Steve returned from town the evening following Nannie's outburst with a mind heavy laden. That had been his mental condition, indeed, much of the time since he turned farmer, and I may add that his thoughts occasionally ran in a sarcastic vein—a course ordinarily foreign to him. Shortly before that crucial point in his career, his marriage to Nannie, Randolph Chance had loaned him a beautiful idyl, termed “Liberty and a Living.” Randolph himself had read this as a thirsty man reads of cool, rock-paved brooks; Steve read it as a poet, a dreamer, but it would no doubt have had a marked effect upon his character had he not closely followed it up with Charles Dudley Warner's “Summer in a Garden,” much as one would chase a poison with its antidote, only in this case the order was reversed, the latter resembling the poison, since it awoke in his mind gloomy forebodings and inspired satirical reflections upon the universal mother.

Tuned to this key, he was no doubt ill-prepared, while turning the clod, to receive into his soul the sweet influences of rural life, and by reason of their elevating beauty, to be fortified against those drawbacks and trials with which all paths abound.

Truth to tell, Steve was discouraged. He had begun to realize that he had on his hands not only a small farm, for the tillage of which he was ill-contrived, but a large child as well, whose rearing and developing—— Just here he came to a sudden halt in his thought, and an odd word leaped in:

“Cooking!”

Then the name of that newspaper clipping of which Randolph once told him—

“How to Cook Wives.”

“Well, how in thunder?” he asked himself, and walked homeward from the station.

Ere he arrived he saw Nannie at the door. She was screaming something which, on his approach, he found to be—

“Sarah Maria is lost!”

Had Steve said “thank Heaven!” he would merely have been speaking out of the fullness of his heart. Instead of that, he wheeled like an automaton and retraced his steps. He knew where to look for her.

There she was, as usual, down near the track, and as Steve approached she stepped squarely on, and with a set gaze awaited the speedy coming of the city-bound train. Of course she knew it would kill her, but like Samson of old she would have the satisfaction of taking a few acquaintances with her.

Steve dragged her off and managed to get her home, and thus for the present prevented the sin of self-destruction.

That very evening, after Nannie, like the cow, was corralled (and we may use this term without reproach, since she had been rampant all day), a small figure slipped from out the house and hastened to the garden. His little face, frowsy as is the manner of his breed, was uplifted, and his saucy little eyes gleamed with fire. He had probably observed that the peas were flourishing and that they were the one living result of Steve's heroic labors, unless perhaps we except the corn, which was still several miles distant from fruitage. No doubt all this was clear to Brownie, and that was why he took such fiendish delight in his work of demolition. The naughty little eyes twinkled; the naughty little mouth opened to emit his short-breathed pants; and the naughty little tongue hung out as he pranced and leaped, rolled and gamboled over the cast-down and dejected peas. Finally he chewed and tore the fragments that remained, and then gave himself a shake—by no means so severe as he deserved—and strutted into the house with a “They're-done-for!” air, quite exasperating to witness when one considered how the poor peas were lying out there prone upon their faces in the dust, crushed to earth, unlike truth, to rise no more.

The next morning, all unconscious of the ruin of his crop, Steve was deliberately making his toilet, when he was startled by roars of fright. Looking from the window, he perceived a neighbor flying down the road, with Sarah Maria in his wake. The latter had lowered her head—not in shame, I grieve to say, but with malicious intent, as was abundantly evidenced by the height of her tail.

Happily Nannie had seen this procession of two as it passed the house, and giving chase with swift steps, had caught Sarah Maria's long rope and wound it several times around a large tree, thus checking her mad career and saving a worthy citizen for the republic.

The excitement attendant upon all this was very great, especially as the neighbor was for a time firmly resolved to bring action, not being satisfied with the action Sarah Maria had brought, but by dint of much persuasion, both from Steve and also from Randolph Chance, who came to the rescue, he was at length called off, and Steve was so relieved that he was able to note the destruction of his peas with scarce a ripple of emotion.

