THE MAD COW
"No true love there can be,
Without its dread penalty, jealousy!"
A grateful odor from the white blooming wild cherry by the fence of the
James potato-lot, was wafted to Miss Lucy, as, with her milk-buckets she
came out into the dew-wet yard at five o'clock one morning well on
toward the end of May. But she was not cognizant of its sweetness. Her
face was pale, restless--harassed, as she paused a moment with her eyes
on the sloping plowed fields across the road. The tobacco barn of Castle
with its metal roof shimmered like silver in the bright sun: the fields
showed flecks of green on their raw brown,--the newly set tobacco.
"I reckon he's a settin' tobacco, too, 'way down that away," she mused
sorrowfully, turning her face toward the north: "and maybe he'll
overwork and make hisse'f sick. I wisht I could hear from him some way.
I ain't heard sence Pa--sence Pa ordered him never to come about us any
more! Seems like he might write, but he's afraid of gittin' me in
trouble, I guess, ef he sent me a letter through the mail. Pa and
Nancy'd--"
The spider curled on the web that hung from the top rail of the gate to
the post, felt a heavy drop on his back, and pirouetted away in fright.
But a long mournful bellow from beyond the barn prevented the fall of
any more drops on his web.
"Poor old Belle! She must be a gittin' worse," thought Miss Lucy,
hurrying to the barn-lot, in which, the night before, she had left the
roan cow that for more than a week had drooped and languished. To her
surprise, the cow was pacing back and forth, restless as something
caged, while the other cattle in the adjoining grass field, clustered
not far from the boundary fence, regarding their sick mate in a
peculiar, half-fearful fashion. Miss Lucy set down her buckets, and flew
to the house.
"O Pa!" she cried: "I wisht you'd come down to the barn a minute. Old
Belle's worse, I believe, and she's actin' so strange I am afraid to
milk the other cows in the lot with her!"
"Aw, she won't hurt ye, Lucy," grumbled the old man, rising reluctantly.
"Have the mar's come up to be fed yit?"
When Mr. James had seen the sick beast, he was much vexed.
"The best cow on the place, exceptin' the one you claim, Lucy Ann, and
me not able to work with her! Now as soon as you git the milkin' done,
and eat, you go git old man Doggett. Maybe _he_ can do somethin' fer
her."
Not for many weeks had Miss Lucy been allowed at the Doggetts. Mr.
Lindsay kept his trunk there, and came back occasionally. This Miss
Nancy knew, and though she was quite happy in the thought that Mr.
Lindsay, in his anger toward her father, had given up Miss Lucy, she
reasoned that if Miss Lucy were allowed to go to the Doggetts, it were
possible she might sometime see him there, and the spell of his anger
might be broken. So Mr. James, instructed by his youngest daughter, had
ordered Miss Lucy to keep away from the Doggetts.
"People'll be a talkin' about you, Lucy Ann, ef you go there," they had
said, and Miss Lucy meekly accepted their dictum, and staid away.
"I don't know ef there ever was a woman situated like me," she thought
to herself, as she ran down the familiar little path, "fifty years
old--afraid of her folks--afraid to do like she wants to!"
A sob escaped her, a rebellious sob for the hard fate that rendered her
path of love, one so stony.
"Jest look at these here plants, Ann. Ef I do say hit, I've got the
purtiest plant beds in the country, and I've seed all the beds around
whar they are a raisin' hit this year, and went to some purty night'
over the Kentucky River country! Jest let a feller have the weather to
sow his seed in February, and he'll shore have early plants!"
Mr. Doggett, who might have posed for a member of the Grallatores
family, with his bare feet, and ungainly exposure of muddy red leg,
coming into the yard with a great basket of newly pulled tobacco plants,
was astonished to see Miss Lucy hurrying to meet him.
"Why, yes, sir, Miss Lucy," he acquiesced, hastily brushing off a little
of the mud plastering from his lengthy stretch of blue overalls: "I'm
shorely one the busy ones: got up at three this mornin', and won't git
to tech bed 'tel nigh on to ten. Them two days' rain we had has give us
a plantin' season right. Thar's enough wet in the ground fer four days,
and ef we jest do the work, we'll have a fine set.
"A body has a heap to be thankful fer, now don't they? Me and my hands,
we helped Jim a yistiddy and the day afore, and Jim and his hands is
holpin' _me_ today, aimin' to git done by termorrer, so's not to have to
do no Sunday plantin'."
