Part 2

The cow, the bull-calf, the pig in his ruffle, and the colt looking out of the kitchen window, were regarding the spectacle with evident satisfaction. The goat, as though satisfied that his wounded honor had been sufficiently avenged, began slowly consuming one of the white garments bleaching on the grass.

In her excitement Galatea’s hat had escaped from its fastening and fallen to the ground. Just now the sun shone through the branches of an old cherry tree, converting her loosened coils of dark red hair into a scarlet taunt which the bull-calf could not ignore. With hind-legs wide apart, because of the peach-basket, he was pawing the earth with his forefeet and uttering adolescent bellows of rage.

“Do you think, dear, that he means me?” asked the girl anxiously, starting to rise.

“Yes, dear, it’s your turn,” replied the Poet complacently.

“But I’m—I’m sitting down.”

“It’s that red badge of provocation you carry about under your hat, Galatea. Why in thunder did you take it off? Look out! He’s coming!”

The Poet rose, intending to intercept the bull-calf, whose progress was somewhat impeded by the peach-basket; but, noticing the goat backing away for another assault, he sat down again.

“Quick, Galatea! The cherry tree!”

There was a comfortable branch at about the height of a man’s shoulder, with a wooden bench under it. With the bellowing bull-calf close at her heels, Galatea ran to the bench and—not without a generous display of striped hose—swung herself up to the branch, leaving the enemy pawing the earth innocuously below.

“Galatea,” remarked the Poet solemnly, “I always said that those striped ones of yours were unlucky. Do you remember?”

“Shut up, George!” Galatea tucked her little boots under her on the branch, smoothed out her walking-skirt, and leaned against the trunk of the tree with the manner of a young lady accustomed to the usages of the very best society. George had the indecency to laugh.

“George, if I were a full-grown man I wouldn’t sit on the grass the whole afternoon just because of a poor, innocent little billy-goat.”

“Galatea, if I were a perfectly proper, highly educated and accomplished young lady just out of Vassar, I wouldn’t roost in a cherry tree just because of an innocently inquiring bull-calf.”

Then they both laughed.

Just then the colt whinnied long and joyously.

“Giddap,” sounded a voice from the road.

A sleek-coated young bull-terrier, very much alert, bounded down the path and stopped suddenly, as though divided between astonishment and indignation at the sight of the cow in the tulip-bed.

“That must be Napoleon,” said Galatea. “Gabriel is returning.”

A spring-wagon, loaded with trunks and boxes, and drawn by an extremely well-fed bay mare, whose driver, stoop-shouldered and sunburnt, perspired uncomfortably in his Sunday clothes, came into view on the driveway beyond the cherry tree, and stopped.

“How do you do, Gabriel?” said Galatea, smiling upon him from the cherry tree.

“Pleased to meet you, Gabriel,” said the Poet affably, from his seat on the grass.

For at least a minute the man in the wagon gazed upon the scene in silence, slowly opening and closing his mouth. Then he jumped down, remarking:—

“Jumpin’ Jehosephat! Sic’em, Napoleon!”

The terrier jumped for Mrs. Cowslip’s nose. She rose from the tulip-bed, but stood at bay. There was a great clatter of hoofs in the kitchen, and the colt ran out through the open door and began kicking up his heels gleefully under his mother’s nose. The bull-calf, the goat, and the pig arrayed themselves, as for an argument, beside the cow.

“Amanda!” bawled Gabriel. And then to the Poet: “Be you folks hurt, or only skeered? I must a’ missed ye, waitin’ for t’ other train.”

“We’re only scared, I think,” answered the Poet, rising cautiously, with one eye on the goat. Galatea slid down from her perch and joined them.

“Darn the critters!” said Gabriel. “It’s all Amanda’s fault. Of course she had to go trapsin’ off somewhere. Amanda! O Amanda!”

Amanda appeared in the edge of the orchard, with a tin pail in her hand, indicating with a wave of her apron that she was coming as fast as she could with her heaping pail of strawberries.

“I locked ’em up,” said Gabriel. “But, laws, ’t aint no use lockin’ up critters edicated by a college perfessor.”

“Fer th’ land sakes!” ejaculated Amanda, arriving breathlessly and taking in the whole scene at a glance.

The pig went up to her, grunting amiably in his white ruffle.

“You shameless critter!” said Amanda, with her face aflame, as she tore the indecorous garment from Reginald’s neck.

