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There are two sorts of people in the world — those who love animals, and those who do not. I have seen them both, I have known both; and if sick or oppressed, or borne down with dreadful sympathies for a groaning nation in mortal struggle, I should go for aid, for pity, or the relief of kindred feeling, to those I had seen touched with quick tenderness for the lower creation,—who remember that the “whole creation travaileth in pain together,” and who learn God’s own lesson of caring for the fallen sparrow, and the ox that treadeth out the corn. With men or women who despise animals and treat them as mere beasts and brutes I never want to trust my weary heart or my aching head; but with Dely I could have trusted both safely, and the calf and the cat agreed with me.

So, in this happy, homely life, the sweet centre of her own bright little world, Dely passed the first year of her wedded life, and then the war came! Dreadful pivot of almost all our late lives! On it also this rude idyl turned. George enlisted for the war.

It was not in Dely or his mother to stop him. Though tears fell on every round of his blue socks and sprinkled his flannel shirts plentifully, — though the old woman’s wan and wrinkled face paled and saddened, and the young one’s fair throat quivered with choking sobs when they were alone,— still, whenever George appeared, he was greeted with smiles and cheer, strengthened and steadied from this home armory better than with sabre and bayonet, “with might in the inner man.” George was a brave fellow, no doubt, and would do good service to his free country; but it is a question with me, whether, when the Lord calls out his “noble army of martyrs” before the universe of men and angels, that army will not be found officered and led by just such women as these, who fought silently with the flesh and the Devil by their own hearth, quickened by no stinging excitement of battle, no thrill of splendid strength and fury in soul and body, not temping delight of honor or even recognition from their peers,— upheld only by the dull, recurrent necessities of duty and love.

At any rate, George went, and they stayed. The town made them an allowance as a volunteer’s family; they had George’s bounty to begin with; and a friendly boy from the farm near by came and sawed their wood, took care of the garden, and, when Dely could not go to pasture with the heifer, drove her to and fro daily. After George had been gone three months, Dely had a little baby. Tiny and bright as it was, it seemed like a small star fallen down from some upper sky to lighten their darkness. Dely was almost too happy; and the old grandmother, fast slipping into the other world whence
baby seemed to have but newly arrived, stayed her feeble steps a little longer to wait upon her son’s child. Yet, for all the baby, Dely never forgot her dumb loves. The cat had still its place on the foot of her bed; and her first walk was to the barn, where the heifer lowed welcome to her mistress, and rubbed her head against the hand that caressed her with as much feeling as a cow can show, however much she may have. And Biddy, the heifer, was a good friend to that little household, all through that long ensuing winter. It went to Dely’ heart to sell her first calf to the butcher, but they could not raise it, and when it was taken away she threw her check apron over her head, and buried her face deep in the pillow, that she might not hear the cries of appeal and grief her favorite uttered. After this, Biddy would let no one milk her but her mistress; and many an inarticulate confidence passed between the two while the sharp streams of milk spun and foamed into the pail below, as Dely’s skilful hands coaxed it down.