Cowhand

“ A petted and well-fed cow has a benevolent and gracious look; an ill-used and poorly-fed one a pitiful and forlorn look. Some cows have a masculine or ox expression; others are extremely feminine. The latter are the ones for milk. Some cows will kick like a horse; some jump fences like deer. Every herd has its ringleader, its unruly spirit—one that plans all the mischief and leads the rest through the fences into the grain or into the orchard. ”

“ It’s as tame as a clucking hen. Fancy a cove sitting down every morning and evening pulling at a cow’s tits fit to bust himself, and then turning an old separator, and washing it up in a dish of water like a blooming girl’s work. And if you go to a picnic, just when the fun commences you have to nick off home and milk, and when you tog yourself on Sunday evening you have to undress again and lay into the milking, and then you have to change everything on you and have a bath, or your best girl would scent the cow-yard on you, and not have you within cooee of her. ”

“ With abundant pasturage on the Quah-Davic water-meadows, they had no occasion to wander into the perils of the deep wood; and the little red cow had none of that prevision of [90] wild mothers, which leads them to instruct their young in the two great vital points of woodcraft,—the procuring of food and the avoiding of enemies. She herself knew little woodcraft save what she and the calf were absorbing together, unconsciously, day by day. For the time they needed none, their food being all about them, their enemies kept at bay by the ceaseless tunk-a-tonk of the mellow bell. ”

“ Late in the following summer, when the fireweed was beginning to crimson the open spaces on the hillside, fate came to the water-meadows in a form which the bell was powerless to avert. An Indian, paddling down the Quah-Davic to the sea, caught sight of the red cow drinking by the waterside. He knew there was no settlement within leagues. He knew the cow was a stray, and therefore no man's property. He knew he wanted fresh meat, to say nothing of cowhide for moccasins and thongs. Up went his big smooth-bore muzzle-loader. ”

“ It is a source of income to him, and of confidence to you, while the cow does her whole duty in that clean and comfortable state whereto she is called. The bearer, too, is honoured and dignified by the possession of the sacred animal. He performs every office for her himself, though he would scorn to bring a pail of water to a horse, and he is happy to live in the odour of her sanctity. Helen discovered the cow of their establishment tied with her calf outside the best “go-down” in the compound—the largest and cleanest—which she occupied at night. ”

“ The cow has at least four tones or lows. First, there is her alarmed or distressed low, when deprived of her calf, or separated from her mates—her low of affection. Then there is her call of hunger, a petition for food, sometimes full of impatience, or her answer to the farmer's call, full of eagerness. Then there is that peculiar frenzied bawl she utters on smelling blood, which causes every member of the herd to lift its head and hasten to the spot—the native cry of the clan. When she is gored or in great danger she bawls also, but that is different. ”

“ The first American cow pony was not without his cowboy. Though the drivers were not all of the same type and though the proprietors, so to speak, of the trans-Alleghany pack-horse trade came generally from the older settlements, the bulk of the hard work was done by a lusty army of men not reproduced again in America until the picturesque figure of the cow-puncher appeared above 22 the western horizon. This breed of men was nurtured on the outer confines of civilization, along the headwaters of the Susquehanna, the Potomac, the James, and the Broad—the country of the "Cowpens." ”

“ The charm of it is that it leaves both the physical and intellectual in one to develop freely. When a cow, grazing in a woodland pasture, comes at noonday to the brook to drink and then calmly and not without a certain ungainly majesty of movement, crosses the deep pool and climbs the steep hank on the other side, by no apparent motive urged save of her own sweet will, she always looks refreshed and filled in some sort with the stolid bovine expression of great contentment. ”

“ The Cow goes with Young for Nine Months, and the affection and solicitude she evinces for her offspring is more human in its tenderness and intensity than is displayed by any other animal; and her distress when she hears it lowing, and is not allowed to reach it with her distended udders, is often painful to witness; and when the calf has died, or been accidentally killed, her grief frequently makes her refuse to give down her milk. In a state of nature the cow, like the deer, hides her young in the tall ferns and brakes, and the most secret places ”

“ I was partial to heifers, and when one was sighted there was no brush so thick or animal so wild that it was not “fish” to my rope. In many instances a cow of unknown brand was still followed by her two-year-old, yearling, and present calf. Under the customs of the country, any unbranded animal, one year old or over, was a maverick, and the property of any one who cared to brand the unclaimed stray. Thousands of cattle thus lived to old age, multiplied and increased, died and became food for worms, unowned. ”

“ This particular cow of my neighbor’s that I hear lowing, is an entirely gentle creature ordinarily, but with a calf at her side she will pitch at any one who approaches her. And there is no other cow in the herd that mourns so long after her calf. The mother in her is stronger, more enduring, than in any of the other nineteen cows in the barn. My own cow hardly mourns at all when her calf is taken away. She might be an oak tree losing its acorns, or a crab losing her hatching eggs, so far as any show of love is concerned. ”

“ For the native blooded cow of Virginia, from shivering over half rations of corn stalks, in the open air, during those bleak and windy winters, and roaming over those parched fields in summer, has come to have some marked features. For one thing, her pedal extremities seemed lengthened; for another, her udder does not impede her travelling; for a third, her backbone inclines strongly to the curve; then, she despiseth hay. This last is a sure test. Offer a thorough-bred Virginia cow hay, and she will laugh in your face; but rattle the husks or shucks, and she knows you to be her friend. ”

“ After much pains on my behalf and many pains on his, he learned to go at the word in quest of our old yellow cow, that pastured at will on the unfenced prairie.
Once he had learned his business, he became very fond of it and nothing pleased him more than an order to go and fetch the cow. Away he would dash, barking with pleasure and leaping high in the air that he might better scan the plain for his victim. In a short time he would return driving her at full gallop before him, and gave her no peace until, puffing and blowing, she was safely driven into the farthest corner of her stable. ”

