At the end of three years the bull was moved to a woods pasture at the back of the place. Miss Wigglesworth trudged back there faithfully every evening to leave a bucket of corn and oats at the gate, but the bull stayed for the most part at the far end of the pasture, a dark shape among trees. Occasionally people would see him in the distance and point him out. “Oh, look,” they would say, as if they had almost forgotten, “Miss Wigglesworth’s bull!”

This is a story about a bull, so it has to happen: the summer afternoon; the child, hot and tired, taking a shortcut through the woods. Nothing to it really, just a twitch of that hump, a flick of that head, and then a little heap of child in the grass. Then the long night of dread and fear, with the doctor padding in and out of the dark room pronouncing that terrible word coma.

In the morning though, just before dawn, the child opened his eyes, stirred under the sheets, and asked for a drink of water. Dread turned into joy, and fear turned into rage, and at first light the father took his gun and marched himself across the fields to the woods pasture. There was nothing to it really, just the crack of a rifle shot and a thud, and then a great heap of bull in the dewy grass. Miss Wigglesworth, a dim, fluttering presence at the edge of it all, was not even consulted.

By afternoon the child was up, looking precious and frail and being made much of. The story was told over and over to friends and relatives, who would pinch his cheeks and ruffle his hair and gasp and smack and say, “Bless his heart” and “What a miracle,” while in the backyard chunks of Miss Wigglesworth’s bull bobbed and simmered in a vat over a fire and slowly melted off the bones. In the evening buckets of cornmeal were stirred into the slurry with long ash paddles, and a handful of salt was thrown in, and the whole mess was dipped out and packed into lard cans as dog food.

The very next day three men drove up in the yard—the manager of Miss Hamilton’s dairy herd, a Mr. Sharples from Philadelphia, and a representative from the American Jersey Cattle Club. They stood around in their dark, foreign-looking clothes until the father showed them into his office.