1900 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
391 
A Suburban Cow. 
Barrington went home to Poplarhurst 
one evening and found Mrs. Barrington 
wearing a very pleased expression. She 
explained that it was because the Pen- 
locks were going to buy a cow. Barring¬ 
ton said that he didn’t see any particu¬ 
lar cause for enthusiasm if they were. 
He added: “What in thunder do they 
want with a cow, anyway?” 
“Why, you would naturally suppose 
that they want one to bark at the 
tramps,” said Mrs. Barrington, with fine 
scorn. “But they don’t. Mrs. Penlock 
called this afternoon to tell me about it, 
and she says they expect it to give milk 
and cream.” 
“And butter and cheese,” sneered Bar¬ 
rington. “Couldn’t Penlock have got 
one that would have yielded fresh eggs 
and early vegetables? He’ll be in luck 
if he gets one that will give a little plain 
milk.” Mrs. Barrington rose in silent 
disdain and went to look after the din¬ 
ner. When that meal was concluded her 
husband felt a little better, and returned 
to the subject of the cow with an appear¬ 
ance of interest. 
“I don’t know that it’s such a had 
idea, after all,” he said. “I was think¬ 
ing only the other day that I’d like to 
taste some real milky milk again, and 
that a cow wouldn’t be very much ex¬ 
pense. There’s good grazing on the va¬ 
cant lots, and all a man would have to 
do would be to take her out and tie her 
to a lamp post with a good long rope 
and lead her up to the hydrant twice a 
day. I wonder what Penlock had to pay 
for his. I’ve a good notion to walk over 
this evening and see him about it.” 
“Mrs. Penlock said that they couldn’t 
use all of the milk themselves and they 
would supply us,” said Mrs. Barrington. 
“That was what I was going to tell you 
if you hadn’t snapped me up so short. 
Yes, you did, too. She said that she 
could send one of the children over with 
it morning and evening just as well as 
not.” 
“It’s too far, and then we couldn’t de¬ 
pend on them. One cow’s milk wouldn’t 
be any too much for them. I don’t know 
but I’ll think seriously of getting one for 
ourselves.” 
Mrs. Barrington clapped her hands 
joyfully and said that was what she had 
always wanted, and strawberries so 
plentiful, too. “But I never thought for 
a moment that I could ever coax you to 
get one,” she continued. “Don’t you 
thinK it will bother you too much to 
tend her?” 
“Oh, pshaw, no!” replied her husband. 
“It will take about 10 minutes in the 
morning and evening, and I’d rather en¬ 
joy it. There isn’t anything greater than 
to get up early on a bright Summer 
morning when the dew is on the grass 
and everything smells good, and then sit 
down and spurt milk into a ringing tin 
pail unal the creamy foam runs over 
the rim. A glass of warm milk before 
breakfast would make a new man of 
me.” 
“I’ll take mine off the ice,” remarked 
the lady. “But I didn’t know that you 
had ever milked.” 
“I haven’t, exactly, but I’ve often seen 
it done. Another thing, we would prob¬ 
ably have enough milk to feed a few 
cnickens. 1 should think you would like 
to keep chickens.” 
“I’m too nervous myself,” said Mrs. 
Barrington. “I couldn’t stand it to have 
a lot of hysterical hens around.” 
“Well, the chickens aren’t indispen¬ 
sable,” said Barrington. “We’ll let 
them go. I’ll go over and see Penlock 
this evening.” 
hue result of the interview with Pen- 
lock was that Barrington decided to buy 
a cow. Penlock said that he would go 
over wim him to the farmer, who lived 
on the other side of the sub-division, 
and helped him to select one, which he 
did the next morning, and Barrington 
that day visited a department store and 
made an extensive purchase of mule 
pans and pails, to be sent out to Poplar¬ 
hurst. Penlock had already bought a 
patent churn, but Barrington said that 
*-e would wait and see how much of the 
by-product he was going to get before he 
invested any unnecessary capital. Pen- 
lock looked in at the office in the course 
of the day and Barrington reproved him 
severely for his precipitate course in the 
matter of uie churn. Penlock said in 
defense that he wasn’t raising his cow 
for beef. “Nevertheless, I think that 
you are right in being conservative,” he 
added, “for your cow has a haggard look 
about the hipbones, and she chews her 
cud too languidly to suit me. I wouldn’t 
be surprised if she went dry inside of a 
month.” 
“Not with the facilities for irrigation 
that I possess,” said Barrington. “But 
when it comes to dimpled flanks I 
should be inclined to award the blue 
ribbon to your exhibit. When you 
weren’t looking I saw the boy drawing 
a stick along her ribs as. he passed her 
this morning. They rattled like* a 
picket fence. If I had taken your ad¬ 
vice I’d have drawn a darling.” 
She was a mulley cow, with large ir¬ 
regular terra-cotta blotches on a white 
background. Her hipbones were, as 
Penlock had insinuated, somewhat 
prominent, but not so very much so for 
a cow. With her was a lanky, knobby- 
kneed calf, which, on Barrington’s ap¬ 
proach, wabbled unsteadily to its feet 
and then raced off for a couple of blocks 
down the street and began to bawl plain¬ 
tively, with its knobby legs stretched out 
stiffly fore and aft at an angle of 45 
degrees. When the calf was reassured 
and the cow calmed the Barrington fam¬ 
ily went out and hung over the fence 
and admired her, while Barrington him¬ 
self made friendly overtures with a wash 
basin full of bran. 
