“The cow has a surprise for you in the back yard, children. Come and see.”
The breakfast bell rang as we trooped behind Father. One could not imagine the dear, slow old cow giving or taking a surprise—she was always so calm. But there it was, the loveliest little image of herself, brown and white and very topply on its legs, which were spread out like the legs of a trestle. He was standing under the cow’s chin and she was licking his hair all crinkly. His eyes were bluish, and stared as if he were too surprised to see, but he had the friskiest little flipping tail. The cow was delighted with him, and so were we.
Soon the calf was bigger and stronger than any of us. His legs were straight under his body and his eyes saw everything. Bong shut the cow out into the pasture and the calf stayed in his pen. At first the cow bawled furiously and the calf bawled back, but we went to pet and play with him and he was happy, so the old cow nodded her way off to the far corner of the field where the grass grew best. Bong taught the calf to drink out of a bucket. The calf was clumsy and slobbery over learning, and made Bong so mad his pigtail shook loose; he unwound it and rebound the long plaited silk end tight round his head. His clean apron was all spoiled and he said, “Calf velly much bad!”
We loved the calf; he followed us all round the yard. He had toothache in his head where he was cutting horns, and butted us to make us rub the hard knobs. When he was a quarter as big as his mother, he disappeared. We had played with him before our walk—when we came back he was gone. Somebody must have left a gate open. Everyone said they had not. Bigger looked so wise that, if she had not been so dreadfully good, one might have suspected. Middle looked worried and uncertain. Dick was too little to reach the hoop over the top of the gate.
We were very unhappy, not only for the calf, but because Father was so fearfully severe about gates, and we dreaded the time when he would come home. The extraordinary thing was that neither Mother, Bong, nor the Elder (who was our grown-up sister) seemed upset about the calf, nor at all disturbed at what somebody was going to get when Father came home. Bong sang his usual song to the cow as he milked. He cleaned out the calf’s pen and shut the door. Nothing happened. When Father came, he took his tools and went to the garden as usual.
Three or four days passed; we had half forgotten to wonder, and Doctor Reid was asked to dinner. The Doctor’s graces were just as long as his church prayers, and his s’s sizzled just the same. Of course he was helped first—he told so many stories that dinner got on very slowly. If the girls had a great many home lessons they kept a book in their lap and learned out of it when Doctor Reid came to dinner.
In the middle of Doctor Reid’s funniest story he stopped. “Delicious veal, Mr Carr!”
“Home-grown, Doctor. No butcher’s skim-fed calves for me.”
My knife and fork clattered into my plate. Mother looked up at the noise. “I think I am going to be sick, can I go?”
Out on the chopping-block I took my head in my hands.
“Feel better?” asked Middle.
“Worse.”
“Well, Small,” said Bigger, “you know we have not had permission to go to the cherry tree, they are still very green.”
“ ’Tisn’t cherries. It’s two disgusting things I’ve found out.”
“Uh-huh,” sighed Middle, “sulphur and treacle! It’s time, I s’pose; always happens this time of year.”
“It isn’t sulphur and treacle, it isn’t cherries, girls, it’s veal is calf, and our father is a cannibal!”
“You wicked, wicked child! Meat is different to people. What did you think meat was?” said Bigger.
“Stuff sold by butchers, like bakers sell loaves. Did you know we were eating our calf, Bigger?”
“I guessed.”
“Did you know, Middle?”
“I knew veal was calf, but I did not think it was our calf.”
Still feeling queer about the knees and middle, I got up.
“Where are you going?”
“To steal Father’s best cabbage for the cow. I’ll throw it—I couldn’t bear to go into her stall, she has such a big sniff. If she smelled her calf on my breath—oh, girls!”
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