_JUDGE TWIDDLER'S COW_.
For several months previous to last summer Judge Twiddler's family
obtained milk from Mr. Biles, the most prominent milk-dealer in the
village. The prevailing impression among the Twiddlers was that Mr.
Biles supplied an exceedingly thin and watery fluid; and one day when
the judge stepped over to pay his quarterly bill he determined to make
complaint. He found Mr. Biles in the yard mending the valve of his
pump; and when the judge made a jocular remark to the effect that the
dairy must be in a bad way when the pump was out of order, Mr. Biles,
rising with his hammer in his hand, said,
"Oh, I ain't going to deny that we water the milk. I don't mind the
joking about it. But all I say is that when people say we do it from
mercenary motives they slander the profession. No, sir; when I put
water in the milk, I do it out of kindness for the people who drink
it. I do it because I'm philanthropic--because I'm sensitive and can't
bear to see folks suffer. Now, s'pos'n a cow is bilious or something,
and it makes her milk unwholesome. I give it a dash or two of water,
and up it comes to the usual level. Water's the only thing that'll do
it. Or s'pos'n that cow eats a pison vine in the woods; am I going to
let my innocent customers be killed by it for the sake of saving a
little labor at the pump? No, sir; I slush in a few quarts of water,
neutralize the pison, and there she is as right as a trivet.
"But you take the best milk that ever was, and it ain't fit for the
human stomach as it comes from the cow. It has too much caseine in it.
Prof. Huxley says that millions of poor ignorant men and women are
murdered every year by loading down weak stomachs with caseine. It
sucks up the gastric juice, he says, and gets daubed all around over
the membranes until the pores are choked, and then the first thing you
know the man suddenly curls all up and dies. He says that out yer in
Asia, where the milkmen are not as conscientious as we are, there are
whole cemeteries chock full of people that have died of caseine, and
that before long all that country will be one vast burying-ground if
they don't ameliorate the milk. When I think of the responsibility
resting on me, is it singular that I look at this old pump and wonder
that people don't come and silver plate it and put my statue on it? I
tell you, sir, that that humble pump with the cast-iron handle is the
only thing that stands betwixt you and sudden death.
"And besides that, you know how kinder flat raw milk tastes--kinder
insipid and mean. Now, Prof. Huxley, he says that there is only one
thing that will vivify milk and make it luxurious to the palate, and
that is water. Give it a few jerks under the pump, and out it comes
sparkling and delicious, like nectar. I dunno how it is, but Prof.
Huxley says that it undergoes some kinder chemical change that nothing
else'll bring about but a flavoring of fine old pump-water. You know
the doctors all water the milk for babies. They know mighty well if
they didn't those young ones'd shrink all up and sorter fade away.
Nature is the best judge. What makes cows drink so much water?
Instinct, sir--instinct. Something whispers to 'em that if they don't
sluice in a little water that caseine'd make 'em giddy and eat 'em up.
Now, what's the odds whether I put in the water or the cow does? She's
only a poor brute beast, and might often drink too little; but when I
go at it, I bring the mighty human intellect to bear on the subject;
I am guided by reason, and I can water that milk so's it'll have the
greatest possible effect.
"Now, there's chalk. I know some people have an idea that it's wrong
to fix up your milk with chalk. But that's only mere blind bigotry.
What is chalk? A substance provided by beneficent nature for healing
the ills of the human body. A cow don't eat chalk because it's not
needed by her. Poor uneducated animal! she can't grasp these higher
problems, and she goes on nibbling sour-grass and other things, and
filling her milk with acid, which destroys human membranes and induces
colic. Then science comes to the rescue. Professor Huxley tells us
that chalk cures acidity. Consequently, I get some chalk, stir it in
my cans and save the membranes of my customers without charging them a
cent for it--actually give it away; and yet they talk about us milkmen
'sif we were buccaneers and enemies of the race.
"But I don't care. My conscience is clear. I know mighty well that I
have a high and holy mission to perform, and I'm going to perform it
if they burn me at the stake. What do I care how much this pump costs
me if it spreads blessings through the community? What difference does
it make to a man of honor like me if chalk is six cents a pound so
long as I know that without it there wouldn't be a membrane in this
community? Now, look at the thing in the right light, and you'll
believe me that before another century rolls around a grateful
universe will worship the memory of the first milkman who ever had a
pump and who doctored his milk with chalk. It will, unless justice is
never to have her own."
Then Mr. Biles rigged the sucker in the pump, toned up a few cans of
milk, corrected the acidity, and went into the house to receipt the
judge's bill.
Mr. Biles' theory interested the judge, but the argument did not
convince him. And so the judge resolved to buy a cow and obtain pure
milk, without regard for the alleged views of Professor Huxley.
Accordingly, he purchased a cow of a man named Smith, who lives over
at the Rising Sun. She was warranted to be fresh and a first-rate
milker. When Judge Twiddler got her home, he asked his hired man,
Mooney, if he knew how to milk a cow, and Mooney said of course he
did. The animal, therefore, was consigned to Mooney's care. On the
next day, however, Mooney came into the house to see the judge, and he
said,
"Judge, that man cheated you in that cow. Why, she's the awfullest old
beast that ever stood on four legs Dry as punk; hasn't got a drop of
milk in her. That's a positive fact. I've been trying to milk her for
three or four hours, and can't get a drop. Might as well attempt to
milk a clothes-horse. Regular fraud!"
