"I should scarcely think they have," said Turner, taking the milk-jug, which she had fetched, out of her hand; "it is but a short time since I was there, and the cowardly birds do not venture very readily upon anything while living."
"Have we got enough milk?" asked Louisa.
"I should think so," replied Bertha.
There was fully milk enough to have filled three full-grown stags.
But Normann, who had regained new life at the turn which the conversation had latterly taken, and could have willingly embraced the American, so grateful was he, now expressed himself ready, with the ladies' permission, to take part in the expedition of rescue, and all four were in the next minute on their road towards the woods.
But scarcely had they left the houses, and entered upon the Bush, before the cracking of whips, and hallooing of voices, was heard in the distance, and the children of the settlement came rushing towards the houses, and announced, in delight, that "the cows were coming along, and the calves too."
Universal activity now prevailed, and all ran confusedly hither and thither, for this was an epoch in their farming life. This was the first stock, which was to make them wealthy and comfortable. All streamed by, not only to assist in driving them into the fenced yards destined for them, but also to see them, to admire them, and—to criticise them. But the cows, rendered shy by the crowding upon them of so great a number of persons, began to trip about timidly, and to low; and Wolfgang exhorted the people to stand back, and not to make such a heathenish noise; but they paid no attention, nor did they obey his warnings, until one of the cows, a fine handsome animal, with lofty and pointed horns, sprang right among them, and, naturally meeting with little resistance, disappeared in the next moment in the woods.
The shoemaker and the brewer happened to be just standing on the spot where she broke through, and the latter, upon the sudden charge of the excited animal, threw himself against the former with such force as to knock him right through a sassafras bush into the totally decayed stem of a tree, out of which he had to be got by the united efforts of two sturdy Oldenburghers. But if the settlers had laughed at the half-buried shoemaker, their merriment was yet further increased, when they discovered Meier in the boughs of a stunted oak, in which he must have climbed with indescribable activity and speed, when the first movement of the horned cattle was perceptible, and when the attention of every body else was directed towards them.
Herbold, with irrepressible zeal, followed immediately, full gallop, after the cow; but Wolfgang, who well knew that that was almost an impracticable task in the thick underwood, was acquainted with a surer and much more convenient mode of bringing back the cow of her own accord: he cut off the calf's retreat, so that it could not follow its mother, and then drove it after the rest, which now, by the combined exertions of all, especially by those of the Oldenburghers, had just reached the entrance of the fence, and they soon saw all the cattle, with the exception of the run away cow, safely within fence and rail.
The cows and calves were to remain together during the first night, but after that the former were to be let out, and thus the American mode of treatment be followed.