Not all was gladness and light in the entwined lives of Bos, Equus and Co. There came a day early in July when the confidence of Galatea and the Poet in their four-legged partners was stretched almost to the breaking-point. But for the wisdom of the Poet, which assured him that, after all, civilization is only a thin veneer which is liable to crack open under stress of provocation and reveal the savage man or the unenlightened beast, Mrs. Cowslip and her bull-calf, on that memorable day, would have been condemned to solitary confinement in the barn, while Napoleon, the bull-terrier, would have fallen victim to the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence.
99Ordinarily the activities of Bos, Equus and Co. did not have their daily awakening until at least an hour of sunshine had striven with the dew-laden meadow. Gabriel’s duties were light, and rheumatic warnings urged him against braving early damps. Amanda, most energetic of housewives, refrained from disturbing her pots and pans out of regard for the Poet and his sister, who dearly loved that last hour of slumber made more sweet by the chirpings of early birds under their windows.
On this particular morning the dozing Poet was conscious that the voices of the birds were eclipsed by ominous rumblings which, instead of arousing him to complete consciousness, plunged him into the midst of a perilous adventure. He was on the deck of an ocean liner enveloped in the dense fogs of that awesome region off the Banks of Newfoundland. His body and soul were shaken by the vibrations of 100the siren, whose long-drawn warning was being echoed from out of the mists. No, it was not an echo—it was another siren. Its menace was growing louder! A ghastly gray shape hove near. The officer on the bridge seemed frozen with terror. The relentless ocean, scoffing at sirens and rudders, was hurling two ships into a fatal embrace. The Poet jumped for a life-preserver, striking his head violently upon—upon an old-fashioned walnut bedpost.
Then he realized that it was the melancholy voice of Mrs. Cowslip, interrupted by lamenting bellows from Gustavius, that had so nearly brought him to a watery grave. He ran to the open window, and heard Amanda complaining:
“Gabe, what on earth is the matter with the critters? For the land sakes do git up!”
From his window the Poet could see Mrs. Cowslip and the bull-calf side by side, with their necks stretched out over the barnyard 101gate, sending forth their lamentations toward the bottom of the pasture, where the brook ran under the stone-wall into a thicket of old willow trees heavily encumbered with wild grapevines. He could hear Cleopatra and Clarence clattering about uneasily on the floor of their stalls, while Reginald squealed for his breakfast with more than his usual insistence, and their neighbors in the hennery cackled inquiringly.
Gabriel was kicking on his boots outside the kitchen door when the Poet and Galatea hurried down, eager to know how they could calm the feelings of their four-legged partners.
“Oh, pshaw!” said Gabriel, seizing a tin milk-pail, “critters are like folks; they have their ornery spells without knowin’ what’s the matter with ’em.”
“I never saw Mrs. Cowslip paw the dust up over her head before,” said Galatea. “See! Now Gustavius is doing it.”
102“She’s giving her offspring lessons in some mysterious rites of her species,” said the Poet oracularly. “I shall investigate and make a note of it.”
“No, it’s instinct,” said Gabriel, as the Poet and his sister accompanied him to the barnyard. “You can edicate critters till you’re blue in the face. You can teach ’em to act like human folks almost, and then some day, all of a sudden, they’ll forgit everything and do the same fool things their great-grandmothers did.”
Gabriel entered the barnyard with a three-legged stool, butted his head into the flank of Mrs. Cowslip, and proceeded to play a pleasant tune on the bottom of the tin pail. Gustavius was not distracted by this familiar operation. Suddenly he redoubled his bellowings over the barnyard gate. Mrs. Cowslip wavered between surges of emotion and her respect for Gabriel.
“So, boss,” commanded the man with the 103half-filled pail between his knees. And then, as Mrs. Cowslip switched her tail in his face: “Stand still, darn ye!”
Such language at such a time was not wise. Mrs. Cowslip, ignoring intervening obstacles, rushed to join Gustavius in a duet of lamentation, leaving Gabriel on his back with the milk-pail overturned into his protesting bosom. He rose, gasping, with arms hanging limp like a man trying to get as far away from his clothes as possible. At that moment Amanda emerged wildly from the hennery, screaming:—
“Gabe! Gabe! They’s only four eggs under the speckled hen!”
“What’s that?” asked Gabriel, startled out of his fury at Mrs. Cowslip, although he could feel streams of warm milk trickling down into his boots. “Only four, Amanda? The hull dozen was there, yesterday. I took the hen off an’ counted ’em.”
104They looked at each other as though stunned by a calamity too dreadful for words. Amanda was first to recover her speech. Her eye traveled down Gabriel’s soaking garments to the tin pail bottom up on the ground, and, with the genuine feminine logic which men find so charming in such moments, she said:—
“Gabe, I do believe you’ve spilled all the morning’s milk!”
“No,” drawled the Poet soothingly, “he has it all in his pockets.”
“Hush, George,” said Galatea. And then to Amanda:—
“Were the eggs valuable ones?”
“Valuable!” exclaimed Gabriel. “They was only one settin’ of ’em in th’ hull county. Amanda was crazy for ’em, and so was Si Blodgett, darn the old hypocrite! He and Amanda bid against each other till I had to pay fifty cents apiece for them eggs!”
105“Oh dear!” said Galatea. “Then they weren’t hen’s eggs at all?”
“Hen eggs? I should say not. They were Golden Guinea eggs, and no more to be had for love or money.”
