“No, it’s a bear, a big black one!” and hid his face in Nan’s skirts.
For a moment Nan quailed; ever her courage gave out at the
thought of a real bear, and she was about to turn and flee in great
disorder, when a mild “Moo!” changed her fear to merriment, as
she said, laughing,
“It’s a cow, Robby! the nice, black cow we saw this afternoon.”
The cow seemed to feel that it was not just the thing to meet two
little people in her pasture after dark, and the amiable beast paused
to inquire into the case. She let them stroke her, and stood
regarding them with her soft eyes so mildly, that Nan, who feared
no animal but a bear, was fired with a desire to milk her.
“Silas taught me how; and berries and milk would be so nice,” she
said, emptying the contents of her pail into her hat, and boldly
beginning her new task, while Rob stood by and repeated, at her
command, the poem from Mother Goose:
“Cushy cow, bonny, let down your milk,
Let down your milk to me,
And I will give you a gown of silk,
A gown of silk and a silver tee.”
But the immortal rhyme had little effect, for the benevolent cow
had already been milked, and had only half a gill to give the thirsty
children.
“Shoo! get away! you are an old cross patch,” cried Nan,
ungratefully, as she gave up the attempt in despair; and poor Molly
walked on with a gentle gurgle of surprise and reproof.
“Each can have a sip, and then we must take a walk. We shall go
to sleep if we don’t; and lost people mustn’t sleep. Don’t you know
how Hannah Lee in the pretty story slept under the snow and
died?”
“But there isn’t any snow now, and it’s nice and warm,” said Rob,
who was not blessed with as lively a fancy as Nan.
“No matter, we will poke about a little, and call some more; and
then, if nobody comes, we will hide under the bushes, like
Hop-‘o-my-thumb and his brothers.”
It was a very short walk, however, for Rob was so sleepy he could
not get on, and tumbled down so often that Nan entirely lost
patience, being half distracted by the responsibility she had taken
upon herself.
“If you tumble down again, I’ll shake you,” she said, lifting the
poor little man up very kindly as she spoke, for Nan’s bark was
much worse than her bite.
“Please don’t. It’s my boots they keep slipping so;” and Rob
manfully checked the sob just ready to break out, adding, with a
plaintive patience that touched Nan’s heart, “If the skeeters didn’t
bite me so, I could go to sleep till Marmar comes.”
“Put your head on my lap, and I’ll cover you up with my apron; I’m
not afraid of the night,” said Nan, sitting down and trying to
persuade herself that she did not mind the shadow nor the
mysterious rustlings all about her.
“Wake me up when she comes,” said rob, and was fast asleep in
five minutes with his head in Nan’s lap under the pinafore.
The little girl sat for some fifteen minutes, staring about her with
anxious eyes, and feeling as if each second was an hour. Then a
pale light began to glimmer over the hill-top and she said to herself
“I guess the night is over and morning is coming. I’d like to see the
sun rise, so I’ll watch, and when it comes up we can find our way
right home.”
But before the moon’s round face peeped above the hill to destroy
her hope, Nan had fallen asleep, leaning back in a little bower of
tall ferns, and was deep in a mid-summer night’s dream of fire-flies
and blue aprons, mountains of huckleberries, and Robby wiping
away the tears of a black cow, who sobbed, “I want to go home! I
want to go home!”
While the children were sleeping, peacefully lulled by the drowsy
hum of many neighborly mosquitoes, the family at home were in a
great state of agitation. The hay-cart came at five, and all but Jack,