“Ha! ha! ho! ho! ho!” laughed Gabriel. “Serves ye right, Amanda, for goin’ off an’ leavin’ edicated critters loose around th’ house.”

“Shoo!” said Amanda, waving her apron at Mrs. Cowslip, who merely gave her a mild look of reproach.

“Git back to th’ barn, all of ye,” commanded Gabriel, with no better result.

“Say it, Gabe,” said Amanda, stamping her foot.

“No,” answered Gabriel, “I mustn’t. It keeps their feelin’s hurt for a hull day. Th’ Perfessor wouldn’t like it.”

“I don’t care, Gabe, you jest say it.”

“Say what?” asked the Poet, overcome with curiosity.

“W’y,” explained Gabriel, “ye see, it’s th’ Perfessor’s idee that these critters are jest as good as he is. Ekel rights for man an’ beast, he calls it. You bet they’re willin’, consarn ’em! It’s only when they want to run th’ hull place that he resorts to extreme measures, as he says. Then he shouts a queer, heathen word at ’em, an’ they sneak off like a dog caught suckin’ eggs.”

Out of regard for the Professor’s feelings Gabriel proceeded with such comparatively mild measures as flicking Mrs. Cowslip with his whip, and trying ineffectually to push the bull-calf toward the barn. The colt danced about, nipping at him with bared teeth. But it was Reginald who brought things to a climax. The pig, escaping the teeth of the terrier, ran between Gabriel’s legs, sending him sprawling on his back.

“Say it, Gabe,” called out Amanda.

“You bet I’ll say it!” Gabriel replied, rising and confronting the four-footed mutineers, now grouped as though conscious that they had carried matters a trifle too far. Throwing out his chest, Gabriel thundered the single word:—

“ABRACADABRA!”

The effect was magical. The Poet and his sister could hardly believe their eyes. Instantly, with head drooping in the most dejected manner, the colt started toward the barn, followed by Mrs. Cowslip and the bull-calf, their tails now drooping and sorrowful. Next went the goat with conscience-smitten mien, and at the end of the melancholy file was the pig, squealing plaintively, all the kink out of his tail.

“Wait a bit, this won’t do at all!” suddenly exclaimed the Poet, with more excitement in his voice than his sister had ever before noted.

“Do ye want to be a friend to th’ critters?” inquired Gabriel.

“I’m going to be a brother to them,” said the Poet.

“And I’m going to be a sister to them, poor things!” said Galatea. “Didn’t the Professor have some word with which he expressed his forgiveness, and his love, with a gentle reproof and warning to be more careful in the future?” she added, looking at Gabriel with soft appeal in her eyes.

“Sartin’, sartin’.” Gabriel scratched his head. “I can’t jest remember. It begun the same, with a-b ab—”

“Of course,” broke in the Poet. “The canonical form of pronouncing absolution.”

He ran after the delinquents, calling them by name: “O Mrs. Cowslip! Clarence! Gustavius! William! Reginald!”

They stopped and looked back penitently. Galatea ran to her brother’s side. He held out his hands and cried:—

“ABSOLVO!”

“Absolvo, absolvo!” echoed Galatea.

Cheerfully, but with subdued spirits, Bos, Equus and Co. gathered about their new friends, accepting their forgiveness with various tokens of gratitude. The pig lay down at Galatea’s feet, grunting contentedly, while the colt brushed her cheek with his velvet muzzle. The Poet felt a warm nose in his hand, and was not amazed to find it was his late enemy’s, the goat’s.

“Well, darn my skin!” said Gabriel.

“Galatea, I think we shall do very well—very well indeed,” said the Poet.

II _Fair Warning to the Horseless_

Seated on the veranda, in a low lawn-chair which caused his long shanks to thrust his angular knees up to the level of his chin, the Poet was perusing the Odes of Horace in the original text, and pencilling their English equivalent on the leaves of a small writing-pad. His handwriting was large and careless. Every minute or two he tore a filled sheet from the pad and dropped it on the edge of the veranda floor at his side. A straggling honeysuckle vine concealed from him the fact that William was present, and that, as each sheet fell to the floor, the goat was consuming it with every evidence of appreciation. Probably never before had a translation of Horace met with such instant success.

