"What's that! why, it's what kills lots of cows; takes 'em off in two or three days. You must sell her for what she'll fetch. Perhaps you may get $10 for her. I'll get rid of her for you."
"But," said H., "if she has the 'lung disease' you talk of, you tell us she must die."
"Yes; she'll die, sure enough."
"Well, then, who will buy a cow that is sure to be dead to-morrow or next day?"
"Oh, that's no concern of yours! You get rid of her, that's all."
To this dictum we rather demurred, and resolved to send for a cow-doctor, and see if she could be cured; if not, to take care she was not converted after her death into "country sausages," for the benefit of London consumers of those dainties. Our friendly counsellor was very indignant at our perversity in not getting rid of a cow with "the lung disease," and stumped out of the yard in a fit of virtuous indignation. With proper treatment the cow soon got well.
We still had occasional trouble with our butter-making; sometimes it would come in half an hour, sometimes we were hard at work with the churn for two or three hours, and then the butter was invariably bad. We tried to procure information on the subject, and asked several farmer's wives in the neighborhood "how long butter ought to be in coming." We always received the same answer:—
"Why, you see, ma'am, that depends."
"Well," we asked, "what does it depend on?"
"Oh, on lots of things."