I don't know that I ever sat down to write an article when feeling so full of improving thoughts as I do at this blessed minute. A lot of things have happened lately, and all of them were of the kind that seem designed "To point a moral and adorn a tale." To begin with, the boy and I were working in the garden yesterday, when I happened to notice some dark object on the ground between two of the cows that were lying down in the pasture, up near the woods. I ventured the opinion that it was a newly arrived and not unexpected calf. The boy took a look and said it was a stone. I could not remember having seen a stone in that place, but I was busy and did not stop to argue the matter. After a while I chanced to look up again and saw that all the cattle in the pasture had gathered around the dark object on the ground and were sniffing at it. Once more I ventured the opinion that it was a calf.

"But that is not where the cows were when you were looking at them before."

"Why, yes it is."

"I am sure it isn't."

"Don't talk nonsense. Don't you think I can remember where the cows were when I was looking at them? And that calf, or whatever it is, is lying exactly where it was when I spoke to you about it."

"But it was not there they were at all. And now I can see the stone that was between them as clear as can be."

My temper was rising but I looked and saw a stone about ten rods to the east of the object I was looking at. A couple of questions brought out the fact that we had not been looking at the same couple of cows, nor at the same object on the ground. That explained everything, and while we were settling the matter the dark object I had been looking at got up and began to stagger around on wobbly legs. It was certainly a calf. But you can see the lesson to be learned from the incident, can't you? Before you get into a red-hot argument with any one be sure that you are talking about the same thing. Thus endeth the first lesson.

The calf belonged to the purposeful and strong-minded red cow. Of course, she was very proud of her calf, and mooed solicitously when we approached to examine it. But strange to say she was not nearly so excited about it as her oldest daughter, a quiet and hitherto well-behaved cow that has been milking all winter and is farrow this season. Judging from her actions she had adopted the new calf, and had taken out adoption papers before we arrived on the scene. She ran around and bawled and acted silly as soon as I began to push the calf towards the barn. By the way, pushing a young calf that braces its front legs and insists on lying down every couple of rods while its real mother and an idiotic farrow cow are threatening to run over you all the time, is a job that is rather trying on the temper. But I finally got it through the gate, and proceeded to push it along towards the drive shed where I could get it out of sight. The mother objected, of course, and bawled her protest as loudly and ineffectively as a loyal Opposition when a Government is putting through a railway subsidy. But the farrow cow made as much noise as a self-elected reformer. She stood by the gate and pumped up basso-profundo bawls from her second or lower stomach. Every time she bawled she humped her back and moved her tail up and down like the handle of an old-fashioned wooden pump. But I paid no attention to her. I could not see where her feelings were being lacerated, and I kept right on picking up the calf and setting him on his wobbly legs and pushing him towards the drive-shed. But just as I reached the door and the calf had gone down again I was startled by a yell behind me. I turned hastily, just in time to see the farrow cow in the act of shredding herself through a tight barbed wire fence. I was too late to head her off, and, as I watched her struggles, I felt that when she got through she would be of no use for anything but Hamburg steak, and I reflected with some satisfaction that the new onions in the garden are ready to be used for a meat garnish. But when she got through she did not sink on the earth in a pile of little pieces as I expected, but ran like a deer, bawling like a fog-horn, to where a calf that had been weaned the day before was bleating for its mother. By this time the red cow had become excited and was threatening to follow her fool daughter through the barbed wire fence. And the cow whose calf had been taken the day before also went into hysterics. I don't believe there was ever so much noise and excitement on the farm as there was for the next few minutes. The boy kept the red cow from going through the fence, and I opened the door of the drive-shed and hurled the calf under the buggy, where it lay down once more with a little grunt of satisfaction. Then I went after the farrow cow to see how much she was damaged. It seems incredible, but there was not a scratch visible on her silly carcase. Now, will some learned man please explain how that could be possible. Whenever I try to go through a barbed wire fence, even though I go at it with the greatest circumspection and care, the barbs catch in my hat, coat, trousers and stockings, and even catch the rag on my sore finger—not to mention the bias patches they tear out of the most sensitive skin in Middlesex County. And yet that cow ripped through that fence by brute force and didn't get a scratch that was visible to the naked eye. Before I got peace restored on the place I had to capture each cow and lead her into the stable. I had to put in the three of them before they would stop threatening to commit hari-kari on the barbed wire fence. As I think over the occurrence the lesson that sticks in my mind is that the farrow cow was wonderfully like a professional reformer. Though her interests were not involved in any way she made a bigger disturbance and got more thoroughly worked up than the cow that was really bereaved. And nobody thanked her or gave her a word of praise. I admit that this lesson came home to me with great force.

Though I got the cows in the stable the excitement was by no means over. The cow that had lost her calf the day before is a kicker by nature, but after getting excited she simply refused to be touched when milking time came around. When she was being broken in last year sympathetic friends sent me many receipts for conquering a kicking cow, but in the state she was in none of them was of any use. Though I could keep her from kicking by tying a strap around her hind legs and another around her body in front of the udder, my friends neglected to tell what to do when a cow tries to lie down on top of the milker. But just when I was in the thick of this trouble an experienced milker came along and gave me a plan that was so simple that it seemed silly. I took off the leg and body straps and then took a rope and looped it loosely across the cow's back in front of the hip bones and then tied it behind so that the rope rested loosely against her knees. There was no pressure of any kind. The rope simply hung around her rump and lay against her hind legs. This plan had not been recommended by any of my correspondents, but it worked like a charm. She would lift her feet but would not kick and she gradually quieted down. Apparently that loose rope gave her much the same feeling that we humans have when our clothes begin to come undone in some public place. We do not feel like putting forth violent efforts of any kind. Anyway, it was the conquering scheme and I pass it along to all who may be having trouble with kicking cows. And the lesson to be learned from that is—Pshaw I forget just what lesson I was going to draw from the kicking cow.