1904. 
787 
Where Nothing Ever Happens. 
(Concluded from last week.) 
“It’s that child! He’s been hit by one 
ol those horses and killed, as 1 knew he 
would be,” Estelle wailed, and though he 
didn’t sound much as if life was extinct 
we all rushed to the door in breathless 
haste. 
Dr. Spamer was coming up the lane 
with the shrieking Johnny in his arms. 
As they came nearer we saw that the child 
was as wet as a drowned kitten. “Noth¬ 
ing serious,” Dr. Spamer called, seeing 
our alarmed faces. “He lost his balance 
and fell into one of the big tubs the cows 
drink from.” 
Although the Pikes have a reputation 
for being able to stand anything, we 
thought it a little risky to let Johnny go 
about in those wet clothes, let alone the 
inhumanity of it, for there was quite a 
chill in the air, so Matilda took her turn 
at disrobing him. He appeared again 
after awhile, smiling and dressed in an old 
shirt of Elias’s with the sleeves and skirts 
abbreviated, and over it one of Matilda’s 
faded shirt-waists with the sleeves folded 
up three or four times, a big plait in front 
and back, and a belt to keep it together. 
He had not worn either shoes or stock¬ 
ings, so we didn’t bother about them. We 
heard a shout from the men when he went 
out. as he insisted on doing. 
It was now time to begin to think of 
supper, and Matilda went out into the 
kitchen to build the fire. Estelle followed 
her. “Are they going to stay to supper?” 
she whispered. “Why, yes, I suppose so; 
they always do,” Matilda, answered. 
“What ever will you do?” she asked in 
consternation. “Those ravenous men ate 
up everything you had, this noon.” 
Matilda laughed easily. “We will make 
a few panfuls of biscuit, and pare and slice 
some tomatoes to be eaten with sugar, and 
there are plenty of grapes and pears picked 
up. I guess we can make a supper out of 
that.” 
“No cake or pie?” Estelle asked in an 
awed tone. “Not that I want them,” she 
added hastily, “but those people—” 
“You will see those people eat what is 
set before them,” Matilda said, with an¬ 
other laugh. 
I went out to help Matilda, and all four 
of the Spamers came out too, and sat 
around and talked with us as we worked, 
and we had quite a jolly time-—Dr. Spa¬ 
mer is very quick-witted and likes a joke. 
Then Cousin Elias came in with the 
milk, and Matilda attended the separator 
and set the cream cooling and went out 
to feed the calf. When I had the table 
all set I went out to get her. She was 
coming, with a good deal of milk spat¬ 
tered over her long-sleeved apron and a 
disgusted expression on her face. “That 
calf has never learned to drink,” she said, 
“and he doesn’t know anything.” 
Mr. Robinson and his gasoline engine 
and other machinery went just as we sat 
down to supper, so we had the satisfaction 
of knowing that our corn was all in the 
silo and couldn’t be hurt by the frost. 
But after supper and after the Spamers 
had gone, Cousin Elias came in looking 
anxious. “There’s something the matter 
with Nell,” he said. “She keeps lying 
down and getting up, and trying to roll 
over in her stall. I’m afraid ’tis the colic. 
She’s in a reeking sweat, besides.” 
“She ought to be kept exercising, hadn’t 
she?” Matilda asked, and I suggested 
that Elias drive her right out to Dr. 
Briggs and see if he could do anything for 
her. Elias thought that was a good idea, 
and we went out to help them off. The 
poor creature felt so badly that the tears 
came in our eyes as we watched her go. 
Perhaps we should never see her again. 
Horses did die of colic. After we had 
done the dishes and put the cream down 
the well and mixed bread and shut up the 
hens, Matilda said she couldn’t go to bed 
till she knew Nell was out of pain, and 
1 felt the same way. Estelle said she 
was not used to going to bed so early, any¬ 
way. 
“While we are waiting, I am going to 
have another seance with that calf; if I 
learn him to drink this evening it will be 
a great saving of time,” Matilda said. 
Estelle and I went with her. Matilda 
hung up the lantern, and I got some hay 
to spread on the steps leading down from 
the barn into the calf-shed, so that Es¬ 
telle could sit there and not soil her dress. 
1 sat beside her, and we watched proceed- 
ings. 
As Matilda had said, that calf didn’t 
know anything. He was nigh perishing 
from starvation, according to his look, and 
every little while would give a bleat loud 
enough to raise the roof, but it was al¬ 
most impossible to induce or compel him 
to have anything to do with the warm 
milk in Matilda’s pail. She would get 
him to suck her fingers and then gradual¬ 
ly lower them into the pail. As soon as 
his nose touched the milk he would throw 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
up his head and caper the length of his 
rope. Then with great difficulty Matilda 
would force nis nose into the milk and 
hold it there, and he would refuse to open 
his lips, and choke and strangle, and as 
soon as she lightened the pressure he 
would bunt the pail, nearly upsetting Ma¬ 
tilda, and jump and dance about as if he 
was having the best time of his life. He 
kept this sort of nonsense going till Ma¬ 
tilda’s temper was worn to rags, and then 
I took a hand at it with the same results. 
When the calf made a dash in Estelle’s 
direction she would scream and start to 
get up, and then he would change his 
mind, and she would sit down again. At 
last the rope broke, and then Estelle got 
clear up and fled for her life. There was 
a ladder in the barn leading up to the hay 
mow, and she climbed half way up that 
and clung there and screamed. We 
caught the calf as quickly as we could, 
and fastened him—with a chain, this time, 
and then Estelle descended. But she de¬ 
clined to be a witness to any more kinder¬ 
garten work, and we started to the house. 
