him all right. All he has to do is to untie the calf's rope from the staple in the barn post. He will come right along, himself."

It seemed very simple as Halstead put it, and I started off at once.

Addison said no more; he gave me an odd look as I hastened past him, but I hardly noticed it at the time.

Little Dagon was making the rafters re-echo as I entered the bay. When he saw me, he jumped to the end of his rope and fairly went into the air. He had sucked the bow-knot of the rope till it was as slippery as if soaped, and when I strove to untie it, he grabbed my hands in his mouth. At length I untied him and then with a clatter on the loose boards, we went out of the hay-bay, pranced across the barn floor and out at the great doors.

No one has ever explained satisfactorily what that instinct is which guides young animals unerringly back home, or in the direction of their kin. Hungry Little Dagon, tied up in the barn, could hardly have noted with eyes or ears the direction in which his mother had been driven away; but as soon as we were out at the barn doors, instead of rus.h.i.+ng to the other barn, where he had hitherto found his mother night and morning, the rampant little beast headed straight past the house and down the lane to take the road for the village.

A man could have held him without difficulty. I was in my thirteenth year, and may have weighed seventy-five pounds, but did not have weight enough. In the exuberance of his young muscle, Little Dagon erected his tail and made a bolt in the direction which instinct bade him take.

My one chance of holding him would have been to noose the rope about his nose and seize him close by the neck, at the start; but this I did not understand, and, in fact, had no time to study the problem. I clung to the end of the rope, and away we went. I was not leading the calf.

Little Dagon was leading me. First I took one long step, and then such strides as I had never made before.

Halstead and Addison had jumped up from their milking-stools and come to the barnyard bars. "Hold him! Hold him!" they shouted. "Don't let him get away!"

Grandfather, too, had now come to the kitchen door. "Hold him! Hold that calf!" he called out, and I clung to the knot in the end of the rope, with determination.

In a moment Little Dagon was towing me down the long lane to the road.

The gate stood open, and out we went into the highway, on the jump.

There, however, the calf pulled up short, to smell the road. I tried to catch the strap round his neck and turn him back, but he seized my arm in his mouth to suck it; and being unused to calves, I was afraid he would bite me. When I attempted to lead him about, that eager impulse to find his mother again possessed him, and away he ran down the long orchard hill.

I do not now see how I contrived to hold on to the rope, but I remember thinking that if I let go Addison and Halstead would laugh at me, and that Gramp would blame me.

We raced down that long hill, my feet seeming hardly to touch the ground, and struck a level, sandy stretch at the foot of it. The sand felt queer to the calf's feet, and he stopped to smell it. By this time I was badly out of breath, but I turned his head homeward and began towing him back. He sulked, but took a few steps with me. Then he gave a sudden wild prance into the air, headed round and started again. I could not hold him, and on we went, a long run this time, until we came to the bridge over the meadow brook. There the planks proved a new wonderment to the calf, and he pulled up to smell them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHEN I LED LITTLE DAGON.]

Just then there appeared in the road ahead Theodora and "Aunt Olive Witham," a working woman, who came every spring and fall to help grandmother clean house and to do the year's spinning. Theodora had been to the Corners that evening, to summon her.

"Oh, help me stop him!" I panted. "For pity's sake, catch hold of this rope! He is running away with me! I can't hold him!"

Theodora edged across the bridge to bear a hand; but "Aunt Olive" knew calves, or thought she did.

"Boss-boss-boss!" she crooned to the calf, and extending her hand, walked straight to his head to get him by the ears. This may have been the proper thing to do, but it did not work well that time. Little Dagon suddenly looked up from his snuffing of the planks, and for some reason his young eyes distrusted "Aunt Olive."

He bounded aside and began again to run. I was clinging fast to the rope, and Aunt Olive and I collided. Aunt Olive, in truth, recoiled nearly off the end of the bridge; I was jerked onward. Little Dagon had learned that he could pull me, and I might as well have tried to hold a locomotive. Theodora ran a few steps after us, trying loyally to succor me. Aunt Olive stood endeavoring to recover her breath; ordinarily she was energy personified, but for the instant stood gasping.

