The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1880-09-23
The Deacon and the Cow.

creatlon occurred at GAINESVILLE last week.
A business man whom we all know got
up last Tuesday and took a walk down
by Monterey, to view the beauties of
nature and get up an appetite for break
fast. He is a man who weighs close to
one hundred and fifty pounds, though
he is as kitteny as anybody when coca
sion calls for k~ittenishness. Gazing in
to the crystal waters of Rock river, it
occurred to him that he would take a
bath, and, so he dis -obed himself, laid
his clothes on the ground, and plunged
in. He had been sporting with the
wavelets and waving with the sportlets
for some minutes, when he heard a bel
lowing on shore, and looked up to see a
COW paving the ground and running her
horns through his clothes. You know
how the smell Of blood or carrion will
cause the mildest-mannered cow to get
on her ear and paw the ground and bel
low. Not that there was any blood or
carrion there, but the COW acted that
way. She may have got the smell of a
Democrat from his clothes. Anyway,
she made Monterey howl, and the large
man in the water dived down for some
stones to throw at her. She had run
one horn through the leg of his pants,
and was engaged in chewing his shirt,
when a rock struck her on the rump,
and she started off with those two gar
ments for the blind asylum, where she
evidently belonged, shaking her head
to get the pants off her horns, and chew
ing the shirt as though it was a bran
mash. The pious man rushed out of
the water and said: "So-boss, co-boss !"
but she took one look at his shape and
turned away, and didn't "so-boss" very
much. A war map of the thoughts OF
this GAINESVILLE business man, as he saw
the COW go away, would sell well, if it
was illustrated by a picture of a native
Zulu picking buchu leaves. The only
things the cow had left were his hat,
vest and shoes and stockings. He put
them on and started after the cow. The
vest was one OF those grand-fatber's-
clock vests that stop short, never to 60
again-a sort Of emigrant vest that
comes high. II was not a long, linger-
ing, emotional vest, because charity
begins at home, and covers a
multitude Of back pay into the treasury.
He tried to remember some of the Ten
Commandments to repeat, but the only
one he could call to mind was, "Pull
down thy vest" His eyes swept the
hozizon to see if anybody was looking,
and he could see that the grounds about
the blind asylum were alive with people
of both sexes. He thanked heaven
that, by the inscrutable ways of Provi-
dence, people were made blind but bis
joy at the calamity was mingled with
sorrow when he thought that the teach
ers at the asylum were endowed with
the most perfect eye-sight. AS the COW
neared the gate of the grounds, he made
ore effort to head her off; but she ran
by him, and then he attempted to take
his pistol from the hind pocket of his
pants to kill himself, when he realized
again that he was indeed bare-footed
from his vest to his stockings, and he
sat down under a tree TO die of starva-
ton. Before he began to starve, how
ever, he got up again and resumed an
upright attitude, on account of ants. 1t
is a picnic for a nest of ants to partake
of a human being who has lost his or
her trousers, as the case may be, and he
followed the cow, saying "So-boss !" in
the most pitiful accents that were ever
used by a GAINESVILLE man. The COW
looked around, and as she did so the
pants caught On a sapling, and were
pulled off her horns and dropped on the
ground. The pious man looked upon
this as a direct interposition of Provi-
dence, and he was sorry he swore. He
got into his trousers so quick that it
made his head swim ; and, Just as the
crowd at the asylum had come down to
the gate to see what strengthening calf
was following the COW home, the man
started on a run for town, leaving his
shirt with the cow. The people at the
asylum have the shirt, and it has the
initials Of the nan worked in the neck
band, but he will never call for it. One
sleeve is chewed off, and the bosom is
rent with conflicting emotions and the
cows teeth The man sells nails and
skimmers, with a far7off expression, and
don't want cows to run at large any
~more.-Milwaukee Sun.
po1-o-o oo,&1a,ooo raoaptIr x-o