"I was speaking to Mrs. Chester."
"Yes, I heard you," answered Alfaretta, coolly: at which all the Chesters laughed, and she joined heartily in, not dreaming that what her host afterwards called her "perfect ease of manner" was the cause of the fun.
"Well, John, what is it? You seemed to want me."
"My dear, I always do. Never more than now when I wish you to tell me—Did you rewrite that advertisement sent to the local newspaper yesterday?"
"Rewrite it? No, indeed. Why should I? You understand such things better than I. So I just sealed it, with money inside to pay—By the way, there should be considerable change due us. I don't believe one advertisement in a country paper would cost a whole dollar: do you?"
Mr. Chester laughed now in earnest.
"No, I do not. Not that I sent, anyway. Martha, why didn't you look? Why didn't you? My dear, you wanted it brief and I made it so. But if such brevity brings such an answer, so soon, why—it will fairly rain cows before we're many hours older. Cows! And horses! And pigs! But worst of all, I've made the new Skyrie folks ridiculous in the eyes of their future townsmen."
"Tell it, John. Tell it exactly as you wrote it."
So he did; and though the lady was dismayed she couldn't help smiling under her frown, and it was a momentary relief to hear Alfaretta calmly explaining:
"That there cow don't belong to nobody. All her folks are dead. I mean all the folks she belonged to. She's a regular pest, ma says, an' 'twould be a real kindness to kill her. But nobody won't. She's too old for beef, or the butcher would; and she makes out to get her livin' without botherin' nobody much. She goes onto folkses' lawns an' nibbles till she's driv' off—summer times an' in winter, why 'most anybody 't has a barnyard and fodder give her a little. Pa he says she's a relict of a glorious past and is due her keep from a—a kermune—ity she's kep' in hot water as many years as she has. Ma she says she can recollect that old Brindle ever since she was a little girl, an' that cow has got more folks into lawsuits than any other creatur', beast or human, in Riverside villages—Upper or Lower.