Page:On Our Selection.djvu/198

184 The auctioneer rushed Dad. "Yours," he said, bringing his hammer down with a bang; "you deserve her, old man!"

And the station-manager chuckled and took Dad's name—and Dad's money.

Dad was very pleased, and eager to start home. He went and found Dave, who was asleep in a hay-stack, and along with Steve Burton they drove the cow home, and yarded her in the dark.

Mother and Sal heard the noise, and came with a light to see Dad's purchase, but as they approached "Dummy" threatened to carry the yard away on her back, and Dad ordered them off.

Dad secured the rails by placing logs and the harrow against them, then went inside and told Mother what a bargain he'd made.

In the morning Dad took a bucket and went to milk "Dummy." All of us accompanied him. He crawled through the rails while "Dummy" tore the earth with her fore-feet and threw lumps of it over the yard. But she was n't so wild as she seemed, and when Dad went to work on her with a big stick she walked into the bail quietly enough. Then he sat to milk her, and when he took hold of her teats she broke the leg-rope and kicked him clean off the block and tangled her leg in the bucket and made a great noise with it. Then she bellowed and reared in the bail and fell down, her head