The cattle seem to suffer from insomnia occasionally, and the hot nights rouse their predatory instincts. Last night as I was gasping on the floor besides a screen door I heard something stirring on the lawn. Glancing out I saw one of the calves investigating a bed of poppies as if meditating a dose of laudanum to induce sleepfulness. Further investigation found all the cattle and the horses in the orchard. Dressing lightly and hurriedly, I called Sheppy and started to drive them out. For almost an hour we raged around the orchard and the buildings before we got the brutes back into the pasture. I found that the pasture gate was open and at once jumped to the conclusion that the boy who put out the cows after milking had left it open. While running around in the moonlight and under the shadows of the apple trees, getting tripped by furrows and switched in the face by branches, I thought of a number of interesting things to say to the boy about his carelessness. At first I intended to waken him and tell them to him while they were fresh in my mind, but when I got a drink of cold water at the well I thought better of it and decided to let the matter rest until morning. The evidence was all against him, for he was the last one through the gate, and as the gate was a new hardware-store gate of steel tubing and wire, with a regulation catch, I felt sure it couldn't have come open accidentally. But it was just as well that I decided to let things stand over until morning. About 3 o'clock, when I was again snoozing fitfully on my sofa-pillow by the door, Sheppy began to bark and a cow rushed past. They were in again. Without waiting to dress I joined Sheppy, and we took the Kneipp cure together while rounding up the cows and getting them back into the pasture. The new hardware store gate was open again, and my thoughts shifted to the hardware man. I pictured myself leaning over the counter and saying things to him about that gate and the fastenings on it. Yet that would hardly do. He did not make the gate; and, anyway, it was of the kind used by all other farmers. The real trouble was with the gifted Red Cow and her unhallowed progeny. I knew from experience that if there was any way of getting into mischief they would know it. The gate fastenings that were good enough for listless and pampered pure-bred cows were no defence against their enterprising energy. So if any one was to blame for the night's trouble it was myself—for owning that particular strain of cows.