CHAPTER XXI.THE NEW COW.
The warm sunshine lay full on the great barnyard, and the silence of a summer morning in the country lay over everything. The farmhands were off at work, and the wide barn-doors stood open. The air was full of the sweet, warm odour of drying hay.
The children loved the big, rambling barn, with its dark, dusky corners, and they would play there by the hour. They would climb up the steep ladders, walk fearlessly across the big beams, and, with a wild whoop, would plunge downward on the mass of soft, sweet-smelling hay beneath.
Cricket had learned to achieve a somersault while in mid-air, and was very proud of this accomplishment. Then such places for hide-and-seek, when they could coax the boys to join them, did the dim corners afford! Such a famous place it was in which to play “Indians,” for they could barricade themselves behind mounds ofhay, and fire a scattering shot of grain at the enemy who besieged them. The front doors of the barn were level with the lane, but behind it, where the barnyard was, the ground fell sharply, so that the same floor was a second story, beneath which the cow-stables lay. At the back of the barn, opposite the front door, was another wide door, opening on the cowyard, ten feet below, so that a wagon backed up there could easily be loaded from above.
Fortunately, ’Gustus John was good-nature itself, and “admired to hev the children enjoy themselves,” as he often said. In all their capers, he had never been known to say anything stronger than, “Wal, I do vum! I never see sech goin’s-on.” It was for this reason that Eunice and Cricket did not in the least believe Mamie when she said that her father had sent her to tell them not to go into the barnyard that day. If the child had told them the reason why, they would not have thought of going, for, with all their faults, they were rarely directly disobedient. They were too well-trained for that. Dr. Ward believed in letting the children run wild all summer, while they were in the country, and there were but two things he wassevere with: disobedience and the want of truth.
As the girls came up, the barnyard was quite deserted except for one peaceful-looking cow who stood quietly chewing her cud in a shady corner. A few stray hens and chickens clucked and scratched in the straw. Not another sound was to be heard. Even Mamie was not in sight.
“I wonder where that bad little thing is?” said Cricket, looking around, and half expecting a shower of pebbles, by way of greeting.
“Expect she’s gone to mourn for her sins,” said Eunice.
“That will take her some time,” laughed Cricket, “and so we’ll have a little peace. Isn’t that the new cow ’Gustus John bought last week at the Fair? I wonder why it isn’t in the pasture with the rest.”
“I don’t know. Oh, Cricket, what lovely boards!” exclaimed Eunice. “I suppose ’Gustus has them for his new hen-house. Let’s take one of them and see-saw.”
“Oh, goody, let’s!” and the little girls soon had one of the long new boards down from the pile. See-saw was an old amusement, and theirfavourite place to balance the board was across one of the open spaces in the barnyard fence. One little girl would go inside the yard and the other would stay outside.
“See how funny that cow stands?” said Cricket, as she unfastened the gate and went into the barnyard, in order to pull the board through as Eunice pushed it from the other side.
The cow stood with her head lowered and her tail moving restlessly, watching the children’s movements. Cricket, however, too used to cows to fear them, did not notice her further, and drew the board to the right position to balance. Then with much squealing and laughing—little-girl fashion—the two seated themselves, and the fun began.
“See-saw! see-saw! here we go up and down,” sang the children gayly, as Cricket’s head rose above the fence and Eunice went down. They did not see Mamie peeping at them from the barn-door that opened above the cowyard, and they rather wondered at her unusual absence.
“It’s just lovely to have that Mamie out of the way,” remarked Cricket, as she went up again.
“Too good to last,” returned Eunice.
At this moment a scream came from the barn-door above them.
“Oh, Cricket, look out for the new cow!” but too late came Mamie’s warning. The new cow, frantic at the strange sight of a bright-coloured spot moving up and down before her very eyes, with a rush bolted across the yard and caught the descending board right on her horns. The next second Cricket was spinning through the air and came down against Eunice with a force that stunned them both.
A sudden peal of impish laughter rang out from the barn, changing almost instantly to a shrill cry of terror. Mamie, hopping about, as usual, on one foot, had lost her balance, and plunged downward, head-foremost.
The shrill cries still continued when Cricket, a few moments after, sat up slowly and looked around her.