The calm of the succeeding twenty-four hours was but that which precedes the storm, and the glassy placidity of Steve's life for that one day proved to be the deceitful stillness of deep waters. Upon his return from the city he was again greeted with the welcome intelligence that Sarah Maria had raised her head, adjusted her hind legs, whose hinges, owing to much kicking, had been reversed of late, and betaken herself to parts unknown. Worn out as he was with the events of the past week, Steve was unequal to a discreet concealment of his feelings, and the satisfaction he evinced in Nannie's news was stoutly resented by that singular young person. Indeed, she became so wrought up—crying, upbraiding, and lamenting—that Steve was obliged to console her by promising to advertise the errant beast if she were not found at her usual trysting-place—the railroad track. This he did, repeating the dose daily for a week, at the end of which time he received word that Sarah Maria had temporarily located herself on a farm some forty miles inland. Not being well disposed to a walk of that length, enlivened by Sarah Maria's society, Steve sent word to forward the lady by freight.

Owing to some mistake her car was switched off about ten miles from the proper station, and thinking that he could bridge that distance, Steve set out on a train early the next evening, and soon found himself in reach of the missing member of his household. She was looking out of the freight car when he arrived, and he noted with a secret qualm that she shook her head disapprovingly when she saw him.

Steve stood and gazed at her for so long that the man in charge there finally asked him what he was waiting for. Steve replied that she looked so happy it seemed a pity to disturb her. The man said that he didn't regard her as particularly happy, inasmuch as she had all but kicked out one side of the car. Upon hearing which, Steve hastened to assure him that that was merely a playful way of hers when her spirits were at the highest, but the man said that her spirits were several feet too high for him, and he insisted upon lowering them to terra firma. He was so firm and so disagreeable about this that Steve was obliged to advance and join him in the difficult undertaking.

It might seem reasonable to expect that as long as Sarah Maria had testified vigorously to her disapproval of the freight car she would be glad to issue from it, and no doubt that would have been the case had Steve and the station master urged her to remain. The moment, however, that she saw with her eagle eye that they were making preparations for her ejectment, her mind was made up, and she spread her four feet in a manner suggestive of rocks that refuse to fly.

The unhappy men now united their efforts at pulling, but her roots had evidently gone down to China without stopping; next they endeavored to pry her up, but she was manifestly stuck by some glue of unparalleled strength.

By this time the honest sweat was dripping from the brows of both men; Sarah Maria alone was calm. Various devices were used to dislodge her, and at the end of an hour she had moved a trifle further than a glacier does in a similar length of time, and was fully as cold and calm as this natural phenomenon. As she was quite near the opening of the car when she took her stand, in a physical as well as in a moral sense, even the very slight advantage gained by her enemies sufficed to put her in position to make her final exit when, like Sairy Gamp, she was “so dispodged.”

“Now,” said the station master, who by this time had not so much as a dry thread on him, “if you'll pull I'll twist her tail so's to divert her attention, and I guess we'll make a go of it.”

Steve looked into the threatening eye of Sarah Maria, and foreseeing his doom if he stood in front of her, told the station master that as Sarah, for some reason, seemed disinclined to love him, she might be unwilling to go in his direction, and for that reason he would better keep out of sight.

“So,” he continued, “if you will kindly pull I will kindly twist.”

Steve was always polite, and never more so than when excited.

The suggestion appealed to the innocent station master, who saw no hidden intent in Steve's retreat, and the change of position having been effected, the two men went to work.

For a time Steve twisted gently, but firmly, while the station master tugged and jerked, but still none of these things moved her.

All at once there was a transformation scene, and it came about as suddenly as a flash of lightning from out a clear sky. The participants never could give a clear and harmonious account of what happened, and all that an idle on-looker could tell was that while he was gazing he suddenly heard something strike the roof of the car; in another instant he had, after the occasional custom of nations, recognized the belligerency of Sarah Maria. When the din of battle had subsided he beheld Steve arising from the earth somewhere in the rear of the car, while the station master, on all fours, was in the act of picking himself up from a spot just in front of where Sarah had lately made her heroic stand.

Steve was in no wise perturbed or even surprised. He realized that the bovine belonged to the gentle sex, and anything was to be expected. As long as Sarah Maria and his wife spared his life, he felt that he had no just cause for complaint; both ladies were erratic, and he must simply look for whatever happened.