When Mr. Doggett paused for breath, Miss Lucy, who was listening in a
nervous tremor, jerked out her errand. Mr. Doggett's face fell.
"I don't see how I kin jest possible spare the time. I'm a payin' the
hands eighteen cents a hour, and _I'm_ all the one thar is to keep 'em
in plants and time 'em. But I'll jest go anyhow fer a few minutes. A
body ortn't to be selfish, no, sir. I'll jest step over to the field and
take these plants to the boys. You jest tell your Pa I'll come right on.
Maybe I'll git thar time you do, hit's so nigh from the patch. Jest
speak to the old lady thar in the house,--maybe she'll try to hobble up
thar with you."
The cow stood stolid and quiet, when the three reached the barn-yard,
unheeding the attentions of Miss Nancy and her father, who were trying
to persuade her to eat a steaming mash.
"Hain't you no idy what ails her, Mr. Jeemes?" asked Mr. Doggett,
contemplating her heaving sides.
"I dunno," replied Mr. James, "onless she's a runnin' mad. About three
weeks ago a strange dog come through the lot when Lucy Ann was a
milkin', and instid o' rockin' hit,--Lucy Ann, she run and climbed up in
the loft!"
"Pa, I was afraid of hit!" Miss Lucy defended. "Hit was a frothin' at
hit's mouth," she explained to Mr. Doggett.
"When Lucy Ann clumb down," went on the old man, "the dog wuzn't
nowher's in sight, and she couldn't tell whuther the cow wuz bit er
not."
"Well, Mr. Jeemes": Mr. Doggett rubbed his mud-coated hands uncertainly
together, "I dunno what to tell you. She hain't got no holler-horn, ner
hain't down in her back, but I ondoubtedly believe she's in a dangerous
fix."
"S'pose'n you send fer Mr. Brock, Mr. Jeemes," suggested Mrs. Doggett:
"_he'll_ know ef anybody does what to do fer her!"
"That's right, Mr. Jeemes, yes, sir," affirmed Mr. Doggett: "Mr. Brock,
he's got so many hands, he jest oversees. He don't work none
hisse'f,--he don't have to work."
If there was a suspicion of irony in Mr. Doggett's voice, it was veiled
from his hearers by the good-nature that habitually clothed his
utterances.
"Yes, sir, Mr. Brock'll shorely be able to come, ef you send fer him,
and I'll jest git 'long back to the boys!"
"I've got dinner to git," said Mrs. Doggett, as her husband disappeared
in the direction of his barefooted assistants, "and ef thar's one time
when men folks can lay in victuals faster'n another time, hit's at
plantin' season! Stoopin' over sorter stretches their insides I reckon.
And ef I didn't have dinner to git, thar'd be somethin' else to do. Whar
you keep house, thar's always somethin' to do, and that a whole heap of
hit! But I'll jest stay a while any way, and see how she gits."
Miss Nancy was dispatched on old Maude, the fattest of the two fat mares
for Mr. Brock, with strict injunctions to ride slowly.
Though she had only a quarter of a mile to go, it was a full half hour
before she returned with Mr. Brock, walking carefully and with mincing
steps (because of the mud, and the extreme tightness of a new pair of
summer tans), wearing his Sunday gray suit, a white shirt, collar, and
tie, and carrying a gallon bucket full of ripe strawberries.
"I'd have been back sooner," explained Miss Nancy, "but Mr. Brock
wouldn't come until he changed his clothes, and I had to help old Jane
hunt their bottle of cow bitters."
"Hain't them nice!" Mrs. Doggett sniffed Mr. Brock's offering of fruit,
in appreciation. "Miss Lucy, didn't I tell you, Mr. Brock was the nicest
man out?"
"Hit's awful good of you, Mr. Brock, to breng 'em, and awful good of you
to come," Miss Lucy tendered. "Maybe you can do somethin' for Pa's poor
old cow!"
During Miss Nancy's absence, the watchers had gotten the sick beast in
one of the double stalls, the inner of which was separated from the
outer stall by a long pole having one end caught over a hook.
"Lucy Ann, take that bucket, and fill it with water and fetch that brass
kittle in the barn," ordered her father: "that cow ort to be watered."
Miss Lucy drew a bucket of water from the cistern which covered with
loose planks, stood on the upper side of the barn, and carried the water
to the open door of the stall in which the cow stood quiet, with eyes
downcast, and feet spread apart.
