Bailey, James Montgomery . They All Do It; or, Mr. Miggs of Danbury and his Neighbors Being a Faithful Record of What Befell the Miggses on Several Important Occasions ...
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OWNING A COW.

    THE man across the way, who enjoyed vegetables fresh from his own garden through the summer, has bought a cow. His wife told him how nice it


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would be to have a cow on the premises, so as to have milk fresh and pure every day, and always in time, and always in abundance. Then they could make butter themselves, and not eat the rank stuff out of the store. She told him there was enough stuff from the garden and table to almost keep the cow; and the product would be just about so much clear gain. He figured it up himself with a pencil, and the result surprised him. He wondered why he had not kept a cow before, and inwardly condemned himself for the loss he had been inflicting upon himself. Then he bought a cow. In the evening of its arrival he went out to milk it; but the animal was excited by the strange surroundings, and stepped on our friend, and kicked over his pail, and nearly knocked one of his eyes out with her tail. He worked at the experiment for an hour, but without any success. Then his wife came out to give advice, and his son came out to see the fun. The cow put one of her heels through the woman's dress, and knocked the boy down in the mud, which ended their interest in the matter. One of the neighbors milked the animal that night, and came around the next morning and showed the man how to do it. The third day the cow escaped the surveillance of the boy who was left to watch her; and, when the man came home at night, she was nowhere to be found. The boy had also disappeared, and our neighbor found he was obliged


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to hunt her up before supper. He walked around for a while, and then returned home; but the animal had not been seen. Then he went off again, and made a very thorough search; and about ten o'clock that night he came back with the cow, his clothes begrimed with perspiration and dust, and his face flushed and scratched. He wanted to kick the animal's ribs in; but, realizing that such a course would result in pecuniary damage, he changed his mind. The boy wishes he had obeyed the first impulse. On the fourth day they churned, so as to have fresh butter for the table. The mother took hold of the dasher first, because, she said, she used to do it when a girl, and liked no better sport. She pounded away until she caught a crick in the back that doubled her up like a knife; and then she put the heir to it. He had been standing around, eagerly waiting for a chance, and grumbling because he didn't get it; and, when the dasher was placed in his hand, he was so happy he could hardly contain himself. He pumped away for an hour at it; then he said, if he had to do it any more, he would run away and be a robber. At noon the man came home, and learned the situation. He was a little disgusted at the "tom-foolery," as he called it, and took hold the churn himself, and made it bounce for a while. Then his stomach commenced to fall in, and his spine to unjoint, and his shoulders to loosen. He stopped


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and wiped off the perspiration, and looked around with a melancholy cast to his features, and went at it again. The butter didn't come, however; but every thing in the way of oratorical effect did. He got so dreadfully excited, that his wife, smelling strong of camphor, took the dasher away from him, and went to work herself. At this the son put his cap under his jacket, and miraculously disappeared. Later in the day, the milk was poured around the grape-vine. On the fifth day the cow knocked down a length of fence to the next lot, and ate all the oranges from a tree that stood in a tub; and, when the people attempted to drive her out, she carried away a new ivy on her horns, knocked down a valuable vase of flowers, and capped the climax by stumbling over a box of mosses, and falling on a pile of hot-house frames. On the sixth day our neighbor sold his cow to a butcher, and now eats strong butter which comes from the store.