Buttercup and the two other young cows we had been working over all
night, with as fine an exaltation of achievement as any I ever saw, not
excepting that of an American man of letters I witnessed take his degree
at Oxford.

But Sam's head was still bowed on old Buttercup's back and I went and
stood beside him.

"Will I ever learn how to take care the right way of--of life?" he said
under his breath, as he stood up straight and tall with the early light
streaming over his great mop of sun-bronzed hair and the bare breast
from which his open shirt fell away.

"I'll help you," I said, as I came still nearer and leaned against
Buttercup's warm, yellow side so closely that she looked around from her
meal from the Byrd's hand and mooed with grateful affection plus
surprise to find us still standing by her so determinedly. "That is,
if--if--I can learn myself."

"You haven't found out you are a woman yet, have you, Betty?" answered
Sam, with a laugh that embarrassed me. I would have considered it
ungrateful if it hadn't sounded so comfortable and warm out in the cold
of the dawn--which had come before I realized that midnight had passed,
about which time I had intended to go home. But how could a person feel
guilty while playing Good Samaritan to a cow? I didn't.

Then, as the streak of new day widened into a soft pink flush over the
tops of the bare trees that etched their fine twigs into an archaic
pattern against a purple sky lit by the gorgeous flame of the morning
star retreating before the coming sun, we all collected buckets and rags