“I told the milkman that he needn’t 
call again,” said Mrs. Barrington. “He 
took it very well, though, when I told 
him that we had got a cow. He just 
kind of laughed.” 
“Kind of laughed, did he?” said Bar¬ 
rington. “He must be a cheerful kind 
of cuss.” 
“You’re going to milk, aren’t you?” 
asked Mrs. Barrington. “I’ve got straw¬ 
berries for dinner, and I thought we 
might have some of our own cream on 
them.” 
Barrington laughed boisterously. “You 
won’t get any cream to-night,” he said. 
“The milk has got to have time to settle 
before you get cream. I’d have thought 
you’d have known that much. I suppose 
I might as well milk, though.” He went 
into the house and put on some old 
clothes and sallied forth again with a 
10-pound lard pail, followed by the fam¬ 
ily. The people in the house opposite 
came down to the garden gate and dis¬ 
posed themselves to watch the operation 
comfortably. Barrington said “So-o-o, 
boss,” and advanced his hand cautiously, 
and the cow snorted and swung herself 
around and came into violent contact 
with the fence. Mrs. Barrington 
screamed and the cow swung back 
again, and Barrington, stepping back to 
avoid her, stumbled and fell, to the in¬ 
tense gratification of the 14-year-old girl 
from the house opposite and the grocery- 
man, who had stopped his wagon to look 
on. 
“What did you want to do that for?” 
demanded Barrington in a savage under¬ 
tone. “I wish you’d go back to the 
house; you only excite her, all of you 
standing around. I don’t see what those 
idiots are rubbering there for, either.” 
“Neighborly interest,” said his wife, 
as he advanced again. This time the 
cow executed a regular waltz movement, 
frantically accompanied by the calf, and 
Barrington stood back and waited until 
he had subsided. The man at the 
house opposite shouted something. 
“What does he say?” asked Barring¬ 
ton. 
“Go around on the other side of her, 
Mr. Barrington,” called the grocery man, 
“You can’t milk no cow on the near side 
—they won’t stand for it.” 
Barrington muttered something about 
people attending to their own business, 
but he took the man’s advice and the 
cow stood still. Barrington succeeded 
in drawing three or four thin, short 
streams of milk. Then the supply 
seemed to give out, though he squeezed 
MOTHERS.—Be sure to use“Mrs.Wins- 
low’s Soothing Syrup” for your children 
while Teething. It is the Best.— Adv. 
and tugged until his fingers and wrist 
ache 1. At last he gave up and stood 
contemplating the cow thoughtfully. 
“There seems to be something wrong,” 
he said at last. “Higgins said she ought 
to give two or three gallons at a milking. 
So-o-o, boss! What do you suppose is 
wrong now? Did you feed her, Mar¬ 
garet?” 
“She’s been eating all day,” said Mrs. 
Barrington. 
“May be the calf has been to her,” sug¬ 
gested the groceryman. 
“Why, of course,” said Mrs. Barring¬ 
ton. “The calf has been with her all the 
time, but I didn’t suppose that would 
make any difference.” 
Before the week was out Barrington 
was firmly convinced that keeping a cow 
had its disadvantages. The first thing 
he did was to separate the cow from her 
offspring, and the two of them mourned 
throughout the balmy Spring nights and 
refused to be comforted. The people 
in the house opposite made themselves 
extremely unpleasant about it, too, and 
went so far as to make a complaint to 
the village board. When Barrington 
milked ne was obliged to divide with the 
calf, otherwise the cow obstinately re¬ 
fused to impart. The calf was lacking 
in decent self-restraint, and took its 
nourishment with a savage energy that 
provoked indiscriminate kicks from its 
dam, most of which Barrington or his 
milkpail received. Then the cow had a 
nervous habit of switching its tail and 
swiping Barrington in the face that de¬ 
tracted quite a little from the enjoyment 
of milking. Another annoying thing 
was that when he got comfortably bal¬ 
anced on his one-legged stool she would 
deliberately advance three paces to he 
front, generally kicking the pail over as 
she went. On four different occasions 
in one week the Barrington children 
cried in vain for milk and their father 
drank his coffee black. When Barring¬ 
ton met Penlock at the station or in the 
city he asked him what success he was 
having with his cow. Penlock said that 
his family was reveling in milk and 
cream and was making butter right 
along. Barrington said in a disappoint¬ 
ed way that he was sorry, for he had 
hoped that Mrs. Penlock might hvve 
been able to use some of his superfluous 
milk. He said he hated to throw it 
away. The picketing of Barrington’s 
cow was another source of grief. The 
perverse animal would persist in walk¬ 
ing around the lamp post that she was 
tied to until she wound herself up tight¬ 
ly up to the iron. She had to circle 
around in the dusty road to do it, but she 
seemed perfectly willing to go to that 
trouble. The family had to take it in 
turns to go out and chase her back 
around the post until she was unwound, 
and it was tedious work. Sometimes 
she varied this by tying herself up in ihe 
rope in hard knots, like a spiritualistic 
medium, and then lying down and gasp¬ 
ing for oreath until somebody came out 
and extracted her wit- a butcher knife. 
Finally she got at a sack of oats and 
foundered herself, and Barrington was 
so happy about it that he whistled 
around the office until they threw waste- 
paper baskets at him. He sold the or¬ 
phaned calf to the local butcher for 
enough to pay for the burial of tne 
mother, and after that he slept morn¬ 
ings. He found out later on that Pen- 
lock had sent back his cow after a 
week’k trial, together with the patent 
barrel churn.—Chicago Record. 
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