90 AROUND AN OLD HOMESTEAD. 



draws back and bucks into the milk and splatters it 

 every which way, one is tempted to follow the example 

 of the exasperated old deacon, who is reported to have 

 indulged in considerable profanity upon a similar occa- 

 sion. I recollect an old cow that we had,. old Whitie, 

 who would always precede the others quite a distance 

 on the way home from pasture, solitary and unap- 

 proachable, evidently, like Newton in Wordsworth's 

 line, 



"Voyaging in strange seas of thought, alone," 



while Spottie, and Roxie, and Fawnie, and Dimple all 

 ambled along behind in gregarious security; but then, 

 she had been brought in from another herd, and so 

 never affiliated very well with the others. But old Spot 

 is my favorite — a lovely old cow. She has a good dis- 

 position toward mankind, and apparently toward the 

 world in general, and is always content if she has but 

 plenty of grass and clover. Yet is she "boss" of the 

 herd, though ruling in great meekness. She has a 

 crumpled horn, like the celebrated cow in "the house 

 that Jack built," and she likes to have me scratch her 

 head just back of the horns, where she can't reach it 

 very conveniently. I always liked her. She would 

 have made some fellow a pretty good wife, if she 

 had n't, been a cow. 



I enjoy watching them graze also in the fields, as 

 they pluck off the tufts of rich green grass with a twist 

 of their rough tongue. Then, too, see them lift their 

 heads among the low hanging branches of the trees, 

 and browse on the leaves and tender tips. Ah, how 

 they love the greenery of the woods and meadows! 