Estelle went on ahead, but when she 
came in sight of the kitchen door she 
stopped suddenly, and then tottered back 
to us. “There’s a man in there!” she 
whispered, clutching us frantically,—“a 
horrid, desperate looking man—and we 
three women here all alone! Oh, let us run 
to the nearest neighbor’s before he sees 
us.” 
“A man in our house?”—“What busi¬ 
ness has he?” we cried, and hurried 
toward the danger instead of away from 
it. 
Sure enough there was some one mov¬ 
ing around behind the outside door. We 
went in and—then we laughed. The des¬ 
perate looking character was our neighbor, 
Mr. Otis, one of the meekest, mildest, 
most offensive of men. 
“Well, well!” he said, “it’s you, is it? 
I come over to borrow a little kerosene, 
and there wa’n’t nobody round, so I helped 
myself, and much obliged.” 
After he had gone, we went into the 
sitting room and waited for Cousin Elias. 
We couldn’t seem to think of anything to 
say to Estelle, and she couldn’t seem to 
think of anything to say to us. A little 
after 10, we heard wheels and went to the 
door to listen. That couldn’t be Nell, 
coming at such a brisk trot, and we imag¬ 
ined that she was dead and that Dr. 
Briggs had brought Cousin Elias home. 
But the carriage and horse went into our 
carriage house, and Elias’s voice called out 
“she’s all right, girls.” 
When we carried out the lantern he ex¬ 
plained further. “Briggs wasn’t there 
when I got there, but when he did come, 
he gave her a dose of something out of a 
bottle and land! you never saw such quick 
work. She hadn’t much more’n got it 
swallowed when she took a long breath 
and shook herself once or twice, and then 
put her head down and began to eat a 
wisp of old straw there was on the stable 
floor. I knew she was herself, all right, 
then.” After we had petted our recovered 
horse enough, we finally betook ourselves 
to the house and to bed. 
We were up betimes the next morning, 
determined to make our sister-in-law have 
a better time than she had had the day be¬ 
fore. As a preliminary we would not call 
her, but let her have her sleep out, and 
we began to plan what we would do after 
she did awake. She came down stairs be¬ 
fore we had been up half an hour. She 
looked tired and discouraged. She ad¬ 
mitted that she had not slept very well. 
She said there had been such a strange 
noise off in the woods somewhere. It 
sounded like a child crying. She almost 
knew it couldn’t be, but still she couldn’t 
help worrying about it. 
“ ’Twas an owl,” I said remorsefully. 
“We ought to have told you, but we’re so 
used to them we never thought.” 
We began to tell her our plans, but she 
stopped us. “I feel—you won’t be hurt, 
will you?—but I feel as if I. must get 
home,” she faltered, looking as guilty as 
if she were doing some dreadful thing. 
“Not to-day ?” 
“Ye-es, this morning. I—I’m not used 
to so much excitement, you know. I want 
to get back to where it is quiet and peace¬ 
ful, and things don’t happen.—You won’t 
be hurt?” she asked miserably. “It isn’t 
that I don’t love you dearly, but—but—” 
Here she broke down utterly and began 
to cry, and we petted her, and told her we 
were not hurt, and said we would get her 
to the station in time for the half past 
seven train so that she could take the 
day boat. You see we had been homesick 
ourselves, once, and knew just what a 
horrible feeling it was. So we rushed 
breakfast, and Elias harnessed Nell, and 
we got 'started in good season. It was the 
loveliest morning that ever was, with the 
leaves’beginning to turn, and the smell 
of ripe grapes in the air, but Estelle 
never noticed it. She was only anxious 
lest we should not reach the station in 
time. When we did get there and find 
we had five minutes to spare, she began to 
worry for fear something had delayed the 
train. When it really did appear, and she 
bade us good bye and got aboard, the ex¬ 
pression of relief on her face was some¬ 
thing to remember. 
Matilda and I were pretty sober as we 
drove home. “She’ll never want to come 
near us again as long as she lives,” I said, 
mournfully. 
“No, she never will,” Matilda agreed, 
“and we really couldn’t help things coming 
as they did. Oh, dear!” 
One afternoon, two weeks later, our 
brother Fred suddenly appeared. Busi¬ 
ness had called him to Boston, and being 
so near he could not resist the temptation 
to come out to Fairfield, even though he 
could stay but two hours. 
“And now,” said Fred, in a tone of 
mock severity, when the first excitement 
of seeing him was passed and vve were 
comfortably seated in the sitting room,— 
"now I want to know what you did to 
my wife when she was here?” 
“What does she say we did?” I asked, 
to gain time. 
“She won’t say. She doesn’t seem to 
want to speak of her visit. She thinks 
you are ‘as dear as you can be,’ and ‘the 
bravest girls she ever saw,’ and she doesn’t 
worry any more about your ‘stagnating/ 
and that is about all I can get out of her. 
—Come, out with it, I’m dying to know. 
Give me a history of the day.” 
So we did. 
And he laughed,—the more we told him, 
the more he laughed, till he doubled over 
and moaned as if in pain. We laughed 
too, a little, and it was a great relief, for 
we had felt so badly about it before that 
we hadn’t thought much about the humor¬ 
ous side of the affair. 
“Now, Fred Haywood,” I said, after we 
had calmed down, “if von tease Estelle 
about this or so much as hint to her that 
we laughed, 1 never’ll forgive you,” and 
he promised he wouldn’t. 
Did she ever come again? 
Oh, yes! Fred came with her, the next 
Summer, and stayed two weeks, and we 
exerted ourselves to make her have a good 
time. She enjoys coming now, and has 
got so she can laugh with the rest of us 
over that first experience of the deadly 
monotony of farm life. 
ADA BENTWICK STONE. 
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CURES DYSPEPSIA and BRINGS HEALTH 
