VI 



OUR EURAL DIVINITY 



"T WONDER that Wilson Flagg did not include 

 -*- the cow among his "Picturesque Animals," for 

 that is where she belongs. She has not the classic 

 beauty of the horse, but in picture-making qualities 

 she is far ahead of him. Her shaggy, loose- jointed 

 body; her irregular, sketchy outlines, like those of 

 the landscape, — the hollows and ridges, the slopes 

 and prominences; her tossing horns, her bushy tail, 

 her swinging gait, her tranquil, ruminating habits, 

 — all tend to make her an object upon which the 

 artist eye loves to dwell. The artists are forever 

 putting her into pictures, too. In rural landscape 

 scenes she is an important feature. Behold her 

 grazing in the pastures and on the hillsides, or along 

 banks of streams, or ruminating under wide-spread- 

 ing trees, or standing belly-deep in the creek or 

 pond, or lying upon the smooth places in the quiet 

 summer afternoon, the day's grazing done, and wait- 

 ing to be summoned home to be milked; and again 

 in the twilight lying upon the level summit of the 

 hill, or where the sward is thickest and softest; or 

 in winter a herd of them filing along toward the 

 spring to drink, or being " foddered " from the stack 