But presently William, becoming impatient at the Poet’s deliberation, seized a sheet out of his hand and stood detected. At the same instant a musical peal of laughter from the open window of the breakfast room proved that the Poet’s sister had been a delighted witness of the disaster. After one startled look about him, the Poet realized that the goat’s attentions had been indeed thorough. He had recourse to his customary whimsical philosophy.

“Galatea,” said the Poet gravely, “do you observe that the whole of my manuscript has been accepted without reading? That is the highest compliment possible to pay a poet.”

“And yet you hear it everywhere that the classic poets are not appreciated nowadays.”

The girl, still laughing, joined her brother on the veranda. She was all in pink—fluffy pink, with a fluffy pink thing flapping above her mahogany tresses, producing an effect impossible to describe, fatal to another woman, in her case charming. The goat put his forefeet on the veranda and seemed to nod his approval.

“William,” said the Poet, “you have given me an idea—an idea which may influence my whole career.”

“Why not?” commented Galatea. “Haven’t you and I been duly initiated as members of the firm of Bos, Equus and Co.? Aren’t all our interests mutual?” And again she laughed.

“I have long been undecided,” resumed the Poet, “as to whether my muse is classical and for the few, or modern and for the many; or, indeed, whether I should not give up poetry for the plough. William, it shall be for you to decide. I will now compose something for the masses. If you accept it instantly, as you have accepted my Horatian Odes—not for publication, it is true, but—er—but for purposes best known to yourself, I shall at once take steps to become an honest husbandman. If, however, you decline what I am about to offer you, I shall consider myself a properly ordained Poet of the People, and shall act accordingly. William, a grave responsibility rests upon your discrimination.”

The goat nodded with an intelligent expression, his venerable beard sweeping the floor.

“O George, how perfectly absurd!” laughed Galatea.

The Poet scribbled on his pad for a couple of minutes, tore off the sheet, and offered it to William. The goat sniffed at it, and appeared doubtful.

“You are quite right, William. Others have found my handwriting illegible. I will read it to you.”

The Poet read:—

“Sir Mortimer’s poems of note Were despised by his lady’s pet goat. The goat said, ‘Oh pschutt!’ And proceeded to butt Sir Mortimer into the moat.”

“Now, William, it’s up to you,” said the Poet, as his sister, regardless of her fluffy pink finery, sat down on the floor and shrieked.

But already the goat, looking deeply embarrassed, was trotting off toward the barn.

“That settles it,” said the Poet solemnly. “I am ordained Poet of the People.”

Galatea got up, gurgling, and rested her flushed cheek on her brother’s collar.

“George, you’re the most delicious old thing ever created.”

He held her off, regarding her curiously.

“All in pink? Nothing like pink to show dirt. Wherefore all this regardlessness of expense, Galatea?”

She took a letter from her bosom and gave it to him.

“It’s from Arthur. It came in the morning mail. I didn’t want to disturb you—and William—in your literary labors. You’d better read it now.”

The Poet read:—

“‘I’m taking a little spin out your way in my new Red Ripper. Will reach your place about noon. If you’ve nothing else to do, we can have a whirl down the old Post Road and back before two o’clock. Then I must be off to Stamford on an important engagement about a portrait—in fact, it means the price of this modest luxury on wheels. But do give me the two hours. Think what poetic wonders George may accomplish in that time, undistracted by your luminous presence.’”

“‘Luminous presence’ isn’t bad,” commented the Poet. “That is, for Arthur. Don’t you give him any of your impudence, Galatea. We can’t afford to quarrel with people who can own Red Rippers.”

“Rubbish, George. Arthur is sometimes very trying. He isn’t half as handsome as he thinks he is.”

“But you are, Galatea. Be charitable. You could do much worse than go through life in—in a Red Ripper. Noon, did you say?”

The Poet looked at his watch. “Why, it’s eleven-forty already. Hello! What’s the matter with our four-legged partners?”

Cleopatra, with Clarence at her side, had galloped up the driveway from the bottom of the pasture, and stopped, with head up, snorting loudly at something down the road. The colt could not snort as loudly as his mother, but he made up by snorting twice as often. Mrs. Cowslip and Gustavius, the bull-calf, quite in the dark as to the cause of the excitement, but willing to become excited themselves, were stopping en route to snatch an occasional mouthful of grass. Reginald’s short legs were flying in the distance, while he uttered plaintive squeaks at being left behind. The goat was giving him the assistance of an occasional butt in the right direction. Napoleon, rudely awakened out of a deep dream of peace, barked wildly from the edge of the veranda. Amanda came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.

