128 BIEDS AND POETS 



I have owned but tliree 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- 

 clerioal 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- 



