Cowman

“ I explained that none of the cattle on the Cheyenne and Arapahoe reservation were native to that range, but were born anywhere from three to five hundred miles to the south, fully one half of them having arrived that spring; that to acquaint an animal with its new range, in cattle parlance to "locate" them, was very important; that every practical cowman moved his herds to a new range with the grass in the spring, in order that ample time should be allowed to acclimate and familiarize them with such shelters as nature provided to withstand the storms of winter. ”

“ There is a cowman in a thousand, and his word carries weight in cattle matters. He's rather deep water, unless you cross or surprise him. I nagged him about the men on his beef ranch. He knew the cattle wouldn't winter kill when they could drift, and the round-up will catch every living hoof. He was too foxy to borrow any trouble there, and this long yell about the drouth interfering with delivery dates keeps the trail outfits against the bits. Admitting his figures, the water expense won't be a drop in the bucket. It affords good worrying and that keeps the old man in fighting form. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I can still give the boys pointers in handling large bodies of cattle, and the ranch outfits seem to know that we old-time cowmen have little use for the modern picturesque cowboy, unless he is an all-round man and can deliver the goods in any emergency. ”

“ It is curious how, in spite of domestication and training, Nature in her great moments returns to the primitive and instinctive! My brown cow, never having had anything but the kindest treatment, is as gentle an animal as could be imagined, but she had followed the nameless, ages-old law of her breed: she had escaped in her great moment to the most secret place she knew. It did not matter that she would have been safer in my yard—both she and her calf—that she would have been surer of her food; she could only obey the old wild law. So turkeys will hide their nests. ”

“ As they grow older, they have a wider and a wiser joy,—the delight of the passions and the affections, to apply the language of men to the consciousness of the cattle. It takes the form, not of rude leapings, but of quiet cheerfulness. The matronly cow, ruminating beside her playful and hornless little one, is a type of quiet joy and entire satisfaction,—all her nature clothed in well-befitting happiness. ”

“ To forbid one to ride a certain dangerous horse only serves to heighten his anxiety to master the outlaw, and to banish him from the branding pens means a prompt return with or without an excuse. On one occasion, on the Double Mountain ranch, with the corrals full of heavy cattle, I started down to the pens, but met two of my grandsons coming up the hill, and noticed at a glance that there had been trouble. ”

“ And the cow is a beauty of the kind that makes one wish she could be driven home into his own pasture, to be “a possession forever.” She stands sleek and serene in her niche in the outer wall, and seems to follow you with a watchful gaze as you pluck buttercups and clover-blooms, lineal descendants, beyond a doubt, of those on which her prototype fed in the spacious close beneath her. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the wild cow will long continue to breed in her chosen solitudes, and indeed she is well able to take care of herself. From all I saw of wild cattle, they yield the palm as a sporting animal to few others in the world. ”

“ It must not be supposed that such as live under the shadow of this great cow, are oppressed by it. On the contrary they have become so accustomed to it that they could not exist apart from it. There is a story of a man who carried a monstrous cow on his shoulders, and explained that he had acquired the ability to do so by beginning with the creature when it was a day old. ”

“ A sea-cow who used to graze about where I lay, thinking that I was only a tuft of grass gathered me in one afternoon and swallowed me without blinking, and some time after, the cow having been caught and killed by some giant fishermen, I was found by the wife of one of the men when the great cow was about to be cooked. ”

“ An occasional swinging light may still be seen, but it is the mountaineer giving attention to some trouble among his stock. Then, there is silence over the valley, except for the chorus of katydids and the whistle of the gray owl to his mate in the woods. Now and then there comes the soft, faint clank of a cow-bell, different from its sound as the cows run the road or feed in the pasture. It is a slow and sleepy tang that soothes the ear. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the cow is so intimately connected with the well-being of all tribes in the Old World who have passed beyond the lower stages of savagery, and has consequently become so well-recognised a symbol of fecundity, that we need not be surprised to find it used in charms to produce offspring. ”

“ Perhaps he likes the sound of mooing, or, conceivably, the cow doesn't like Hobson, and moos to annoy him. But surely it cannot mistake me for him. We are not at all alike. He is short and dark; I am tall and fair. This has given rise to a question in my mind: Can cows distinguish between human beings?
Anyway the cow worries me with its continual fog-horn, and I thought I would write to the owner (a small local dairy-farmer) to see if he could manage to find another field in which to batten this cow, where it could moo till it broke its silly tonsils for all I should care ”

