But the finishing touch was not given till Chloe came. She was the
jewel for which this homely setting waited. My agriculture had some
object then. The old gate never opened with such alacrity as when
she paused before it. How we waited for her coming! Should I send
Drewer, the colored patriarch, for her? No; the master of the house
himself should receive Juno at the capital.
"One cask for you," said the clerk, referring to the steamer bill
of lading.
"Then I hope it's a cask of milk," I said. "I expected a cow."
"One cask, it says here."
"Well, let's see it; I'll warrant it has horns and is tied by a
rope;" which proved to be the case, for there stood the only object
that bore my name, chewing its cud, on the forward deck. How she
liked the voyage I could not find out; but she seemed to relish so
much the feeling of solid ground beneath her feet once more, that
she led me a lively step all the way home. She cut capers in front
of the White House, and tried twice to wind me up in the rope as we
passed the Treasury. She kicked up her heels on the broad avenue,
and became very coltish as she came under the walls of the Capitol.
But that night the long-vacant stall in the old stable was filled,
and the next morning the coffee had met with a change of heart. I
had to go out twice with the lantern and survey my treasure before
I went to bed. Did she not come from the delectable mountains, and
did I not have a sort of filial regard for her as toward my foster-
mother?
This was during the Arcadian age at the capital, before the easy-
going Southern ways had gone out and the prim new Northern ways had
come in, and when the domestic animals were treated with
distinguished consideration and granted the freedom of the city.
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