JUGGER'S COW

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 358, 19 March 1903, Page 8

JUGGER'S COW

T By Tom P. Morgan. x

lilllllllimillMllllltM (|>na f»opi«'t Home Jouriud. BeprioUd br r»rgil«Jon ) t AT JUGGER'S, under a crazy-quilt in a darkened room, lies the tattered remnant of a once strong man. That wreck is the indirect result of Jugger's great thought that, in order Co hare fortune within his grasp, to hare the world by the tail, so to •peak, he must bur a cow. The gentle beeze has not yet Mown the dust off from the trees by the roadside where the turnpike goes over the hill, behind which the cow that waa to have made Jngger's fortune disappeared. On the shelf in the sitting-room is the primitive cause of .lugger's woe, the Farmer and Stockman's Friend, edited by an enthusiastic agriculturist. Jogger read of the happy owners of those wonderful cows so often met in literature, but rarely elsewhere, that seem to have consecrated their whole souls to the giving of great hncketfuls of milk so rich that two shivers will make butter of it—read and believed, and was filled with a burning desire to go and do likewise. Like the owners, I mean, not like the cows. "My dear," he said to his wife, "we must buy a cow. Think of the luxury of fresh, sweet milk and golden butter! Why, we can have all the milk we can use and butter till you can't rest, and we can have plenty to give to our friends. Then, think of the profits! -Why, we can sell the milk and butter and eggs and the cheese —" "And the crackers," suggested Mrs. Jngger. Jugger paid no attention to the fling, but-continued: "There will be a calf to sell, now and then, we can sell the cow to the butchers at the end of six months for a good price. We ought to get 48 quarts of milk and five or six pounds of butter—say five per week. Milk brings seven cents per quart, and butter 26 • cents per pound. Ought's cught and figure's a figure; that would be 34.66 per week—call it $4.50 per week —$234 per year. Add to this the sum we get for the cow from the butchers, say S4O. and we have $274. Th?nk of it! Think of it! Decidedly, we must have a cow!" "It s*cr>is quite a profitable investment," agreed Mrs. Jngger, "especially when one reflects that you only had to feed your imaginary cow for aix months, having sold her to the butchers at the end of that time, while you got the price of the butter end eggs and calves and so on for a whole year." "Madam," said Juggers. severely, "will you oblige me by keeping your mouth shut? There never was any use in trying to argue with a woman! They are fools! But we will have the cow. sH the same!" That very afternoon the cow peared on the scene. She wast tied to the tail-gate of a covered wagon, which was drawn by a pair of rustylooking mules, and chaperoned, so to speak, by a gangle-shanked, plankshaped man, with a mouth on him cut rrmarkably decollete and a beard like the whiskers on a cocoanut. Maybe .Tugger looked like he wanted a cow. At any rate they were soon and chaffering, and presently .Tugger parted with fortyone large dollars and became the possessor of the cow.

The plank-shaped man tied her to the hitching-post. just outside the front gate and drove away. Then Jugger called his wife out to view the prize.

"Gentle?" said Jngger, in response to a question from his spouse. "'Course she is! Gentle as a lamb! He said so. And a good milker? Why. gee-fuzz, he says she will give just all I can milk! That's what he said. Eat? Eats next to nothing! He said so. Bich milk? Why, lawzy me, it's almost clear cream! He said 'twas. Skittish? Thunder, no! That's what he said. Believe I'll milk her a little now. just to show you how easy it is!"and he added suggestively: "A good drink of pure, rich cream wouldn't taste so bad, eh?" Mrs. Jugger allowed that it wouldn't, and her husband went to the house for a pail. The cow was not a beauty, but looked robust and untroubled by ennui. She was quaint of body and long of limb. One horn turned up and the other down, and her tail was almost innocent or hair. "The signs of a good milker!" said Jugger, in answer to an inquiry from his better-half. "The man said so." Instead of one pail, Jugger had brought two, the very largest in the house. "Thought I might as well milk her dry while I was at it," he explained. "She'll pretty nearly fill both these pails?! Give all I can milk, he said." A second after • Jugger had crouched down beside the cow, and gfven a gentle pull at one teat, his wife was surprised to see him turn a pretty fair back somerset and landwith his head in the pail that he had set aside for use after he had milked the first pail full. The other pail was kicked one half-second later than Juggrr. and came very near breaking one of Mrs. .Tugpcr's limbs. "That must harp been the wrong side," groaned -Tugger. after he had picked himself up and pulled his bead out of the pail. He sought the opposite sidp of the cow. and the space of a quick-drawn breath later found that the animal bad attempted to kick the pail clear ■thr»>u"h him.