"I'll take the water in to her, Miss Lucy," volunteered Mr. Brock,
lifting the kettle. Mr. James objected.
"The cow is used to Lucy, Mr. Brock, and she might show fight to you."
Obedient to her father's wishes, Miss Lucy shrinkingly pushed the kettle
under the dividing pole, and poured the water into it, while Mr. Brock,
with prudent forethought, picked up a thick stick and took a position in
the doorway.
Suddenly the animal, hearing the splash of water, turned and
unexpectedly lunged at the kettle. The dividing pole cracked under her
onslaught. Miss Lucy started back with a scream, and fell violently. Mr.
Brock thrust strongly at the cow as she rushed forward again, and the
creature reeled back on her haunches. Before she could recover herself
for another plunge, he had lifted Miss Lucy over the sill, and together,
Miss Nancy and Mrs. Doggett had slammed the door, and thrust its iron
bar in place.
"Lord!" shuddered Mrs. Doggett, "that wuz a narrer call!"
"Open the gate for me," wheezed the breathless Mr. Brock, staggering
along with his limp burden on whose forehead appeared a little blood,
trickling from a slight cut. "We'd better git her to the house quick!"
Miss Lucy, laid on the sitting-room lounge, presently revived and feebly
murmured her distress at causing so much of trouble.
"Don't you thenk we'd better go back and doctor on the cow, Mr.
Brock--give her them bitters, er somethin'?"
The old man's mind, his anxiety for his daughter relieved, presently
turned again to his barn-yard patient.
"I'm afraid she's about past medicine," Mr. Brock regretted, placidly
seating himself. "If you wish it, though, I'll stay and take a look at
her ever' once and a while, and if there's no change by three o'clock,
and you wish it, I'll send home for my rifle to shoot the poor
creature."
Mrs. Doggett bent reluctant eyes on the clock.
"I'm bound to go," she declared,--"them hungry men--"
"Mrs. Doggett, don't you want some cabbage plants? Pa said we was done
settin' yesterday," proffered Miss Lucy. Miss Nancy scowled.
"You've surely forgot about Miss Maude Floss engagin' some last week,
Lucy," she reminded her. "But maybe she won't take 'em all," she
conciliated.
"Cabbage!" Mrs. Doggett's voice rang out shrilly. "Miss Lucy, don't say
_cabbage_ to me! I hain't raised a stalk o' cabbage sence the summer Jim
and Henrietty married. That year the cabbage snake come a one o' killin'
us all! But hit shore wuz the cause o' Jim and Henrietty a marryin'."
"Was hit?" asked Miss Lucy, innocently, while Mr. Brock smiled at her
over his former parent-in-law's head. Mrs. Doggett resumed her seat.
"Hit wuz one them awful hot days in June, and Henrietty wuz a visitin'
my Hattie that day. Our cabbage wuz jest a comin' in, and late Meriller
cherries wuz turnin'--jest ripe enough to taste good, and we all et a
right smart o' cherries before dinner and we wuz all a talkin' about the
cabbage snake skeer, and about hit a sickenin' people nigh to death when
one got accidentally cooked with the cabbage. Eph, he didn't believe
thar wuz no pizen snake on cabbage, but I wuz sorter oneasy when I put
hit on the table,--the first mess we'd had.
"Jim, he wuz a workin' in Cincinnati that summer. He wanted to see some
new people he said, and he seed enough of 'em.
"'Ma,' he says when he come home, 'them people up thar is so distant a
turn, and so selfish, they never ask you to eat a meal o' victuals; and
they don't have no bread fitten to eat. I hain't ketched sight of a
hoe-cake o' corn bread, ner smelt a biscuit sence I've been gone!'
"I set dinner on the table at twelve, and before the long hand drapped
to two, ever' soul of us but Eph wuz a doublin' up like figur' eights!
Eph, he don't never eat cabbage ner cherries. He het water fer us, and
doctered us up with mustard and red pepper, ontel we all got some
better, then he set off to the still-house to git a little whiskey fer
us.
"While we wuz at our worst, Henrietty she crawled to the table and writ
a letter, and when Eph, he started she give hit to him to mail on the
road. Hit wuz her dyin' farewell to Jim, beggin' him to meet her in
heaven, ef she died!
