After a long time it began to dawn upon Glure that narrow neighborhood prejudice deemed it unsportsmanlike to buy prize stock and exhibit it as one's own. At approximately the same time three calves were born to newly imported prize cows in the two-acre model barns of Glure Towers, and with them was born Glure's newest idea.
No one could deny he had bred these calves himself. They were born on his own place and of his own high-pedigreed cattle. Three breeds were represented among the trio of specimens. By points and by lineage they were well-nigh peerless. Wherefore the plan for a show of neighborhood "home-raised" cattle. At length Glure felt he was coming into his own.
The hinterland folk had fought shy of Glure since the dog show wherein he had sought to win the capital prize by formulating a set of conditions that could be filled by no entrant except a newly imported champion Merle of his own.
But the phrase "home-raised" now proved a bait that few of the region's stock lovers could resist; and on the morning of the show no fewer than fifty-two cattle of standard breeds were shuffling or lowing in the big impromptu sheds.
A farm hand, the day before, had led to the show ground The Place's sole entrant—the pretty little Alderney heifer of which the Master had spoken to Glure and which, by the way, was destined to win nothing higher than a third-prize ribbon.
For that matter, to end the suspense, the best of the three Glure calves won only a second prize, all the first for their three breeds going to two nonplutocratic North Jerseymen who had bred the ancestors of their entrants for six generations.
The Mistress and the Master motored over to Glure Towers on the morning of the show in their one car. Lad went with them. He always went with them.
Not that any dog could hope to find interest in a cattle show, but a dog would rather go anywhere with his Master than to stay at home without him. Witness the glad alacrity wherewith the weariest dog deserts a snug fireside in the vilest weather for the joy of a master-accompanying walk.
A tire puncture delayed the trip. The show was about to begin when the car was at last parked behind the sunken meadow. The Mistress and the Master, with Lad at their heels, started across the meadow afoot toward the well-filled grand-stand.
Several acquaintances in the stand waved to them as they advanced. Also, before they had traversed more than half the meadow's area their host bore down upon them.