Morris tribune., 1917-06-01
When Everybody Kept a Cow

In the DID, old days when you and were young
Maggie, everybody kept In the villageand most
of the towns villages then-the family from the
banker and the doctor down to the odd job and the
pumper at the railroad tank kept or cows
says the Marshalltown Republican. Nobody sold milk
then for nobody bought milk. Everyone had it. The
churn necessary article of household then
All kinds of churns Churns of slaves, big at the bottom
and small top where the youth of period
with apron about his body and worked dasher up
and down intermnably under the maternal eye and
strict orders not to spatter Churns of earthenware
working under the principle of dasher and boy
Churns of barrel shape with handle whereby
they might be whired rapidly and around, end
end later but in the earlier days the dasher
churn the standby, and many older person will
recall how eagerly he watched the hole where the dasher
pole through for signs granulated butter
denotng that cit beginning to come and how he
begged for the condition of little water to the
that the might be fastened. Those
the when crooks and of milk set in the cellar
and mother daily fore-fnger about the pan and
with skinner removed rch ripe cream from the top.
1t day. also when all housewives made good butter
The stood and ripened to the right acy in the
big and when the butter had been worked
with wooden ladle and sailed just right and
the table yellow primroses and fragrant flowers it
was joy forever.
Some of the COWS were pastured their owners
holdings Rich folks usually had pastures adjoining the
village. Some "pastured out" at say a dollar
month. Others ran the road and fed the roadside
grasses. This after the woods had been fenced
Off Previous to that calamity the village herd had run
in the woods. Hunting the boys job and in
wide grove several miles in extent that small
task despite the cowbes with which the animals
furnished Of course, considerable assistance given
by "granddaddy longegs, which seized and made
point direction the missing pen
atty of DEATH but hunting the task we'll
as a pastime. Later when the ran the road
it question of judgment and trailing to know
which cross-road the COWS had followed.
Warfare broke out the Some folks put
their in "cow-yards at night and few awess in
divduas '1et' run" Sometimes the cowyards were
incapable and the got out In the still watches of
the night the householder to hear a cowbe vo-
ently agitated at intervals Jones' old bell COW
wrenched cabbage it's foundation snatched an
and a night shirt profanely chased out of
garden, suffering much in his bare feet and getting
saturated with the heavy dews the morning he
demanded restitution and the of the invading
attempted to prove aIibi for "Od Butte, or
! "Spot," "Crummy" Sometimes the owner paid up
like man." Sometimes the victim went away swearing
reprsal with brdshot the next that looked
his fence But in time all settled down all things
do with time.
Then there were the pigs in the back yards. And
the long of currant bushes black red and white
in the back lot with the old English gooseberres that
turned black and whey with rpeness and the three
Early June apple trees and the red raspberres along
the east side and the big patch of pie plant and the
potatoes that lent themselves when joined with
the unrestraned joy of childhood and the mixture of
and potatoes and other truck that mother
used to make and-O each is story of itself of the
older days when everybody kept and raised cou-
pie Of pigs.