Year: 1873




The man l.. / not been able to pay his d46rs:
The mortgage on the farm had been foreclosed.
Day of sale had come. The sheriff stood on a
box reading the terms of vendue. All pay
ments to be made in six months. The auction
eer took his place. The old man and his wife,
and the children all cried, as the piano, and the
chairs, and the pictures and the carpets, and
the bedsteads, went at half their worth. When
the piano went it seemed to the old people as
if the sheriff were selling all the fingers that
had ever played on it, and when the carpets
were struck off, think father and mother
thought of the little feet that had tramped it,
and when the bedstead was sold it brought to
mind the bright curly heads that had slept on
it long before the dark days had come, and fa-
ther had put his name on the back of a note
signing his own death-warrant. The next
thing to being buried alive is to have the sher-
iff sell you out when you have been honest, and
have tried always to do right. There are SO
many envious ones to chuckle at your fall, and
come in to buy your carriage, blessing the Lord
that the time has come for you to walk and for
them to ride.


But to us the auction reached its climax of
interest when we went to the barn. We were
spending our Summer in the country, and must
have cow. There we're ten or fifteen sukies
to be sold. There were reds and piebalds, and
duns, and browns, and brindles, short horns,
long horns, umpled horns and no horns. But
we marked for our own a cow that was said to
be full-blooded, whether Alderney, or Durham,
or Galloway or Ayrshire, | will not tell lest
some tle-fancier feel insulted by what
write, and, if there is any grace that pride
myself on, it ispfudence, and a discrimination
always to say smooth things. Chow much is
bid for this magnificent full blooded cow, cried
the auctioneer. "Scventy-fve dollars" shout
ed some one. l made it eighty. He made it
ninety. Somebody else quickly made it a hun
dred. After the bids had risen to one hundred
and twenty five dollars, got animated, and re-
solved that would have that COW if it took my
last cent. "One hundred and forty dollars y
shouted my opponent. The auctioneer said it
was the finest COW he had ever sold, and not
knowing much about vendues, of course be-
lieved him. 1t was good deal of money for
minister to pay, but then, could get the whole
matter off my hands by giving "a note" In
utter defiance O. everything cried out, ION lone
once twice three time gone! Mr.. Talmage
has it," 1t was one of the proudest moments
of our life. There she stood, tall, immense in
the girth, horns branching, graceful as tree
branch, ,full-uddered, silk coated, pensive-eyed.


We hired two boys to drive her home while
we rode ia a carriage. No sooner had we start
ed than the cow showed what turned out to be
one of her peculiarities, great speed of hoof.-
She left the boys, outran my horse, jumped the
fence, frightened nearly to death a group of
school-children, and by the time we got home
we all felt as if we had all day been out on
fox chase.


We never had any peace with that COW. She
knew more tricks than a juggler. She could let
down any bars, open any gate, outrun my dog,
and ruin the patients of any minister. We
had her year, and yet she never got over
wanting to go to the vendue. Once started out
of the yard she was bound to see the sheriff.
We coaxed her with carrots, and apples, and
cabbage, and sweetest stalks, and the richest
beverage of slops, but without avail.


AS milker she was failure. "Mike," who
lived just back of our place, would come in
nights from his "Kerry cow" scraggly runt
that lived on the commons, with his pail so full
he had to carry it cautiously lest it spill over.
But after our full-blooded had been in clover
to her eyes all day, Bridget would go out to the
barn-yard, and tug and pull for a supply
"Bridget, you don't know how to milk Let
me try" l sat down by the cow, tried the full
force of dynamics, but just at the moment
when my success was about to be demonstrated,
a sudden thought took her somewhere between
the horns, and she started for the vendue, with
one stroke of her back foot upsetting the small
treasure had accumulated, and leaving me
mere wreck of what once was.


She had, among other bad things, morbid
appetite. Notwithstanding we gave her the
richest herbaceous diet, she ate everything she
could put her mouth on. She was fond of horse
blankets and articles of human clothing. /
found her one day at the clothes-line, nearly
choked to death, for she had swallowed one
leg of something, and seemed dissatisfied that
sho-oo's. ID not get down the other. The most
perfect nuisance that 1 ever had about my place
was that full-blooded.


Having read in our agricultural journal of
cows that were slaughtered yielding fourteen
hundred pounds neat weight, we concluded to
sell her to the butcher. We set high price up
on her and got it-that is, we took note for
it, which is the same thing. My bargain with
the butcher was the only successful chapter in
my bovine ex Experiences. The only taking off in
the whole transaction was that the butcher ran
away, leaving me nothing but specimen of
poor chirography, and l already had enough of
that among my manuscripts.


My friends, never depend on high breeds
Some of the most useless of cattle had ances-
tors spoken ofin the commentaries of Cesar"
That Alderney, whose grandfather used to Craze
on lords park in England, may not be worth
the grass she eats.


Do not depend too much on the high sound
ing name of Durham or Devon. AS with ami
mails, so with men. Only one President ever
had President for son. Let tevery COW make
her name, and every man achieve his own po.
sition. 1t is no great credit to a fool that he
had wise grandfather. Many an Ayrshire
and Hereford has had the hollow horn and the
foot-rot. Both man and animal are valuable
in proportion as they are useful. "Mike's"
COW beat my full -blooded.-The Methodist.