Mrs. Cowslip and Gustavius lowed dismally, casting dust upon their heads.
“There’s sympathy for you,” observed the Poet. “Never tell me again that a cow lacks intelligence, or a bull-calf perspicacity. Any one can see that they’re bemoaning disaster to those eggs.”
“For the land sakes, Gabe, turn the critters out,” said Amanda.
“No,” said the Poet solemnly, disregarding Galatea’s warnings not to trifle with disaster, “they must be held as witnesses; a crime has been committed.”
Just then Napoleon crawled under the fence, lifted one front paw, cocked one ear, and looked 106inquiringly in the face of the dripping Gabriel. Amanda seemed startled by a sudden suspicion.
“Gabe,” she said, “do you suppose the dog—”
“I’ll settle that in two shakes of a lamb’s tail,” said Gabriel, who had already divined Amanda’s suspicion.
He took the whimpering terrier by the collar and dragged him toward the gate.
“Wait a bit; not so fast,” said the Poet. “Where’s your evidence against Napoleon?”
Gabriel pointed to certain yellow stains about the terrier’s muzzle.
“That’s egg—Golden Guinea egg at fifty cents apiece. Open the gate, Mandy.”
“What are you going to do?” demanded the Poet. “You can’t condemn and execute a member of the firm of Bos, Equus and Co. on one little bit of circumstantial evidence.”
107“No, indeed not,” said Galatea.
“But I can give him the third degree, darn him, an’ make him confess,” declared Gabriel, who, as constable of the township, had taken pains to post himself on the latest police methods.
The suspected criminal, his accusers, and his two champions, proceeded to the hennery and to the nest of the incubating speckled hen, amid a chorus of cackling inquiries. Straight up to the ravished nest Napoleon was led. The speckled hen pecked him sharply on the nose. Napoleon yelped.
“There!” exclaimed Galatea. “It’s perfectly plain that the hen could defend herself against a small dog like Napoleon.”
“Lift her off the nest,” said Gabriel.
The speckled hen squawked, but Amanda was firm. Galatea lifted up the terrier and rubbed his nose in the nest.
“What did I tell ye?” said Gabriel in triumph. 108“D’ye see the guilty look in his face?”
“It isn’t guilt,” declared Galatea hotly; “it’s reproach—reproach for your unjust suspicions.”
“It’s righteous indignation,” said the Poet.
“It’s guilt,” said Amanda, restoring the hen to her four eggs. “When a dog has been stealin’ eggs, an’ you rub his nose in the nest, he always looks that way.”
“Besides, there’s the yaller on his nose,” said Gabriel. “Napoleon, you’re goin’ to git th’ lickin’ of your lifetime.”
“Wait,” said Galatea. “That’s yellow paint on Napoleon’s nose. I repainted some croquet balls yesterday, and he’s been playing with them.”
“Ah,” said the Poet, “think of all the innocent men who have been hanged on circumstantial evidence.”
109“It’s egg,” said Gabriel stubbornly.
“It’s paint,” said Galatea. “Gabriel, don’t you dare punish Napoleon.”
“At least it’s a case for the experts,” observed the Poet. “We must have a chemical analysis of Napoleon’s nose before he can be convicted.”
“Gosh!” said Gabriel, “what a lot of fuss all on account of a dog.”
“You forget,” said Galatea. “Napoleon is a member of our family; we’re all on terms of equality here.”
During this argument for and against the guilt of Napoleon, Clarence, with his head through a small window in the wall which separated his stall from the hennery, had been an interested spectator. As though to indicate his approval of Galatea’s last remark, he bared his teeth and nipped Gabriel sharply in the region of his hip pocket.
110“Ouch!” said Gabriel.
“One more witness for the defense,” said the Poet. “Hello, what’s this?”
A ragged-edged square of dark woolen cloth, with a blue stripe, hung from a rusty nail in the ledge of the window through which Clarence had withdrawn his head in dodging a slap from Gabriel.
“Behold!” said the Poet, displaying the bit of cloth, which was about the size of a man’s hand. “Behold proof of Napoleon’s innocence!”
“How d’ye make that out?” demanded Gabriel.
“By the process known as inductive reasoning; the same kind of reasoning which enabled Edgar Allan Poe to solve the Nassau Street murder mystery after the police had given it up. It is perfectly plain that the thief who stole those eight expensive eggs wore trousers of the same pattern as this bit of cloth. In 111taking the eggs from the nest he stood where you were standing, Gabriel, when Clarence nipped you. The speckled hen was not to be ravished of her eggs without a struggle. She pecked and she squawked. Clarence heard her and flew to the rescue. He put his head through the window, as he did just now, and he nipped the thief just as he nipped you, Gabriel—that is, in the region of the hip pocket. Only in this case Clarence knew that he was dealing with a violator of the law, and he nipped deep. His teeth tore away and hung upon that waiting nail the clue which will one day convict the criminal. Look for the man whose dark, blue-striped trousers have a patch over or near the hip pocket. How strange are the ways of justice!”
“Well, I swan to man!” said Gabriel.
Amanda was twisting the corners of her apron nervously. Gabriel gave her a stern glance.
112“Mandy, have you been losin’ any more keys of the henhouse?”
“I missed one yesterday,” said Amanda meekly. “Maybe I left it in the lock, havin’ my hands full of fresh eggs.”
Gabriel snorted. He re............