Page:Frank Stockton - Rudder Grange.djvu/96

Rh the poor cow until morning, when Pomona was to go for a man who occasionally worked on the place, and engage him to come and milk for us.

That night as we were going to bed, I looked out of the window at the barn which contained the cow, and was astonished to see that there was a light inside the building.

"What!" I exclaimed. "Can't we be left in peaceful possession of a cow for a single night?"

And, taking my revolver, I hurried downstairs and out-of-doors, forgetting my hat in my haste. Euphemia screamed after me to be careful and keep the pistol pointed away from me.

I whistled for the dog as I went out, but to my surprise he did not answer.

"Has he been killed?" I thought, and for a moment I wished that I was a large family of brothers—all armed.

But on my way to the barn I met a person approaching with a lantern and a dog. It was Pomona, and she had a milk-pail on her arm.

"See here, sir!" she said; "it's mor'n half-full. I just made up my mind that I'd learn to milk—if it took me all night. I didn't go to bed at all, and I've been at the barn for an hour. And there ain't no need of my goin' after no man in the mornin'," said she, hanging up the barn-key on its nail.

I simply mention this circumstance to show what kind of a girl Pomona had grown to be.

We were all the time at work in some way, improving our little place. "Some day we will buy it," said Euphemia. We intended to have some wheat put in in the fall, and next year we would make the place fairly crack with luxuriance. We would divide the duties of the farm, and, among