"I'll wager you a box of candy then, or anything you please."
"Let it be anything I please," she agreed, laughing. "Mr. Morton, you are not going to let me get out alone?"
"Oh, no," and I sprang out to assist her down.
"She wants you to be on hand in case the ferocious beast switches its tail," cried Adah.
The hand she gave me trembled as I helped her out, and I saw that she regarded the placid creature with a dread that she could not disguise. Picking up a little stick, she stepped cautiously and hesitatingly toward the animal. While still ridiculously far away, she stopped, brandished her stick, and said, with a quaver in her threatening tone, "Get up, I tell you!"
But the cow ruminated quietly as if understanding well that there was no occasion for alarm.
The girl took one or two more faltering steps, and exclaimed, in a voice of desperate entreaty, "Oh, please get up!"
We could scarcely contain ourselves for laughter.
"Oh, ye gods! how beautiful she is!" I murmured. "With her arm over Dapple's neck she was a goddess. Now she's a shrinking woman. Heaven grant that it may be my lot to protect her from the real perils of life!"
The cow suddenly switched her tail at a teasing gadfly, and the girl precipitately sought my side.