“ Solid colors only were to be chosen, every natural point in a cow was to be considered, with the view of reproducing the race in improved form. My foreman—an intelligent young fellow—was in complete sympathy, and promised me that he would comb the range in selecting the herd. The first appearance of grass in the spring was agreed on as the time for gathering the cows, when he would personally come to the Clear Fork and receive the importation of bulls, thus fully taking all responsibility in establishing the improved herd. ”

“ And in similar circumstances we may be able to keep sheep solely for their wool, but on high-priced land we can not afford to keep sheep merely for their wool. We must adopt a higher system of farming and feeding, and keep sheep that will give us wool, lambs, and mutton. In parts of South America, where land costs nothing, cattle can be kept for their bones, tallow, and hides, but where food is costly we must make better use of it. A cow is a machine for converting vegetable food into veal, butter, cheese, and beef. ”

“ Sooner or later every cow on the range will be goin’ to one place or the other to drink, and if we give ’em a little bait of brush each time it keeps ’em from gittin’ too weak. As long as a cow will rustle she’s all right, but the minute she’s too weak to travel she gits to be a water-bum––hangs around the spring and drinks until she starves to death. But if you feed ’em a little every day they’ll drift back to the ridges at night and pick up a little more. I’m sorry for them lily-white hands of yourn, pardner, but which place would you like to work at? ”

“ Then there were the extreme cases in which the cow refused to be cheated. She knew that a calf had been born; she had felt it within her, and had suffered pangs in bringing it forth; if it appeared not on the grass or straw at her side then it must have been snatched away by the human creatures that hovered about her, like crows and ravens round a ewe in travail on some lonely mountain side. ”

“ A cow these days is a different sort of a being, her coat like satin, and her udder generous, compared with the wild-eyed things with burrs in their tails, and their flanks crusted with filth, their udders the size of a kid glove, and yielding such a little dab of milk and for such a short period. ”

“ And the rutty paving stones which stretch from housefront to housefront are crawling with people and goats and dogs and children. Finally, to add zest to the affair, there are lots of loose cows mooning about—for at this hour the cowherd brings his stock to the doors of his patrons. In an Italian city the people get their milk from a cow, instead of from a milkman as with us. The milk is delivered on the hoof, so to speak.
The grown-ups refuse to make way for you to pass and the swarming young ones repay you for not killing them by pelting pebbles and less pleasant things into your face. ”

“ Whoever buys a cow, buys also the string with which it is led!” Some of the amused and astonished lookers-on said that this was quite true, therefore the old man was obliged to give up the string.
The black giant, well satisfied with his purchase, took the cow with him to his castle, and, after having put iron chains on her legs, fastened her in a cellar. Every morning the giant gave the cow some water and hay, but he never unchained her. ”

“ Before, the life of a cow fancier had been to me as a closed book. Generally speaking, cows, so far as my personal knowledge went, were divided roughly into regular cows running true to sex, and the other kind of cows, which were invariably referred to with a deep blush by old-fashioned maiden ladies. True enough, we owned cows during the earlier stages of our rural life; in fact, we own one now, a mild-eyed creature originally christened Buttercup but called by us Sahara because of her prevalent habits. ”

“ The farmer uses his cow like one of the family. He keeps her in the house when the weather is cold, washes and combs her hair more often than his own, and keeps her room as clean as the parlor. She chews her cud contentedly and the only thing about her which is tied up is her tail, which is generally fastened to a beam above to keep it from getting soiled. ”

“ The cow is to the lady, what the horse is to the gentleman, or, on the score of usefulness, what hare-hunting is to fox-hunting—or shooting to hunting. Master may have many horses pulled backwards out of his stable without exciting half the commiseration among the fair, that the loss of one nice quiet milk-giving cushy cow affords. Cows are friendly creatures. They remember people longer than almost any other animal, dogs not excepted. Well, here are four of them, Old Lily, Strawberry Cream, Red Rose, and Toy ”

“ The wild cow calves generally at one period, and that period later by a month than our tame cattle; then they all, as if with one accord, withdraw themselves from the mountains and rocks, and resort in large families to the valleys, where there is open ground, with small clumps of wood affording shelter and preservation; as there they can see the approach of an enemy from afar. The cows herd together in the centre, and the bulls graze in the distance: all in sight of each other. ”

“ But it was of no use to whisk, for every now and then a nasty, spiteful, hungry fly would get on some poor cow’s back, creep beneath the hair, and force its horny trunk into the skin so sharply, that the poor animal would burst out into a doleful lowing, and, sticking its tail up, go galloping and plunging through the meadow in such a clumsy way as only a cow can display. ”

“ As a family cow, nothing can excel the short-horn, in the abundance and richness of her milk, and in the profit she will yield to her owner; and, on every place where she can be supplied with abundance of food, she stands without a rival. From the short-horns, spring those magnificent fat oxen and steers, which attract so much admiration, and carry off the prizes, at our great cattle shows. ”

“ That word cowdust, indeed, strikes a whole vein of expression peculiar to this Eastern land. Everything about the cow has been observed and loved and named. As much water as will lie in the hole once made by its hoof is a well known measure amongst the Aryan folk! ”

“ The advantage of corrals would naturally make my place headquarters for cowmen, and we accordingly settled down until the branding season was over. But the abundance of mavericks and wild cattle was so tempting that we had three hundred under herd when the first cow-hunting outfits arrived. At one lake on what is now known as South Prairie, in a single moonlight night, we roped and tied down forty head, the next morning finding thirty of them unbranded and therefore unowned. All tame cattle would naturally water in the daytime, and anything coming in at night fell a victim to our ropes. ”