And there the calf was, two days old, and as pretty as only a baby deer or a baby Jersey can be, roped by his woodeny little legs, and laid stiffly in the tonneau, with utter terror in his liquid dark eyes.

“Die, nothing!” Alix said, emphatically, as she tenderly lifted the calf out of the car.  “I’m going to take him up to the barn; you run tell Kow that Missy wants warm milk.  Then you come on, Pete—­and tell me what you think!”

“Here—­” Peter said, authoritatively, shouting the message, and taking the calf from her arms; they were laughing as they entered the dry, hot darkness of the stable.  Alix’s riding horse put a Roman nose reproachfully over the bitten barrier of his box-stall.

“We’ve got company for you, Creep-mouse!” Peter, panting from his heavy burden, announced.  “Poor little feller!” he said to the calf.

“He’s all right.”  Alix, rustling straw, said, confidently.  “You know he must be a twin,” she said to Peter, “for that brute of a mother of his was contentedly wandering up to the ridge, where the breeze is, and she certainly had another little calf cavorting about her—­oh, thanks, Cherry!  Here’s the milk, Peter.  See if the poor little beast will suck your fingers!”

Peter took the brimming blue bowl from Cherry’s fingers.  She had come like a shadow into the barn, her eyes were on the tipped surface of the milk.  She lowered it carefully into his hold, and he felt the cool softness of her yielding fingers; he did not meet her eyes, partly because he gave her face only one glance.  They all knelt about the calf, who after a few feeble struggles to escape altogether resigned himself, and lay looking at them with terrified eyes.

“He’s too weak to stand on his legs, perhaps I should have had the mother brought in,” Alix said, anxiously.  “But he’s a beautiful little thing, the prettiest she’s ever had, except that he’s so thin!  Isn’t he cute, Cherry?”

“He’s—­darling!” Cherry’s voice, with its young cadences always ready to escape from the riper tones of womanhood, echoed oddly under the low, shingled roof of the barn.  And again life seemed full of surprise and thrill to Peter.  He wanted to say something to her; could think of nothing, and so was unusually silent throughout the ceremonies of getting the calf to suck Alix’s fingers, getting him tied in a manner that should hold him without danger of strangulation, and bedding him comfortably on sacks and straw.  Cherry was silent, too, but Alix talked briskly, and the necessity for constant effort and movement filled all possible gaps.