“For the land sakes, what ails the critters?” she asked of Gabriel, who had run up from the potato-patch, armed with his hoe.

Gabriel ran to the side of the colt, glanced down the road, and came back laughing.

“It’s one of them there hossless buggies,” he said. “The mare never could stand the sight of ’em, and the colt takes after her. They take it as a personal insult for a buggy to go humpin’ along like that without a hoss to pull it.”

“It’s Arthur,” said Galatea. “He’s made better time than he expected to, and he’ll be unbearable.”

The whirr of the wheels was now audible. Cleopatra and Clarence, with a final snort of rage, put their heads between their forelegs, slashed out vindictively behind, and galloped off to the far side of the driveway. The Red Ripper turned in swiftly from the road, giving Mrs. Cowslip the fright of her life as she plunged, bellowing, to the rear of her defiant equine comrades. At sight of the shining red enamel, Gustavius, for one instant, contemplated a valiant charge, but thought better of it barely in time to save his skin, if not his dignity.

As though to make the affront beyond all forgiveness, the driver of the red thing steered straight on toward the barn, then, describing a graceful circle about his outraged spectators, returned and came to an abrupt halt near the gateway. He lifted his cap to Galatea with easy grace, and jumped from his seat to take the Poet’s outstretched hand.

“Good boy. You did that with almost human intelligence.” The Poet’s eyes twinkled—the nearest approach to a smile in which he had ever been known to indulge.

“Yes; rather neat, I call it. Isn’t she a beauty? Only two tons weight and forty horsepower; maximum of sixty-nine miles an hour on a level road; climbs hills like a goat; the only sparking device that never hitches—”

“Kind to women and children and stands without hitchin’,” drawled the Poet.

“Quit your kidding, George,” and then, at a loud snort from Cleopatra: “I say, George, who’re your friends?”

“Including Galatea and myself, they’re Bos, Equus and Co.”

“Oh, freedom of the place—part of the family, eh? You’re a queer chap, George. They don’t seem quite friendly. I hate to break up a happy home, you know.”

“It does look like it, Arthur. The mare can’t bear the sight of a vehicle that is independent of her services. The bull-calf resents its brilliant color. Besides, they all hang together on general principles. However, Galatea and I still retain a few of our characteristics unchanged by these associations. We forgive you.”

Gabriel and Amanda returned to their duties in potato-patch and kitchen. The Poet went into the house, leaving the Artist with Galatea on the veranda. She had given him her hand with a bewildering smile, but as he immediately began to chatter interminably about his automobile and the great things he was going to do in the way of speed, her red lips shaped themselves into a curl that was not so pleasant, and if he had noticed the satirical little side glances she gave him now and then, his tone would have been much less complacent.

The Artist was really an excellent fellow, stalwart, straight-limbed, and undeniably handsome. His type originated with the new generation of popular fiction illustrators. You would instantly recognize his smooth-shaven face, his straight nose, and his determined chin for those of the plain American young hero who walks unconcernedly into the boudoir of the Crown Princess of Grossbock (who falls desperately in love with him at first sight), and presently rescues her from the very foot of the throne, dashing with her in his arms through a whole regiment of Hussars, without turning a hair. It was not to be expected that such a hero would remain sacred to the romances over which little girls weep tears of joy and longing. The daughter of Isaac Ickleheimer called her father’s attention to him one day, and ever since then he has adorned the advertising pages of the magazines, attired in the most lovely ready-to-wear clothes, with shoulders more than human.

But the Artist couldn’t help this, any more than he could help chattering about his new automobile to a girl who was dying to have soft nothings whispered in her ear. After a while Galatea, realizing that such hopes were doomed to disappointment for the present, abruptly choked off the dissertation on Red Rippers by dragging the Artist in to luncheon.

With the human element thus eliminated, now occurred one of those scenes which gave to the present chronicler his chief inspiration.

The red thing being quiescent, Cleopatra and Clarence had ceased their snorting and were approaching cautiously, with occasional coy side-prancings, yet with a curiosity in their eyes that was not unmixed with vindictiveness. Mrs. Cowslip and Gustavius grazed near by, with one eye open to developments. William surveyed the red thing speculatively, evidently wondering whether it offered a profitable opportunity for butting, while Reginald, the pig, less imaginative than the others, rubbed one of his fat sides tentatively against a rubber tire.