Beyond the meadow there was a hill, and going up that hill I came very near mastering the calf; but after a hard tussle he gained the top in spite of me and ran on, over descending ground, where the road pa.s.sed through woodland. We were now fully a mile and a half from home. Thus far I had held on, but strength and breath were about gone. I was panting hard, and actually crying from mortification.

Now, however, I saw a horse drawing a light wagon coming along the road.

A well-dressed elderly man was driving. I called out to him to aid me.

If I had known who he was, I might have been less unceremonious. "Oh, help me stop him!" I cried. "Do help me stop him! I can't hold him!"

The stranger reined his horse half round across the road, and Little Dagon ran full against the horse's fore legs and stopped to sniff again.

The elderly gentleman got out quickly.

"Did the calf run away with you, my son?" he asked, smiling at my heated and tearful appearance.

"Yes, sir," I replied, panting.

"Well, well, you have had a hot run, haven't you?" and he gave me several sympathetic pats on the shoulder. "How far have you come, all so fast?"

"I came from Grandpa S.'s," I replied, as steadily as I could, for I was sadly out of breath.

"Your grandfather is Joseph S.?" queried the elderly man.

"Yes, sir," I replied. "I have just come there to live."

"Ah, yes," commented my new acquaintance. "I know your grandpa very well. I am on my way to call on him. Now let's see. How shall we manage?

Do you think that you could sit in the back part of my wagon and lead the calf, if I were to drive slowly?"

"I'm afraid he would pull me out!" I exclaimed.

"Not if we both hold the rope, I think," remarked the elderly man, still smiling broadly. "I will reach back with one hand and help you hold him."

After much pulling, hauling and manoeuvring, Little Dagon was brought to the back of the wagon. I then sat in the rear, with my feet hanging out, and took the line; and my new friend gave hand to the rope over the back of the seat. The horse started to walk, and Little Dagon was drawn after; but the perverse little creature settled back in his strap till his tongue hung out. The stranger laughed.

"It seems that we cannot lead a calf unless the calf pleases," he said.

"Can you think of any better way, my son?"

I thought hard, for I was ashamed to put my new acquaintance to so much trouble and have nothing to suggest. At last, I said, with some diffidence, that we might tie the calf's legs with the rope and put him in the rear of the wagon, while I walked behind.

"That appears to be a practical suggestion," the stranger remarked. "Do you think you can tie his legs?"

I answered that I believed I could if I had the calf on the ground.

"Well, sir," said he, with a whimsical glance at me, "I think I can capsize the calf and hold him down, if you will agree to tie his legs within a reasonable time."

I said I would try; and while I held the rope the stranger alighted, seized the calf suddenly by the legs, and threw it down on its side.

Little Dagon struggled pluckily, but my new ally held fast and called on me to do my part. After some hard picking at the knot, I untied the rope from the neck-strap, then tied the calf's legs into a bunch and crisscrossed the rope.

"Pretty well done, my son, pretty well done," was the encouraging comment of my new friend. "Now I will take him by the head while you seize him by the tail, and we will hoist him into the wagon."

Before we could do so, however, we heard a sudden rattle of wheels close at hand, and glancing around, I saw Gramp and Addison with old Sol in the express wagon. They had harnessed and given chase; Theodora and Aunt Olive, whom they met, had adjured them to drive fast if they hoped ever to overtake me. Grandfather, on seeing who was helping me, exclaimed, "Why, Senator, how do you do, sir! My calf appears to be making you a great deal of trouble."

In fact, my friend in need was none other than Hon. Lot M. Morrill, who had been Governor of Maine for three terms in succession, and was now United States Senator. Grandfather and he had been acquaintances for forty years or more; and I have inferred since that the object of Mr.

Morrill's visit on this occasion was in part political. At this particular time the Senator was "looking after his political fences"--although this phrase had not yet come into vogue.