XI. A Night Session 



THE cattle seem to suffer from insomnia oc- 

 casionally, and the hot nights rouse their 

 predatory instincts. Last night as I was 

 gasping on the floor besides a screen door 

 I heard something stirring on the lawn. Glancing 

 out I saw one of the calves investigating a bed of 

 poppies as if meditating a dose of laudanum to in- 

 duce sleepfulness. Further investigation found all 

 the cattle and the horses in the orchard. Dressing 

 lightly and hurriedly, I called Sheppy and started to 

 drive them out. For almost an hour we raged 

 around the orchard and the buildings before we got 

 the brutes back into the pasture. I found that the 

 pasture gate was open and at once jumped to the 

 conclusion that the boy who put out the cows after 

 milking had left it open. While running around in 

 the moonlight and under the shadows of the apple 

 trees, getting tripped by furrows and switched in 

 the face by branches, I thought of a number of in- 

 teresting things to say to the boy about his careless- 



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