"This is very extraordinary," exclaimed the judge.
"Yes, sir; and she's wicked. I never saw such a disposition in a cow.
Why, while I was working with her she kicked like a flint-lock musket;
butted and rared around. I'd rather fool with a tiger than with a cow
like that."
So the judge drove over to the Rising Sun to see Smith about it; and
when he complained that Smith had sold him a worthless and vicious
beast, and a dry cow at that, Smith said there must be some mistake
about it. He agreed to go back with the judge and investigate the
matter. When they reached the judge's stable, Mooney was not about,
but Smith descended from the wagon, approached the cow, and, to
the astonishment of the judge, milked her without the slightest
difficulty, the cow meantime remaining perfectly quiet, and even
breaking out now and then into what the judge thought looked like
smiles of satisfaction. And then the judge went out to hunt up his
hired man. He said to him,
"Mooney, what did you mean by telling me that our cow was dry and
ugly? You said you couldn't milk her, but Mr. Smith does so without
any difficulty, and the cow remains perfectly passive."
"I'd like to see him do it," said Mooney, incredulously.
Then Smith sat down and proceeded to perform the operation again. When
he began, Mooney exclaimed,
"Why, my gracious! that isn't the way you milk a cow, is it?"
"Of course it is," replied Smith. "How else would you do it?"
"Well, well! and that's the way _you_ milk, is it? I see now I didn't
go about it exactly right. Why, you know, I never had much experience
at the business; I was brought up in town, and, be George, when I
tackled her, I threw her over on her back and tried to milk her with a
clothes-pin. I see now I was wrong. We live and learn, don't we?"
[Illustration: THE JUDGE'S COW]
So Smith went home, and the cow remained, and the judge's man waxes
stronger in experience with the mysteries of existence daily.
But the cow was not a perfect animal, after all. Among other things,
Smith assured the judge that she had a splendid appetite. He said that
she was the easiest cow with her feed that he ever saw; she would eat
almost anything, and she was generally hungry.
At the end of the first week after she came, Mrs. Twiddler concluded
to churn. The hired man spent the whole day at the crank, and about
sunset the butter came. They got it out, and found that there was
almost half a pound. Then Mrs. Twiddler began to see how economical
it was to make her own butter. A half pound at the store cost thirty
cents. The wages of that man for one day were one dollar, and so the
butter was costing about three dollars a pound, without counting the
keep of the cow. When they tried the butter, it was so poor that they
couldn't eat it, and they gave it to the man to grease the wheelbarrow
with. It seemed somewhat luxurious and princely to maintain a cow
for the purpose of supplying grease at three dollars a pound for the
wheelbarrow, but it was hard to see precisely where the profits came
in. After about a fortnight the cow seemed so unhappy in the stable
that the judge turned her out in the yard.
The first night she was loose she upset the grape-arbor with her horns
and ate four young peach trees and a dwarf pear tree down to the
roots. The next day they gave her as much hay as she would eat, and
it seemed likely that her appetite was appeased. But an hour or two
afterward she swallowed six croquet-balls that were lying upon the
grass, and ate half a table-cloth and a pair of drawers from the
clothes-line. That evening her milk seemed thin, and the judge
attributed it to the indigestibility of the table-cloth.
During the night she must have got to walking in her sleep, for
she climbed over the fence; and when she was discovered, she was
swallowing one of Mrs. Twiddler's hoopskirts. That evening she ran dry
and didn't give any milk at all. The judge thought the exercise she
had taken must have been too severe, and probably the hoopskirt was
not sufficiently nutritious. It was comforting, however, to reflect
that she was less expensive, from the latter point of view, when she
was dry than when she was fresh. Next morning she ate the spout off
the watering-pot, and then put her head in the kitchen window and
devoured two dinner-plates and the cream-jug. Then she went out and
lay down on the strawberry-bed to think. While there something about
Judge Twiddler's boy seemed to exasperate her; and when he came over
into the yard after his ball, she inserted her horns into his trowsers
and flung him across the fence. Then she went to the stable and ate a
litter of pups and three feet of the trace-chain.
The judge felt certain that her former owner didn't deceive him when
he said her appetite was good. She had hunger enough for a drove of
cattle and a couple of flocks of sheep. That day the judge went after
the butcher to get him to buy her. When he returned with him, she had
just eaten the monkey-wrench and the screw-driver, and she was trying
to put away a fence-paling. The butcher said she was a fair-enough
sort of cow, but she was too thin. He said he would buy her if the
judge would feed her up and fatten her; and the judge said he would
try. He gave her that night food enough for four cows, and she
consumed it as if she had been upon half rations for a month. When she
finished, she got up, reached for the hired man's straw hat, ate it,
and then, bolting out into the garden, she put away the honeysuckle
vine and a coil of India-rubber hose. The man said that if it was his
cow he would kill her; and the judge told him that he had perhaps
better just knock her on the head in the morning.
During the night she had another attack of somnambulism, and while
wandering about she ate the door-mat from the front porch, bit off
all the fancy-work on top of the cast-iron gate, swallowed six loose
bricks that were piled up against the house, and then had a fit among
the rose bushes. When the judge came down in the morning, she seemed
to be breathing her last, but she had strength enough left to seize a
newspaper that the judge held in his hand; and when that was down,
she gave three or four kicks and rolled over and expired. It cost the
judge three dollars to have the carcase removed. Since then he has
bought his butter and milk and given up all kinds of live-stock.