Being a Boy | Page 5

could n't lick anybody, except her own calf. I
suppose I ought to have called the weakest cow Una instead of Unus,
considering her sex; but I did n't care much to teach the cows the
declensions of adjectives, in which I was not very well up myself; and,
besides, it would be of little use to a cow. People who devote
themselves too severely to study of the classics are apt to become dried
up; and you should never do anything to dry up a cow. Well, these ten
cows knew their names after a while, at least they appeared to, and
would take their places as I called them. At least, if Octo attempted to
get before Novem in going through the bars (I have heard people speak
of a "pair of bars" when there were six or eight of them), or into the
stable, the matter of precedence was settled then and there, and, once
settled, there was no dispute about it afterwards. Novem either put her
horns into Octo's ribs, and Octo shambled to one side, or else the two
locked horns and tried the game of push and gore until one gave up.
Nothing is stricter than the etiquette of a party of cows. There is
nothing in royal courts equal to it; rank is exactly settled, and the same

individuals always have the precedence. You know that at Windsor
Castle, if the Royal Three-Ply Silver Stick should happen to get in front
of the Most Royal Double-and-Twisted Golden Rod, when the court is
going in to dinner, something so dreadful would happen that we don't
dare to think of it. It is certain that the soup would get cold while the
Golden Rod was pitching the Silver Stick out of the Castle window into
the moat, and perhaps the island of Great Britain itself would split in
two. But the people are very careful that it never shall happen, so we
shall probably never know what the effect would be. Among cows, as I
say, the question is settled in short order, and in a different manner
from what it sometimes is in other society. It is said that in other
society there is sometimes a great scramble for the first place, for the
leadership, as it is called, and that women, and men too, fight for what
is called position; and in order to be first they will injure their
neighbors by telling stories about them and by backbiting, which is the
meanest kind of biting there is, not excepting the bite of fleas. But in
cow society there is nothing of this detraction in order to get the first
place at the crib, or the farther stall in the stable. If the question arises,
the cows turn in, horns and all, and settle it with one square fight, and
that ends it. I have often admired this trait in COWS.
Besides Latin, I used to try to teach the cows a little poetry, and it is a
very good plan. It does not do the cows much good, but it is very good
exercise for a boy farmer. I used to commit to memory as good short
poems as I could find (the cows liked to listen to "Thanatopsis" about
as well as anything), and repeat them when I went to the pasture, and as
I drove the cows home through the sweet ferns and down the rocky
slopes. It improves a boy's elocution a great deal more than driving
oxen.
It is a fact, also, that if a boy repeats "Thanatopsis" while he is milking,
that operation acquires a certain dignity.

II
THE BOY AS A FARMER
Boys in general would be very good farmers if the current notions
about farming were not so very different from those they entertain.
What passes for laziness is very often an unwillingness to farm in a
particular way. For instance, some morning in early summer John is

told to catch the sorrel mare, harness her into the spring wagon, and put
in the buffalo and the best whip, for father is obliged to drive over to
the "Corners, to see a man" about some cattle, to talk with the road
commissioner, to go to the store for the "women folks," and to attend to
other important business; and very likely he will not be back till
sundown. It must be very pressing business, for the old gentleman
drives off in this way somewhere almost every pleasant day, and
appears to have a great deal on his mind.
Meantime, he tells John that he can play ball after he has done up the
chores. As if the chores could ever be "done up" on a farm. He is first
to clean out the horse-stable; then to