134 BIRDS AND POETS 
ting her grief long enough to eat her meal, and 
entirely neglecting her beloved husks. Often in the 
middle of the night she would set up that sonorous 
lamentation, and continue it till sleep was chased 
from every eye in the household. This generally 
had the effect of bringing the object of her affection 
before her, but in a mood anything but filial or com- 
forting. Still, at such times a kick seemed a com- 
fort to her, and she would gladly have kissed the 
rod that was the instrument of my midnight wrath. 
But her tender star was destined soon to a fatal 
eclipse. Being tied with too long a rope on one 
occasion during my temporary absence, she got her 
head into the meal-barrel, and stopped not till she 
had devoured nearly half a bushel of dry meal. The 
singularly placid and benevolent look that beamed 
from the meal-besmeared face when I discovered 
her was something to be remembered. [or the first 
time, also, her spinal column came near assuming a 
horizontal line. 
But the grist proved too much for her frail mill, 
and her demise took place on the third day, not of 
course without some attempt to relieve her on my 
part. I gave her, as is usual in such emergencies, 
everything I “could think of,” and everything my 
neighbors could think of, besides some fearful pre- 
scriptions which I obtained from a German veteri- 
nary surgeon, but to no purpose. I imagined her 
poor maw distended and inflamed with the baking 
sodden mass which no physio could penetrate or 
enliven. 