“ If these are the principal individual features, we may not overlook the animal life in a group of cows that are evidently reveling in high clover, and sniffing in the aroma of spring, not less gratefully than their keeper or the dairy maid. The shadows on the stream from the overhanging trees, and the shooting spires of grass that dot here and there the water, are wonderfully true to nature. ”

“ As each cow’s turn comes, its calf is freed for a moment, then dragged away by main force, and either tied to the mother’s front leg, or held by a boy close enough to deceive the animal into fancying she is feeding her own offspring. ”

“ Many people—travellers and hunters—prefer it to any other species of meat.
The flesh of the cow, as may be supposed, is more tender and savoury than that of the bull; and in a hunt when “meat” is the object, the cow is selected as a mark for the arrow or bullet.
The parts most esteemed are the tongue, the “hump-ribs” (the long spinous processes of the first dorsal vertebra) , and the marrow of the shank bones. “Boudins” (part of the intestines) are also favourite “tit-bits” among the Indians and trappers. ”

“ 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! ”

“ You have often noticed a Cow when lying down in the field, going on eating, although she seems to have no food before her. This is because she has already eaten plenty of grass, very fast, and now that she is resting, she brings what she has, as it were, laid up in store, back into her mouth, and chews it over again. ”

“ To make you understand this fearful complaint, I must remind you that cows, in common with all ruminating animals, have four stomachs; and that, when a cow is turned into a field, she twists her tongue round mouthful after mouthful of the long grass, and after biting each off, conveys it without chewing to her first stomach or paunch, till this is about half full, when the animal seems stimulated by nature to seek rest and quiet, for she leaves off eating, and either stands perfectly still in some shady place, or lies down. ”

“ Eight cows sauntered up interestedly and chewed their cuds at him in unison, standing contemplative, calculating, determined. It is a fact in natural history not widely enough recognised that the domestic cow is the most ferocious appearing of all known beasts—a thing to be proved by any who will survey one amid strange surroundings, with a mind cleanly disabused of preconceptions. ”

“ The leading marks of a good cow are, medium height for her weight, small neck, straight and wide back, wide breast—giving room for healthy action of the lungs—heavy hind-quarters, and soft skin with fine hair, skin yellowish, with much dandruff above the bag behind. A smart countenance is also expressive of good qualities; there is as much difference in the eyes and expression of cattle as of men. ”

“ The Keepers live chiefly upon Milk, for out [Pg 145] of their vast Herds, they do condescend to tame Cows enough to keep their Family in Milk, Whey, Curds, Cheese and Butter; they also have Flesh in Abundance such as it is, for they eat the old Cows and lean Calves that are like to die. The Cow-Pen Men are hardy People, are almost continually on Horseback, being obliged to know the Haunts of their Cattle. ”

“ But the gentle large-brained social cow that caresses our hands and faces with her rough blue tongue, and is more like man's sister than any other non-human being—the majestic, beautiful creature with the juno eyes, sweeter of breath than the rosiest virgin—we slaughter and feed on her flesh—monsters and cannibals that we are! ”

“ The cow bells are ringing loud and clear as the herd winds slowly homeward, looking most luxuriantly comfortable, and bearing with them the spicy scent of the cedar-woods in which they have been wandering, and which they seem to leave so unwillingly. ”

“ It takes such a lot of grass, apparently, to keep a cow going that she has to spend all her time eating, day in and day out. Dogs bounce around and bark, horses caper, birds fly, also sing, while the cow looks on, enviously, maybe, unable to join them. ”

“ But, by the gods, I have never seen a cow which can be compared to this. It has no second in the world in point of viciousness.
Younger. A vicious cow is not a rare thing. I have seen some cows as vicious. But have you ever seen a plant like this champaka plant which you were told to water? I wonder what becomes of all the water that is poured round about it. Is there a tank below its roots? ”

“ 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 cowboys take their places on the outer limit of the tract belonging to their division, and with a skill acquired by long experience they are able to find every cow and calf and slowly to draw the circle smaller and smaller, until all the cattle are congregated in one herd. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”