384 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



did, or the milk famine would have continued indefinitely, 

 for we found that we could very seldom count upon help 

 other than our own. 



Either our cooks, or "young genermeu," were unable to 

 milk at all, or else we soon discovered that our cows and 

 calves were being badly treated, the former kicked, the 

 latter beaten wath heavy sticks until their slender little 

 legs were swelled and bruised. 



So, in common humanity, we were compelled to retain 

 our distasteful task three fourths of the time. 



We taught the Goddess how to milk, and as our pater 

 accompanied her to the pen to guard the calves while she 

 milked their mothers, this plan worked very well and to 

 our great relief. 



But one day we bought a new cow with a beautiful 

 shiny black coat. Now, whether it was this similarity of 

 color, or some other cause of jealous antipathy, is to this 

 day a mystery, but certain it is that so far from allowing 

 the Goddess to milk her, Stella, the new cow, resented her 

 presence in the pen so strongly that the moment she was 

 permitted to enter the inner pen, where her calf was await- 

 ing her, she would lower her head and make a dash for the 

 Goddess, w^ho ''stood not on the order of her going," but 

 went by rapid transit, whether through the bars or over 

 the fence it mattered not at all, only so that she escaped 

 from those threatening horns. 



We hoped for a while that Stella and the Goddess would 

 eventually become, reconciled, but it was a vain hope. As 

 it was at first, so it continued ; the entrance of Stella into 

 the cow-pen was the signal for the hasty exit of the God- 

 dess, over or under or through the fence. 



We were sorely tried, for it meant the giving up of a 

 favorite cow, or the renewal of our cow-pen ball-aud-chain ; 

 but for all that the sitrht was so ludicrous we had to laugh. 



