KEEPING A COW.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1159, 17 March 1874, Page 4

KEEPING 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 would be to have a cow ou 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, lie 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 ho had been inflicting upon himself. Then ho bought a cow. In the evening of its arrival ho went out to milk it. But the animal was excited by tho strange surrounding?, and stepped on our friend, and kicked over his pail, and nearly knocked one of his eyes out with her tail. Ho worked at the experiment for an hour, but without any

success. Then his wife came out to give advice, and Lis son came out to see fun. The cow put ono of her heels through the woman's dress, and knocked the boy down in the mud, which ended their interest in the matter. Ono of the neighbors milked the animal that night, and came round the next morning and showed the man how to do it. The third day the cow escaped the surveillanco of the boy who was left to watch her, and when the man came home at night she wa3 nowhere to be found. The boy had also disappeared, and our neighbor found he was obliged to hunt her up before supper. He walked around for. a while, and then returned homo, but the animal had not been seen Then he went oft" again and made a very thorough search, and about ten o'clock that night ho 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 gir], 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 tho heir to it. He had been standing around, eagerly waiting for a chance, and grumbling because he did not get it, and when the dasher was placed in his hands he was so happy he could hardly contain himself. He pumped away for an hour at it ; and then said if he had to do it any more ho wouid run away and be a robber. At noon the man came home and learned the situation. He was a little disgusted at the " tomfoolery," as he called it; and took hold of the churn himself and made it bounce for a whole hour. Then his stomach began to fall in, and his spine to unjoint, and his shoulders to loosen. Ho stopped and wiped oft' the perspiration, and looked around with a melancholy cast of features, aud went at it again. The butter did not come, however, but everything 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 tho 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 orauges 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, aud now eats strong butter which comes from the store.