"Henrietty had been a lovin' Jim a long time, and though she wuz mighty
purty behaved--never runnin' after him ner nothin'--she told Hattie
onct, ef she didn't git to marry Jim, whoever married her would marry
her lovin' another man, and that man Jim Doggett! Jim, he never paid
much 'tention to Henrietty though--never tuck no holt on her. Seemed
like he fancied most any the other girls more, 'tel he got that letter.
Then he come home on the next Sunday excursion, and 'twuzn't no time
'tel they married! My belief is they wouldn't never 'a' married, ef hit
hadn't 'a' been fer the cabbage snake.
"Mr. Castle, he read them Gover'ment disports, and said they wuzn't no
cabbage snake, but I pulled up ever' head and throwed 'em in the creek,
so's not to resk anytheng else gittin' pizened! I'm as bad about
cabbage, as Jim is about a black cat, and he wouldn't have a black cat
to save your life! I hain't raised nary head sence, ner I hain't a goin'
to!"
"Ef that's the way you feel about hit, I wouldn't, Mrs. Doggett," said
Miss Lucy, kindly.
"Did Mr. Doggett git back with the whiskey?" asked Mr. Brock, as Mrs.
Doggett once more arose to go.
"He never got back 'tel midnight," she answered, "and I hain't never
tasted nary drap o' _that_ whiskey yit!"
* * * * *
A hundred times since Mr. Lindsay had been commanded to hold no further
communication with the James household, he had taken a pencil in his
fingers to write to Miss Lucy: a dozen times had walked as far toward
her home, as the great beech that stood by the dividing fence of James
and Castle: more than once he had set his foot on the mossy fence, but
every time, the wounded pride of his sensitive nature, whispering that
she ought to write or contrive to see him if she still loved him, held
his hand and stayed his foot.
But his heart was not obedient to the pride that ruled his hand, and his
foot, and its daily cry refused to be stifled. Mrs. Doggett never failed
to wound him by her hints about Mr. Brock and Miss Lucy, but he could
not deprive himself of the uncertain consolation of hearing from her,
through the Doggetts.
On the evening of this third day of the tobacco setting, Mr. Lindsay,
muddy, tired, and footsore, walked in at the Doggett back door. Mrs.
Doggett, for reasons, could have hugged herself when he appeared. Joey,
while his mother did her after-supper kitchen work, gave a skeleton-like
account of the excitement of the day to the new-comer, but Mrs. Doggett,
when she was free, repeated the tale with embellishments for his
benefit.
"I jest wisht you could 'a' seed that pore old cow, Mr. Lindsay, after
she got to cuttin' up," she narrated gleefully. "After Mr. Brock come,
Miss Lucy, by the old man's directions, ondertuck to water her. I seed
Mr. Brock wuz uneasy, fer he picked up a old hickory hoe handle, and
follered Miss Lucy in the stall. The pore creeter no sooner ketcht sight
o' the water'n she tuck violent. She run at the brass kittle, and mashed
hit flat as a batty-cake, and ef Mr. Brock hadn't kep' her off Miss Lucy
with that stick, she'd 'a' horned her to death!"
"Why didn't Brock water her hisse'f?" demanded Mr. Lindsay, indignantly.
"He did want to: tuck the kittle in his hand to," defended Mrs. Doggett:
"but the old man--he's childish you know--he 'lowed that the cow, bein'
used to Miss Lucy, wouldn't hurt her. Mr. Brock, he gethered up Miss
Lucy when she fell, and got out o' the stable mighty quick, and 'twuz
all me and Miss Nancy could do to git the door shet and barred."
"Wuz Miss Lucy hurt?" Mr. Lindsay was very white.
"Naw, she wuz jest stunned and had a little scratch on the side o' her
forehead whar her head hit the wall. Mr. Brock, he 'peared desp'rit
oneasy about her, though. Kerried her ever' step o' the way to the house
in his arms hisse'f--wouldn't let nobody tech her to help him kerry her!
Watch out, Mr. Lindsay! Ef you don't quit a whittlin' so reckless,
you'll cut your hand!
"Mr. Brock, he saved Miss Lucy's life shore, fer after they got out, the
cow's eyes turned right green, and glared like a tagger's, and she tried
to tear up ever'theng in sight! She tore down the rack, and bit the
trough, and hooked in the ground, and flung the stable dirt plumb to the
j'ist! Then she bawled and bawled the mournfulest you ever heerd!
"I asked Mr. Brock what he thought ailded her, and he said she wuz shore
mad, and all he knowed to do fer her wuz to shoot her and put her out'n
her misery! She wuz a gittin' more furiouser all the time when I left."
