CHEWED BY A CALF. What Happened to a Farmer's Lad on His First Sight of a Girl.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 404, 21 September 1889, Page 6

CHEWED BY A CALF. What Happened to a Farmer's Lad on His First Sight of a Girl.

A well-known Washington merchant tells the following story on himself : He was born clear up in the mountains near the Tennessee line. His mother died when he was two months old, and his father and grandmother • raised ' him by hand in their lonely cabin on a mountain clearing, miles from the nearest neighbour. "He was clad in a single flowing garment on the Mother Hubbard style, made of homespun towcloth, which was" lengthened as years added length to his limbs. He never saw a girl until he was 16. That year a terrible drought struck in, and his father had to go ten miles down the 4 cove '; v to get his corn ground. So he yoked up the steers' and threw several bags of corn in the bottom of the cart. The boy, iri hi» peculiar garment, climbed in and sat on the bags. He was going to a new and far-off country and every sight was a m onder. Arriving at the mill, ho watched with curious interest the corn making its way from the hopper into the heart of the stone and then spurt out in warm white jets into the trough. He went outside and saw the water pour over and turn the huge overshot wheel, and peered with a sensation of fear into the dark, mossy cavern into which the wheel was for ever retreating. On rising at a little distance he spied a log cabin, and shortly wandered over through the brush in its direction. A rail fence stopped his progress a couple of rods from the doorway, and he leaned over and looked. There, sitting outside the door on a bench, were two girls. One was spinning wool and the other knitting. They were the most beautiful things he had ever seen, and he nearly died right there. They saw him and burst out laughing at' his remarkable appearance. He didn't'know what to do, but thought it was probably the proper thing to stare at them and laugh back, which he did with interest. ,This mutual entertainment kept up for some ten minutes, when one of the girls laughed so hard she rolled off the bench. He thought that was queer, but just then he felt something cold on his legs. He turned around. As he did so 'both girls shrieked with laughter and ran into the house. He found that the cold thing on his legs was the muzzle of a bull calf th'ab was chewing away vigorously on what was left of the rear of his dress, which had been shockingly mutilated by the animal during the few minutes he was staring ab the girls. He has seen more girls since, and bears their smiles with greater equanimity. He is also one of the best-dressed men in Washington, but that experience with the bull calf and the girls will never be effaced from his memory.