East Lyme - When the phone rang at Nancy and Tom Kalal's residence before dawn on Thursday, the caller had a question for them:

"Are you missing some of your animals?"

Lisa Cooksley, the caller, had spotted five black cows with white faces staring at her from the side of the road near the Kalals' farm while she was delivering newspapers.

Recognizing the description, the Kalals quickly grabbed their coats and a couple of buckets of grain to meet Cooksley on the road at the end of their half-mile driveway.

In the pitch-black morning, the Kalals saw Cooksley had used her car to safely block the cows from moving farther down Grassy Hill Road. She was softly reassuring the cattle that everything was all right, Tom Kalal said.

What began next was a team effort to return the beef cows to pasture. Nancy Kalal began shaking grain out of the buckets, and one by one the cows began following her down the road. Cooksley and Tom Kalal trailed behind the line.

"It kind of looked like the Pied Piper going down the middle of Grassy Hill Road," said Tom Kalal.

As they proceeded from the road and down the driveway, two black figures appeared near the edge of the woods.

Two other cows - which were also on the run - barrelled out of the trees.

Nancy Kalal kept shaking the buckets of grain until she had guided the seven wandering cows back into the pasture. The couple believes the cows probably meandered up to Grassy Hill Road through a gate that likely wasn't fully closed the night before.

The Kalals raise beef and pork livestock on Cranberry Meadow Farm. The Black Baldy cows, a cross between an Angus and a white-faced Hereford, are valued at $2,000 each, Tom Kalal said.

The Kalals said they are grateful for the kindness of Cooksley, a longtime friend who has delivered The Day newspaper to them for years.

"She's a caring person, and that's a great trait to have," Tom Kalal said.

Cooksley said she tries to help anyone she can, from returning animals to assisting people changing their tires in the middle of the night. In her 17 years delivering newspapers, she has spotted horses, cows and dogs on the road, and has called police or neighbors to make sure the animals are safe.

"It's just another day in the neighborhood," she said.

k.drelich@theday.com

Twitter: @KimberlyDrelich