“Not so bad,” grunted Reginald. “A bit too smooth, that’s all; don’t seem to take hold like the Professor’s finger-nails—”

“Look at that fool pig,” whinnied Clarence to his mother. “Reginald has no dignity. I wouldn’t demean myself by such condescension to an enemy with such a vile-smelling breath.”

“That proves that the thing is really alive,” commented Cleopatra. “It’s eaten something that don’t agree with it.”

“It’s breath smells just like Gabe’s lantern when he’s late with his work in the barn,” said Mrs. Cowslip, coming up, with Gustavius by her side, shaking his sharp sprouts of horns truculently.

The pig braced himself against a corner of the metal framework in front, and grunted with more unction:—

“Ah! this is better.”

“Why don’t the thing show signs of life?” complained Cleopatra. “Then I’d know where to plant my heels. It was lively enough a little while ago.”

Gustavius, with calf-like bellows of provocation, was exercising his sharp little horns on one of the rubber tires.

“Why should you be so incensed against such a lumbering old thing?” asked Mrs. Cowslip, with a placid glance at the mare. “Seems to me you ought to be grateful to any sort of wagon that would leave you free to enjoy yourself.”

“Trust an old cow not to see an inch beyond her own nose,” snorted Cleopatra contemptuously. “Do you suppose I’d be welcome in this family if I wasn’t useful? There’s nothing for me to do except pull the buggy, or Gabe’s wagon. Why, even that delightful red-headed girl, who always has sugar in her pocket, helps Amanda in the garden.”

“True,” admitted Mrs. Cowslip. “And I give milk.”

“Lucky for you,” said Cleopatra significantly. “When I think of my Clarence and your Gustavius, I tremble.”

Mrs. Cowslip looked startled. “What do you mean, Cleopatra?”

“I don’t want to alarm you, my dear, but I can’t forget that day when Gabe got into the calf’s pen with a sharp knife in his hand.”

“I’ve heard of such calamities to my race,” whimpered Mrs. Cowslip, her moist nose turning pale; “but it never occurred to me that a child of mine—”

“It was Amanda who dragged Gabe and his knife away,” continued Cleopatra. “Her words ring in my ears yet. She said: ‘O Gabe, wait till he’s older and we can roast him. I do love roast beef’; that’s what Amanda said.”

Mrs. Cowslip sidled affectionately up to Gustavius, who was still worrying the rubber tire with his sharp sprouts of horns, and licked his cheek tenderly.

“Don’t bother me, mother,” said the thoughtless bull-calf. “I feel that I’m making an impression on this thing.”

“If you do,” said Cleopatra, “and it shows signs of life, just you watch me, that’s all;” and, laying back her ears, she experimented with her heels to be sure that they were in good working order.

“Me, too,” said Clarence, following his mother’s example with a significance not to be misunderstood.

“If you’re really making an impression,” bleated William to Gustavius, backing away and shaking his horns, “one good, swift butt ought to do the business.”

Gustavius moved his hind quarters to one side, and bored away with one horn as hard as he could.

“Clear the track,” bleated the goat; “I’m coming!”

On came William with a rush that astonished even himself. The last leap was twelve good feet in mid-air. With his neck stiffened like a rod of steel, the roots of his horns struck the rubber tire squarely just below the boring sprout of Gustavius. There was an explosion and a fierce puff of something in their faces that sent both the goat and the bull-calf back on their haunches.

“It’s alive! It’s alive!” shrieked Cleopatra, as she wheeled about, filled with the joy of battle.

Lashing out with her heels at the red thing amidships, the mare’s heels clattered among the driving-levers most ominously. Clarence’s heels, being out of range in his excitement, did no damage. They looked around, snorting, awaiting the enemy’s retort. To their surprise the red thing remained motionless.

“Pshaw!” exclaimed Cleopatra, “what’s the use of attacking such a spiritless creature, anyway?”

“In my opinion you’ve killed it,” said Mrs. Cowslip. “I never saw such a smash in my life.”

“It was I who finished the thing,” boasted Gustavius, finding himself unhurt. “I felt its last breath in my face.”

William turned away in disgust.

The pig, engrossed with his own selfish pursuit of new dermatological sensations, had been only momentarily disturbed by these events. He felt that something was lacking.

“If I could only get my back under something,” he complained. “I wonder if it’s safe to crawl under the thing?”