“We’ll overtake him on the road to Green Hill anyway,” remarked Frances, as she started the automobile back along the road to the farm.
They did not waste time to stop at the store that time and thus they missed Sam who did stop there to ask the way. But they drove on until they reached the house. Mrs. James was over at the Camp and Rachel was leaning over the gate waiting for her nephew when the girls drove up and learned that Sam had not yet appeared on the scene.
“Shall we go back and hunt for him?” asked Natalie.
“Dear me, it’s so much time lost when we want to drive to Dorothy Ames’s and see if she will join our corporation,” said Janet, impatiently.
“You’se go right on, Chillun, ’cause I likes to have Sam to myself, foh a bit, after he comes,” announced Rachel when she saw the girls wanted to be off on their own affairs.
Without being urged, the girls drove away and secured Dorothy’s consent to share the cow with the other scouts. It was while driving to Dorothy’s that the girls picked up the dog, Grit, the account of which is fully told in the first book, “Natalie: A Garden Scout.”
That afternoon, when Mrs. James invited Sam to go with them the next day and help in selecting the cow, Sam laughed.
“I ain’t never seen a cow closer’n fifty feet, Miss James—dat is, in drivin’ past a lot where cows eat, or going by a farm while travelin’ in a train or trolley. So I don’t know a hefer from an old cow,” he explained.
“Then we have to take chances,” was Mrs. James’ reply.
When the party was crowded into the automobile and ready to start on the momentous search, Sam stood waiting to see them off, and was ready with advice: “Don’t let Wes’chester farmers play you a trick. I’ve heard say you can tell a cow’s age by her horns but maybe that was a vaudevilly joke.”