“Why, what in the world—” she began, pushing back her curly mop with both hands, in the greatest bewilderment,—then she looked down at Eunice, who lay white and unconscious on the ground. The back of her head had struck sharply against a stone, for she had caught the full force of Cricket’s fall. The latter, consequently, had escaped being seriously hurt.
CRICKET FINDS EUNICE UNCONSCIOUS.
CRICKET FINDS EUNICE UNCONSCIOUS.
CRICKET FINDS EUNICE UNCONSCIOUS.
“Eunice!” cried Cricket, wild with terror, “speak to me! What’s the matter, Eunice?” and she tried to lift her sister in her arms. She had never seen unconsciousness before, and for one terrible moment she thought that she was dead. Eunice, at the movement, opened her eyes and tried to speak.
Meanwhile Mamie’s cries were ringing out,—
“Ow! ow! Cricket, come take me off! she’s a-hooking my feet!”
As Eunice stirred, Cricket turned, and even in her terror and excitement she laughed at the sight she saw. Mamie had lost her balance and plunged forward, but as she went over the sill, her stout gingham frock caught on a projecting nail a few inches down, and there she still hung, arms waving and legs wildly kicking, and sending out shriek after shriek. Below, the ugly cow was lowering her head and striking at the dangling feet, every now and then hitting them. “Pull me up, Cricket!” Mamie screamed, nearly in convulsions of terror, her struggling making the matter still worse.
As Cricket rose unsteadily to her feet, andsaw the situation, the whole thing flashed into her quick brain. Mamie had been sent to tell them to keep out of the barnyard, because the new cow was ugly, and she had purposely given only half the message. And here was Eunice half-killed as a result. Of her own bruises she never thought.
“I don’t care!” she screamed, passionately, in answer to Mamie’s shrieks. “I don’t care if you’re all hooked up! You’ve killed my Eunice, and I hope you are satisfied,” and she knelt by her sister again.
“I’ll never be bad any more,” shrieked Mamie, at the top of her lungs. “Help—me—up,—Cricket.”
“I don’t care,” repeated Cricket, angrily, but really scarcely knowing whether to run for help, or stay with Eunice, or help Mamie. “That hateful, hateful little thing! Serves her right.”
But in a moment Cricket’s better self came to the front, at Mamie’s last piercing cry,—
“Ow! ow! she’s hurt my foot awful!”
Cricket sprang up and ran around to the barn-door. Her knee was cut and bleeding, but she did not heed it. She darted across the barn floor to the door at the back. It was notan easy matter to decide what she was to do, for Mamie, though she was slight and small, would be a dead weight on her as she pulled her up, and then also, she suddenly discovered that her left shoulder was strained and sore. But there was no time to hesitate, for Mamie’s position was dangerous as well as absurd. Her struggles might release her dress at any moment, and those angry horns and hoofs were waiting below.
Cricket grasped a stout, wooden staple at the side of the door-frame with her right hand, and, bending far over, she slipped her left arm around Mamie’s waist. Mamie clutched her instantly.
“Stop wiggling,” said Cricket, sharply. It was no small task for her, with her strained arm, to bring Mamie up even those ten inches, but with a desperate effort she drew her up to a sitting position on the door-sill, so the child could scramble in herself. For one second she felt as if her arm was being dragged out of her body, and only long practice in swinging off limbs of trees, and drawing herself up again, had made her muscles equal to the strain.
Mamie climbed in, and then stood perfectlystill, for once, with nothing to say, looking at Cricket out of the tail of her eye. If Cricket had fallen on her and thrashed her soundly, she would have taken it without a murmur. But Cricket, of course, had no such idea. She stood for a moment, looking at her small enemy in silence, and then raced out of the barn, back to her beloved Eunice. She found her sitting up and looking very dazed and white. She had not the least idea what had happened to them, and was too confused to ask.
“Do you feel as if you could walk home?” asked Cricket, putting her arm very tenderly around her; “or will you stay here while I go for Mike to bring you home in the carriage? Or do you want to go into the farm-house, and get ’Manda to give you something?”
“I think—I’ll—go home,” said Eunice, her nerves decidedly shaken, and her head still dizzy from the effects of the blow. “I’ll—try—to walk.”
Cricket helped her up, and put her arm about her to steady her.