"Did Brock leave when you did?" asked Mr. Lindsay.
"No, indeed--he staid to dinner. Miss Nancy and her Pa, they looked like
they wuz mighty pleased to have him! Miss Nancy, she went and killed a
spreng chicken (one them fine black 'Nockers she's so choice of) and
before I left she wuz a puttin' on some macaronian, and she knows how to
cook hit too! I et some up thar onct--the first I ever et--all cooked up
with aigs and cheese, and I thought hit wuz the best stuff I ever et. I
took out twice, and I thenks to myse'f, 'ef I wuz out behind the house,
I'd take all out!'
"When I left, Miss Lucy wuz a layin' on the divan sorter shuck up and
weak, but talkin' to Mr. Brock cheerful. She wuz all over dirt when she
fell, but she put on a purty palish blue kimonian when she come to, and
Mr. Brock, he had on his good clothes, (actually wouldn't come down thar
'tel he put on his good clothes!) He wuz a takin' on about a pan o'
wonderin' Jews she had a hangin' in the winder, and a pale yaller tea
rose she'd got at the warm-house, a bein' so purty, 'as purty as their
owner,' he says."
At this point Mrs. Doggett was so elated with the charm of the picture
that her imagination had painted, that she could not resist giving it an
additional touch.
"And Miss Lucy," she added, "she told him to git the clothes bresh out'n
the press drawer, and bresh off the dust whar he had got hit on him at
the barn, and then he might have one her roses to put in his
button-hole."
Mr. Lindsay's cheeks became a gray-white. "I wouldn't thenk a man'd have
much chance to be a primpin' up and visitin' on a rush time--a terbaccer
settin' season," he remarked icily.
"Yes, sir, Mr. Lindsay, yes, sir,--croppin' and courtin' don't go
together right handy, do they?" Mr. Doggett agreed with Mr. Lindsay.
At this moment, Dock, who had been so consumed with curiosity to know
the fate of the cow, that he had forced his weary feet to walk to the
James house, returned, bringing new information.
"Mr. Brock, he went home long in the evenin' to git Reub's rifle," he
informed his questioners; "and when he come back 'bout an hour ago, he
shot the cow. He's thar now and says fer as many of us as hain't too
tired, to come up and help cut wood to burn the carkis. Says hit'll
spread the mad all over the country ef dogs git any of hit!"
"I plumb hate to not go," remarked Mr. Doggett, rubbing one of his
stiffened lower limbs: "Joey, can't you and Roscoe, and some you young
fellers go and holp Mr. Brock out!"
"Hit looks more like imperdence than anytheng else, fer him to ask
fellers as wore out as you all, to do any more work tonight! The theng
fer you all to do is to go to bed, and let him peel off them Sundays,
and be his own 'hewer o' wood,'" said Gran'dad, unfeelingly. Mr. Lindsay
smiled in the dim light of the small lamp, and gave Gran'dad's lean arm
a pinch of commendation.
"That's right, Gran'dad," he said: "ef Miss Lucy's beau wants to raise
hisse'f in the estimation o' her family, by conductin' a cow-burnin' fer
'em, less don't bother him none; less jest let him have his cow-burnin',
and all the pleasure and honor there is in hit to hisse'f!" And every
tobacco-setter agreed.
On his way to the tobacco field next morning, Dock made it convenient to
go by the way of the Jameses and the funeral pyre, and from him, Miss
Lucy learned that Mr. Lindsay had passed the night at the Doggetts.
Because of this information, she drove even more slowly than usual on
her way to town.
"Perhaps," she thought hopefully, "he'll remember hit's my marketin'
day, and maybe he'll walk to town and overtake me, and ride 'long to
town with me. Hit surely wouldn't be no harm."
She looked from the glass in the back curtain of her buggy. Nobody was
coming along the road toward her, but if her eyes and ears could have
pierced three miles, they would have seen a slender, brown-eyed man,
with a heart sore and full of rancor toward the world, going rapidly in
the opposite direction, and would have heard him saying,--his voice
wistful with the tears his pride would not allow his eyes to shed:
"They've set her ag'in me, I reckon, and hit looks like she's got to
preferrin' Brock to me. Ef she has, she can have him; I won't stand in
her way! But I wouldn't have thought hit of her, no I wouldn't, and
hit's--O Lucy, hit's--hit's good bye to the home I laid out to have!"