"How gentle Bhe is!" sneered Mrs. (Tagger. "The good man said she wad. And she'll give all the milk—mil you can get from her. He said so." "Woman," retorted .Tuggor, with %n the dignity that a badly-kicked man i» capable of assuming, "you 'don't know what you are talking about! It is the strangeness of the' •place that makes the cow irritable. XII lead her to the barn, and when >»he finds herself in comfortable 'quarter*, like those, doubtless, to (which she has been accustomed, she'll (be as gentle as a dove. See how ! anxious she is to be released."

I The animal had been surging and Ijerking at the rope, and as soon as [he got her untied a little Wild West performance began. The cow would make a start, and .Tugger, exerting '•all his strength, would check her. She'd plunge and he'd hold; she'd plunge again and he would hold her ■»t the expense of having his arms tnearly dragged out by the roots. Balked in an attempt to rush down the road, the cow dashed in at the open gate. Jugger checked her headlong rush toward the cabbage patch by twisting the rope around the gatepost.

A happy thought struck him. He would make a noose in the free end of the rope, and when she started toward the barn, he would let her go and stop her at the proper time by flinging the noose over a convenient, post. The cow was only excited and would soon become calm.

Just as the loop was made the cow started barnward in an unreserved fashion, and Jugger did not attempt to check her, but charged along with her. holding on to the rope, and taking six-foot- jumps to keep up, and grinning at the thought of how the rope would bring her to time when he flung the loop over the post. Just, then he thrust, his foot into a hole, tumbled down, got his foot into the noose somehow, and the next instant our poor friend was scrubbing across the lot dragged by one leg. The weight, instead of proving any drag to the cow, seemed rather to add to her enthusiasm, and when she reached the barn she whirled and dashed back again across the garden. In vain Jugger attempted to grasp anything within his reach. He only succeeded in uprooting anything he was able to catch.

"Stop her! Stop her!" he Shrieked, as well as hs was able with bis face in the dirt.

Not feeling able to seize the cow by the horns and fiing her to the earth, Mrs. Jugger grabbed a huge and handy club and made a dart at the animal, with the intention of cracking her over the bead. But the lady miscalculated the speed'of the cow, and, instead of hitting her, gave Jugger a tremendous thump on the back of the head that knocked him senseless, and would have driven his intellectual cocoanut into the ground had he not been going eo fast. Bound the house went the cow like a borned whirlwind, with the now unconscious Jugger dragging along behind like a caH On sj cur's tail.

Two trellises were broken Hown, 9 rose-bush was uprooted, and Mr». Jngger's prize Mexican cactus- bad half of its spines raked off by Jugger's body. Just as the cow began to exhibit signs of quieting down a little, and Jugger's senses began to come crawling back, a tramp dog charged at the gate, and the performance was repeated with many exciting variations. The cabbages in the garden were scrubbed loose, the ashhopper knocked galley-west, and the combination of man and dog and cow dashed through the flat side of the grape-arbor three times. The intention of the dog seemed to be to bite something, and when be could not get hold of the cow, he fastened on to Jugger somewhere and bung till his teeth jerked loose. They went through the cactus bed again, broke down the only remaining trellis, and knocked the big urn in the front yard completely whap-per-jawed. Then, just as it seemed as if Jugger's pelt was about to be pulled off over his head, the cow spied the front gate, and dashed out of it, cracking Jugger against the post on one side, and nearly knocking the dog' 6 brains out on the other.

Down the road they went, and Jugger was scarcely visible for the dust. Then, just before our friend became the late Mr. Jugger, the rope came off from his leg somehow, and the cow went up the road and disappeared in a cloud of dust, with the tramp dog clinging to her hairless tail.

Mrs. Jugger gathered up the rem* nest of her husband and put it to bed. While she was applying liniment and court-plaster where they would do the most good, another covered wagon, drawn by another pair of rusty mules, stopped before the house.

"Cow to sell?" inquired the gangleshanked, plank-shaped driver, as if be knew exactly what he was talking about, as Mrs. Jugger appeared at the door.

The lady replied hastily that they possessed such an animal, but that she was somewhere over the hill. "Wal, I reckon I ion find her. Giva you ten dollars." The rapidity with which Mr* 5TUf> ger accepted the offer was almost startling, and three minutes later thfl plank-shaped man bad paid the mon« ey and was driving up the read in thd wake of the cow.

Mrs. Jugger learned later thai IKB two plank-shaped men were brothers, and that they made a comfortable living by selling and buying that cow, who was seldom long in regaining her place at the tail-gate ©4 the first covered wagon.