38 Old Bays on the Farm 



affairs of the young folks of earlier days down 

 on the farm. I'd like to be able to spill out a lyric 

 poem on the subject but I wasn't born that way, 

 and beside, I left the farm too young to have had 

 any meetings in the hawthorn lane or to have 

 watched the sunset and, incidentally, the milk- 

 maid, while leaning over the bars at the milking 

 hour. But I can see 'em in my mind's eye for 

 I was born down on the farm and heard the tinkle 

 of the cowbell and drove the cows across the mead- 

 ows deep with clover. 



OLD BOSSY IN LITERATURE 



But as this little rhapsody or rambling composi- 

 tion is not wholly about courtship at the bars or 

 dairy or churn, let's get back to the cow for a 

 spell. Old Bossy is easily the most important of 

 all the lower animals upon the green-carpeted 

 footstool of the Great Creator, and there is, to me, 

 quite a clear connection between the gentle cow 

 and the love affairs of country young folks, at 

 least, of the period of which I write. 



There is more mention of the cow in books than 

 of any other animal, bar none. I could call up a 

 dozen poems on '* Milking Time" and about the 

 animal that makes such a time possible. Artists 

 are forever putting her into pictures, too, and all 

 her comings and goings are pleasurable to behold. 



The poets, particularly, among the great men 

 of the earth, have considered the cow. You re- 



