OUK RURAL DIVINITY 135 



Thus ended my second venture in live stock. My 

 third, which followed sharp upon the heels of this 

 disaster, was scarcely more of a success. This time 

 I led to the altar a buffalo cow, as they call the 

 "muley" down South, — a large, spotted, creamy- 

 skinned cow, with a fine udder, that I persuaded a 

 Jew drover to part with for ninety dollars. "Pag 

 like a dish rack (rag)," said he, pointing to her 

 udder after she had been milked. " You vill come 

 pack and gif me the udder ten toUar " (for he had 

 demanded an even hundred), he continued, "after 

 you have had her a gouple of days. " True, I felt 

 like returning to him after a "gouple of days," but 

 not to pay the other ten dollars. The cow proved 

 to be as blind as a bat, though capable of counter- 

 feiting the act of seeing to perfection. For did she 

 not lift up her head and follow with her eyes a dog 

 that scaled the fence and ran through the other end 

 of the lot, and the next moment dash my hopes thus 

 raised by trying to walk over a locust-tree thirty 

 feet high? And when I set the bucket before her 

 containing her first mess of meal, she missed it by 

 several inches, and her nose brought up against the 

 ground. Was it a kind of far-sightedness and near 

 blindness? That was it, I think; she had genius, 

 but not talent; she could see the man in the moon, 

 but was quite oblivious to the man immediately in 

 her front. Her eyes were telescopic and required a 

 long range. 



As long as I kept her in the stall, or confined to 

 the inclosure, this strange eclipse of her sight was 



