1847.] The Farm on the Flats. 263 



filling it. She began to be quite warm in her praises of the 

 creature. Suddenly the cow dealt her a blow with her hind foot, 

 that threw the line of gravity considerably without the base, and 

 the natural consequences followed. After a somewhat violent 

 outcry, and the vehement assertion of her belief that she was mur- 

 dered, the dairy-woman arose, and threatened to resign her ofhce 

 at once, unless the offending animal was at once expelled from 

 the premises. The cow was driven back to her former owner, 

 who declined receiving her and refunding the money, till it was 

 shown that he had not stated the facts correctly, as to the quality 

 and quantity of her milk. 



" How are we ever to milk her? " said Mr. Lord. 



" Oh, I don't know. You must do it the best way you can. If 

 you had asked me, I should have told you, she was not very 

 gentle: we used to chain up her legs." 



Mr. Lord was somewhat at a loss to know what to do. He 

 concluded at last to depart from his theory, and ask the advice, or 

 rather employ the knowledge of some one of his neighbors. Mr. 

 Hare happened to fall in with him while in that state of mind. 



" I wish you " said he to Mr. Hare, " to go to-day and buy me 

 a couple of good cows, if they are to be had." 



" There is no difficulty about it. Mr. Dobbs has two that he 

 wants to sell. I lived with him last summer, and know them to 

 be first rate." 



" I wish I had known it." 



" Well, I wanted to tell you about them, but I rather got the 

 idea that you didn't want any body to speak to you about your 

 matters, unless you spoke to them first. In the city, I suppose it 

 is different, but in the country we can't very well get along with- 

 out depending a good deal on one another." 



He then went to Dobbs's, and soon returned with the cows in 

 question. They proved, in the judgment of the dairy-woman, to 

 be " perfect beauties." He purchased the Burke cow himself, 

 and employed the next evening in constructing a machine which 

 he called a milking machine. It was a device calculated to thwart 

 all efforts on the part of the vicious animal to repeat the act per- 

 petrated on the person of Margaret. 



The fences around the meadows were replaced, but the meadows 

 were very slow in putting on their covering of green. 



" Don't you mean to plow up your ffats? " said Mr. Chambers, 

 an excellent farmer, who lived a couple of miles distant from Mr. 

 Lord: "I was along your way yesterday, and saw that they had 

 been cut up dreadfully by the cattle, and I wondered you were not 

 plowing them and getting them ready for corn. I had a great 

 mind to stop and tell you about it, but I was in something of a 

 hurry then." 



