128 BIRDS AND POETS 
I have owned but three cows and loved but one. 
That was the first one, Chloe, a bright red, curly- 
pated, golden-skinned Devonshire cow, that an ocean 
steamer landed for me upon the banks of the Poto- 
mac one bright May Day many clover summers ago. 
She came from the North, from the pastoral regions 
of the Catskills, to graze upon the broad commons 
of the national capital. I was then the fortunate 
and happy lessee of an old place with an acre of 
ground attached, almost within the shadow of the 
dome of the Capitol. Behind a high but aged and 
decrepit board fence I indulged my rural and un- 
clerical tastes. I could look up from my homely 
tasks and cast a potato almost in the midst of that 
cataract of marble steps that flows out of the north 
wing of the patriotic pile. Ah! when that creaking 
and sagging back gate closed behind me in the even- 
ing, I was happy; and when it opened for my egress 
thence in the morning, I was not happy. Inside 
that gate was a miniature farm redolent of homely, 
primitive life, a tumble-down house and stables and 
implements of agriculture and horticulture, broods 
of chickens, and growing pumpkins, and a thousand 
antidotes to the weariness of an artificial life. Out- 
side of it were the marble and iron palaces, the 
paved and blistering streets, and the high, vacant 
mahogany desk of a government clerk. In that an- 
cient inclosure I took an earth bath twice a day. 
I planted myself as deep in the soil as I could, to 
restore the normal tone and freshness of my system, 
impaired by the above-mentioned government ma- 
