The Bishop always went to bed at sundown, and Uncle Abner had gone to the doctor's to have his hand dressed, for he had hurt it in some way in the threshing-machine. Bill Jones came in presently and asked for him, saying that the cow coughed more and more, and it must be that something was wrong, but he could not get her to open her mouth wide enough for him to see anything.
When Uncle Abner had driven into the yard, he came in for a lantern, and went directly out to the barn. After an hour or more, in which we had forgotten the whole occurrence, he came in again. "I'm blamed if we ain't goin' to lose that cow," he said. "Come out, will ye, Hannah, and hold the lantern? I can't do anything with my right hand in a sling, and Bill is the stupidest critter in the country."
We all went out to the barn except Aunt Betty, who ran down the path to see if her son Moses had come home from Saco, and could come up to take a hand in the exercises.
Buttercup was in a bad way; there was no doubt of it. Something, one of the turnips, presumably, had lodged in her throat, and would move neither way, despite her attempts to dislodge it. Her breathing was labored, and her eyes bloodshot from straining and choking. Once or twice they succeeded in getting her mouth partly open, but before they could fairly discover the cause of trouble she had wrested her head away.
"I can see a little tuft of green sticking straight up in the middle," said Uncle Abner, while Bill Jones and Moses held a lantern on each side of Buttercup's head; "but, land! it's so far down, and such a mite of a thing, I couldn't git it even if I could use my right hand. S'pose you try, Bill."
Bill hemmed and hawed, and confessed he didn't care to try. Buttercup's teeth were of good size and excellent quality, and he had no fancy for leaving his hand within her jaws. He said he was no good at that kind of work, but that he would help Uncle Abner hold the cow's head; that was just as necessary, and considerable safer.
Moses was more inclined to the service of humanity, and did his best, wrapping his wrist in a cloth, and making desperate but ineffectual dabs at the slippery green turnip-tops in the reluctantly opened throat. But the cow tossed her head and stamped her feet and switched her tail and wriggled from under Bill's hands, so that it seemed altogether impossible to reach the seat of the trouble.
Uncle Abner was in despair, fuming and fretting the more because of his own uselessness. "Hitch up, Bill," he said, "and, Hannah, you drive over to Edgewood for the horse-doctor. I know we can get out that turnip if we can hit on the right tools and somebody to manage 'em right; but we've got to be quick about it or the critter'll choke to death, sure! Your hand's so clumsy, Mose, she thinks her time's come when she feels it in her mouth, and your fingers are so big you can't ketch holt o' that green stuff 'thout its slippin'!"
"Mine's little; let me try," said a timid voice, and turning round, we saw the Bishop, his trousers pulled on over his night-shirt, his curly hair ruffled, his eyes big with sleep.
Uncle Abner gave a laugh of good-humored derision. "You—that's afraid to drive a cow to pasture? No, sir; you hain't got sand enough for this job, I guess!"