Unfortunately, as Steve regarded it, Sarah Maria had not taken her departure, her long rope having caught around a tree and detained her. She was well out of the car, however, and the station master washed his hands of her.

It was by this time nearing dusk, and Steve set out on his long walk toward home with many misgivings. Under happy circumstances a walk in the country along the brookside, through meadows and woods in the evening is quieting, but Steve found it the reverse of this to-night. Not that he had no still moments, in which the brain might work and memory hold sway; there were such, indeed, at first, for Sarah Maria set out with him so gently and quietly that the station master concluded she must be one of those feminines who wax irritable when their way of life is disturbed, and that once relieved of the box-car she would proceed as a domestic animal should.

Even Steve began to entertain hopes of her reformation, but these were soon dashed to the ground, and he went with them. He arose (he had by this time become an expert at arising), and again there was a truce, which he gratefully accepted, for he was ready enough to enjoy peace while it lasted.

Walking by a brook which skirted a little farm, his mind was busy with reflections. Heretofore he had looked at these places and seen them in the gross, as it were; now no detail escaped him. He saw to-night that the weeds were rampant among the peas and that in the next bed the onions were drooping, evidently having been trampled upon.

“Why is it,” he argued gently to himself, “vicious things flourish in the face of every discouragement, while it requires so much coaxing and care to keep good and useful articles above ground? One might jump up and down on a weed continuously every day for a month, and the moment his back was turned it would be up again, whereas once stepping on a young blade of corn or the first shoots of an onion is the end of it.”

Then he looked at Sarah Maria and bethought him how she never had a sick day since they owned her, while a tractable, useful cow would have died half a dozen times over in this period, of pneumonia or consumption.

“Why is it?” he asked.

He might have answered this question and thus solved a problem that has been perplexing humanity ever since Adam and Eve were told to go, but Sarah Maria preferred her own movements to those of the intellect, and realizing that it was growing late, she set off on a hard run for home.

Now Steve had never in his college days, ranked as an athlete, but as he flew over the ground that night, with the long rope that bridged the difference betwixt himself and Sarah Maria quite taut, he had an injured feeling, as of one to whom injustice had been done. Not even the champion runner had ever made such time.

The violence of his gait would have proved exhaustive had it been too long continued, but Sarah Maria was merciful, and ere long Steve came upon her standing in her box-car attitude. She loosened up by-and-by and again started toward home with the speed of a race-horse, but this time Steve was in front, and could his friends have seen how well he kept in front they would have covered him with adulation.

Before long the rope was taut once more, and Steve's sense of security was in such marked and delightful contrast to his feelings when it slackened that he told Sarah Maria repeatedly to take her time—he was in no hurry whatever. Neither was Sarah, apparently, for between balking and running, and capering about in a truly extraordinary manner she passed the better portion of the night. Finally, in despair, Steve laid the case before her and asked if she would look at the matter dispassionately and consider the lateness of the hour and their distance from the domestic roof—would she, he urged, keep this great central truth in sight?

She said that she would not, and she said it so rudely that Steve felt hurt. When he had gotten up and given himself a good rubbing, he found that Sarah Maria, like some little angel, had gone before, and he hobbled after her as fast as his bruises would permit.

They reached home at last, and a late moon glowered down at them with calm severity. Truth to tell, both Steve and Sarah looked as if they had been on a spree, and both were callous as to appearances. Their one idea was to part company as soon as possible.

Out of respect to the Society for the Prevention, and so forth, Steve decided to give his interesting companion a drink; then he would have done with her forever. Having secured her to a near tree, he approached the pump, pail in hand.

But Sarah Maria was watching him narrowly, and as she looked there rankled in her seemingly quiet breast the memory of her wrongs. There was still a twist in her tail, left over from the box-car, and several kinks in her temper, and influenced by these she approached Steve just as he bent to lift the pail, and slipping her horns under him, dexterously lifted him from the ground and sent him crashing through the nearest window, which chanced to be that of his chamber.

“For the love of mercy!” screamed Nannie, starting up from her sleep in the next room, “what is happening now?”

“I'm coming to bed,” said Steve.