THE OLD MAN AND THE NERVOUS COW.

BY R.E.

The old man was walking thoughtfully through the field, with his hands behind him, when the nervous cow saw him. She wasn't ordinarily a bad-natured cow, but she was mad just then. An aggravating fly had been biting her half the morning, and, just as she was drinking at the brook, a frog had jumped up with a cry and bitten her nose. These things had completely unsettled her nerves.

She was ready to run at anything, and the old man being the only living thing in sight, she plunged toward him.

"I WILL SIT ON THE STILE, AND CONTINUE TO SMILE."

What could he do? He was a short, stout old man, and could not run very fast, and, though he tried his best, he only just managed to reach the stile and plump down on it, all out of breath, as the cow neared him.

Then he suddenly remembered reading somewhere that if you looked right into an animal's eyes, it would run away from you.

"Ah!" thought he, "I'll look straight at her, and if I smile at the same time, she wont have the heart to hurt me."

So he put on a smile (of course it was not a very beautiful one, for he was in a hurry, but it was the best he could do), and stared straight into the cow's eyes. She saw that smile, and it so touched her that she stopped short. Then she sauntered back a little way, but the thought of that aggravating fly, and that awful frog, was too much for her poor nerves, and turning around, she dashed madly on again.

In another minute, the poor old man—cane, little legs, smile and all—was up in the air.

"THE POOR OLD MAN WAS UP IN THE AIR."

He alighted in the top of a hickory-tree. One branch grazed his eye, two ran into his legs, while another held his smile stiff and straight.

Thus he stayed until an eagle caught sight of him, pounced right down, and flew off with him to her nest, which was on a huge rock that rose straight up into the cold air and made the summit of a mountain.

When the old eagle plumped the little old man down into the nest, just imagine, if you can, how astonished the eaglets were! They opened their beaks as well as their eyes, and cried out:

"What's this, mother? What is this?"

"Oh! it's only a man," cried the old eagle. "I found him roosting in the top of a tree. Don't know how he got there. Suppose he was trying to fly, and couldn't. Tell us how it was, old man."

"Can he talk?"

"Talk!" said the eagle. "Of course he can talk. And he can tell stories, too, I warrant you. So, if you like, you may keep him to tell you stories."

"Oh, wont that be nice! Tell us a story, right off," they all screamed, jerking the old man down into the nest.

"But it's so dirty here," said he, looking around, with his nose turned up a little. "Let me sit on the edge of the nest, wont you?—and I'll tell you all the stories you want."

"You'll fall over.".

"Oh no, I wont. I'll hold on with my cane and my legs. Now just shut your beaks, so you wont look so savage, and listen."

So the old man perched himself on the edge of the nest. The eaglets took hold of his coat with their beaks, to keep him from falling; and he told them the story of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves"; and when that was ended, another, and then another.

He didn't eat much supper that night, for they hadn't any convenience for cooking. And he didn't sleep well, either, for whenever one of the eaglets woke up in the night, it always pinched him with its beak, to make sure he was there. So he resolved to get away as soon as he could.

But he didn't seem to have any chance; so there he stayed and told stories till he longed to wring the necks of the gaping birds that kept asking him for more.

THE OLD MAN TELLING STORIES TO THE EAGLETS.

Now, all this time the cow had been getting more and more nervous. Every day she thought of the poor old man and his meek little legs and his sweet old smile, and just how his coat-tails looked as he went up; till at last she laid her head down on a tuft of grass by the brook, and cried—regularly boo-hooed.

Having thus relieved her feelings, she became calm, and, rising, said:

"I'll go to his house and find out how and where he is, if I can."

So off she started. But the house was shut up, and there was no one there except the cat.

Very much frightened the cat was, too, when the cow pushed up the pantry window with her horns, and bellowed:

"Where's your master?"

"I don't know," said the cat, retreating to a far corner, with his back up. "I haven't set eyes on him since last Sunday."

"Oh dear!" sighed the cow, dropping the window with a crash that broke out two of the panes of glass. "What shall I do?"

"What's the matter with you?—and what do you want of the old man?" asked Tabby, bounding out through one of the broken panes.

The cow told him.

"Well," said Tab, stroking his whiskers reflectively, "I guess I'll go with you and help you look for the good-natured old creature."

So they journeyed on, asking everybody they met about the old man. But nobody knew, until finally they came across an old crow who knew everybody's business.

"An old man?" said he. "The eagle took an old man the other day. Did he have very slender legs?"

"Yes, yes!" said the cat and the cow together.

"And a sweet smile on his face?"

"Yes, yes!" cried the cow. "He went up with that smile, and it has been haunting me ever since," and she burst into a flood of tears.

"Well," said the crow, "he's in the eagle's nest telling stories to the eaglets, and if he isn't tired of the business by this time, I'm mistaken."

"Where is the nest?—and how can we get there?"

"Up at the very top of the mountain yonder. Go straight ahead, and you can't miss it."

So straight ahead they went till they came to the rock where the eagle's nest was. Then what should they do? They could hear the old man's little, thin voice telling stories to the birds, but they knew he wouldn't dare come where the cow was, even if he could clamber down that steep rock. At last, Tab suggested that the cow should hide herself, while he climbed up into the nest and persuaded the old man. So the cow hid, and puss scrambled up to the nest and carefully poked his head in.

"Ah, master!" he whispered; "climb down the rock to-night, and I'll show you the way home." And he disappeared.

This visit braced up the old man's courage, and when the mother-bird came home he calmly told her he thought he'd sleep at the foot of the rock that night; and she unsuspectingly took him in her talons and dropped him gently on the ground.

As soon as she had gone, the old man looked all about him, and called "Tabby, Tabby," very softly. Tabby came out from under the roots of a tree and bounded on his shoulder, and told him how sorry the cow was, and how she was waiting in a thicket ready to carry him home, if he wanted to go.

Of course he wanted to go, and in less than a jiffy the cow had come out from her hiding-place, had cried a little, and had taken the old man on her back, and started full speed down the mountain, with the cat tearing after her.

It was a long way to the old man's house, and they reached it just tired out. Of course, they got something to eat, and then they went to bed and slept right through two days; but on the morning of the third day they got up as merry as crickets, and, after a hearty breakfast, they agreed to live together for the rest of their lives. And they have lived ever since in perfect harmony.