THE COUNTRY HOME [chapter 



up-stairs into a haymow. They are, however, so 

 intelHgent that if you have about them just the 

 right sort of human friends, you will convince them 

 that common sense and common honesty are good 

 policy. The last Ayrshire that I owned enjoyed 

 nothing so well as to scrape a whole row of hens off 

 the roost with her horns, and then whirl around to 

 me with, "Say, wasn't that well done?" It is a 

 breed that can almost talk, and, for that matter, 

 laugh. But, whatever the breed, I wish for a cow 

 that I can sit down on when she is quietly chewing 

 her cud in the yard ; can pat and play with — a 

 cow that is appreciative and responsive to kind- 

 ness. 



As for a horse, it is part of a well-organized 

 family, even yet — in spite of the trolley, the bi- 

 cycle, and the automobile. There is in most 

 human beings a natural horse sympathy that I 

 cannot quite account for. The cow is despised 

 as a "board-faced animal," while the horse is 

 reckoned upon as the very model of animal allies. 

 Part of this sentiment is to be accounted for on the 

 basis of our own approach toward horse sentiment, 

 rather than an education of the horse to human sen- 

 timent. But if you find it possible to be the owner 



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