"It can't be they air agoin' to keep a hoss!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Wint.

"You never kin tell nuthin' about them Jenkinses. They're so sort of secretin' like," lamented Mrs. Hudgers.

The Jenkins family were fully as ignorant as were their neighbors of the nature of the contemplated occupant of the new edifice commonly referred to as the "cow-house," The Boarder put up a very substantial shed with a four-paned window and a door that locked though not very securely. The grocer had on hand a small quant.i.ty of green paint which he donated to the cause of the coming cow.

"Thar ain't enough to more'n paint two sides of it," criticized Gus, "so I'll paint the front and west sides."

"Thar's a can of yaller paint out in the woodshed," informed Mrs.

Jenkins. "You can paint the other two sides with that."

Then the Boarder made a suggestion:

"If I was you, I'd paint a strip of yaller and then one of green.

That'll even it up and make it fancy-like."

Amarilly protested against this combination of colors so repellent to artistic eyes, but the family all agreed that it "would be perfickly swell," so she withdrew her opposition and confided her grievance to Derry's sympathizing, shuddering ears.

Gus proceeded to bicolor the shed in stripes which gave the new building a bedizened and bilious effect that delighted Colette, who revelled in the annals of her proteges.

Each member of the Jenkins family had a plan for utilising this fine domicile, as there seemed to be a general feeling of skepticism regarding the ability of Gus to produce a cow in the flesh. This sentiment, however, was not openly expressed, as the lad was found to be decidedly sensitive and touchy on the subject.

"Mebby a cow'll jest walk right into the back yard and make herself to hum in the new shed," prognosticated Mrs. Jenkins optimistically. "It's such a beautiful place. I'll bet there is cows as would ef they knowed about it."

"I perpose," suggested Flamingus patronizingly, "that we start a cow fund and all chip in and help Gus out."

"Sure thing!" declared the generous Amarilly. "He can have all my savings. We ought to all help Gus get a start."

"I'm in," cried Bobby.

"You kin hev all you want from me, Gus," offered Bud.

Firmly and disdainfully Gus rejected all these offers and suggestions.

"Thar ain't agoin' to be no pardner business about this," he announced.

"The cow won't come till she's mine--all mine--and when she does, I'm agoin' to pay the Boarder for his work."

"If he wants to be so all-fired smart, we won't help him git no cow,"

declared Flamingus, "and the shed kin be used for a summer kitchen arter all."

This use of the new building had been the fondest dream of Mrs. Jenkins, who deemed it an ideal place in which to keep her tubs, mops, boiler, and wringer. Milt had designs upon it for a boy's reading-room and club; Flamingus coveted a gymnasium. Bobby, Bud, Cory, and Iry had already appropriated it as a playhouse.

Amarilly openly and ably defended Gus and his cherished, illusory plan.

Of all her brothers, he was the one to whom her heart most inclined. For Bud she possibly had a more tender, maternal feeling on account of his being so delicate. She paid homage to the good points of Flamingus, but he was too cut and dried, "bromidic," she cla.s.sified him, for Derry had carefully explained the etymology of the word. Milt was honest, but selfish and "near." Bobby was disposed to be fresh, but Gus was just such a boy as Amarilly herself would have been, reincarnated. He was practical, industrious, thrifty, and shrewd, and yet possessed of the imagination and optimism of his sister. She called him aside one day for a private consultation.

"Say, Gus, your scheme's all right. Go ahead and get your cow. I'll let you have my savings, and the other boys needn't know. You can pay me when you get ready to."

"That's bully in you, Amarilly, but I'm agoin' to see this thing through alone and start in without no help front no one," firmly refused Gus, and his st.u.r.dy little sister could but admire him for his independence.

He locked up his new possession very carefully, putting the key in his pocket every morning before going to the business precincts to pick up a job. The children, however, were not dispossessed by this precaution, finding ingress and egress through the window. Gus most opportunely secured a week's job driving a delivery-wagon, and he instantly invested his wages in the provisioning of the cow quarters.

"The feed'll git stale by the time the cow comes," objected Milt.

"Mebby it's fer bait to ketch a critter with," offered Bobby.

After all, it was the miracle predicted by Mrs. Jenkins that came to pa.s.s and delivered the cow. Early one morning, when Gus went as usual with fond pride to view his sole a.s.set, he found installed therein a young, corpulent cow, bland and Texas-horned, busily engaged in partaking of the proceeds of Gus's last week's wages. She turned inquiring, meditative eyes toward the delighted lad, who promptly locked the door and rushed into the house to inform the family of the new arrival.

"She's lost or strayed, but not stolen," said Amarilly.

"Bobby, you put an ad in that paper you deliver at once," commanded Mrs.

Jenkins. "Some poor people air feelin' bad over the loss of their cow."

It was considered only fair that the cow should pay for her meal. She was overstocked with milk, and graciously and gratefully yielded to Gus's efforts to relieve her of her load. The children were each given a taste of the warm milk, and then the little dairyman started right in for business. The milkman had not yet made his morning rounds, and the neighbors were so anxious to cross-examine Gus that they were more than willing to patronize him. Excitement prevailed when it was learned that the Jenkins family had a cow, and the lad's ingenuity in dodging questions was severely taxed. He avoided direct replies, but finally admitted that it was "one they was keepin' fer some folks."

A week went by, with no claim filed for the animal that had come so mysteriously and seemed so perfectly at home. Gus established a permanent milk route in the immediate neighborhood, and with his ability once more to "bring in" came the restoration of his self-respect.

"It's funny we don't git no answer to that ad," mused Mrs. Jenkins perplexedly. "How many times did you run it, Bobby?"

For a moment silence, deep, profound, and charged with expectancy prevailed. Then like a bomb came Bobby's reply:

"I ain't put it in at all."

Everybody was vociferous in condemnation, but Bobby, unabashed, held his ground, and logically defended his action.

"I got the news-agent to look in the 'losts' every night, and thar want nothin' about no cow. 'Twas up to them as lost it to advertise instead of us. If they didn't want her bad enough to run an ad, they couldn't hev missed her very much."

"That's so," agreed the Boarder, convinced by Bobby's able argument.

"Most likely she doesn't belong to any one," was Amarilly's theory. "She just came to stay a while, and then she'll go away again."

"She won't git no chanst to 'scape, unless she kin go out the way the chillern does," laughed Mrs. Jenkins.

One day the Boarder brought home some information that seemed to throw light on the subject.

"One of the railroad hands told me that a big train of cattle was sidetracked up this way somewhar the same night the cow come here. The whole keerload got loose, but they ketched them all, or thought they did. Mebby they didn't miss this ere one, or else they couldn't wait to look her up. Their train pulled out as soon as they rounded up the bunch."

"I guess the cow-house looked to her like it was a freight car,"

observed Milt, "and she thought she hed got back where she belonged."

The cow, meanwhile, quietly chewed her cud, and continued to endear herself to the hearts of all the Jenkins family save Cory. Every time Bobby spoke her name he called to her, "Co, boss! Co, boss," just as Gus did when he greeted the cow.

As for the little dairyman himself, he gave his charge the best of care.

He took her for a little outing every day to a near-by lot where she could graze, being careful to keep a stout rope attached to her, although they walked to and from the recreation ground side by side.

Derry painted a little picture of the pair as he saw them returning from a jaunt. Gus's arm was lovingly thrown around the neck of the gentle creature, and her Texas horns were adorned with a wreath of brown-eyed Susans woven by Cory.

It remained for Mrs. Jenkins to christen the creature.

"'Cowslip,'" she declared triumphantly, "'cause she just slipped in."