The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1902-10-08

Her basket full to overlooking with
crab apples, Virtue Flagg sat literally
at the top of the ladder and looked
around her with satisfaction. There
was gentle exhilaration in the keen
September air and she felt it, like some
subtle 1ntoX1cant in every fibre. So did
the black and tan collie who was anx-
tously watching her from the foot of
the ladder. Wise in the way of dogs
in general and Shep in particular, Vir-
tue tossed down an apple and laughed
to see him catchh it.
"Oh, Shep," she cried, you can't
grow old any more than can. Do you
know we both really ought to be quite
decrepit, and old?" Then she laughed
a little to herself as the words of a
song of her childhood came back to
her. Half unconsciously she hummed
to the air of Yankee Doodle"
"Aunt Jemima climbed a tree
And had stick to boost her
And there she sat a-throwin' corn
At our old bob-tailed rooster"
But the mirth and contentment gave
way to veXation as she caught a
glimpse of fawn color through the in
terlacing trees of her little kingdom.
IF there amt Deacon Pettigrew's
Jersey cow again. And last time /
shouldn't bother me any more. 1t
didn't make SO much difference be-
fore, but now she'll eat her worth in
apples and maybe choke herself to
boot. I've as good as kept her all sum-
mer I'm a good mind to set Shep on
her, but that seems too bad. l
s'pose the poor thing is hungry. His
feeds all dried and he is too slack to
come anigh the poor critter from one
&c, IN c'1
givin' milk. If she want dry I'd
show him. I've good mind to now.
For the lands sake Shep she's got a
calf down there!"
The neighbors said Virtue F'lagg had
more spunk than all the rest of the
F'lagg tribe put together. The way
they said this seemed to indicate that
the other Flaggs would have been bet
ter off If they had had spunk.
With Virtue to think was to act. She
took her ladder and apples to the barn
and in spite Of his protests put Shep
into the wood house. There was little
friendly feeling between Shep and the
Pettigrew Jersey, and Virtue felt that
what she had to do could be better
done without him.
Half an hour later she painted,
Lucky for me mothers down to the
Isthmus. She never'd hear to no such
works as this" Virtue was struggling
toward her little stable bearing in her
arms a most unwilling calf, while a
Jersey COW, all motherly anxiety,
pressed close behind. Virtue under
stood COWS as well as dogs. So she fed
and fused over the Jersey as only a
farm bred woman can. Indeed, that
night as Spotty was revealing in the
first really warm, new milk she had
tasted since they came to live in the
village, Virtue conflded to her: "Spotty
guess was hungry for cow as you
was for new milk, only I hadn't wit
enough to know it. When the deacon
finds this COW we'll get one somewhere
and you shall grow fat as you used to
be when we lived on the farm"
The days spun by so fast that Virtue
declared it made her dizzy and the
cow and calf waxed fat and prospered.
Whether Deacon Pettigrew missed his
COW Virtue took care not to hear. She
shut herself more than usual in her
! own end Of the village and kept her
prisoners quiet by the most unremft-
ting Watchfulness. An unusually Sc