From "PECK'S BOSS BOOK," p. 42. Copyright, 1900, by W. B.
Conkey Co.
A man came into the "Sun" office on Tuesday with a black eye, a strip
of court plaster across his cheek, one arm in a sling, and as he
leaned on a crutch and wiped the perspiration away from around a lump
on his forehead, with a red cotton handkerchief, he asked if the
editor was in. We noticed that there was quite a healthy smell of
stock-yards about the visitor, but thinking that in his crippled
condition we could probably whip him, if worst came to worst, we
admitted that we were in.
"Well, I want to stop my paper," said he, as he sat down on one edge
of a chair, as though it might hurt. "Scratch my name right off. You
are responsible for my condition."
Thinking the man might have been taking our advice to deaf men, to
always walk on a railroad track if they could find one, we were
preparing to scratch him off without any argument, believing that he
was a man who knew when he had enough, when he spoke up as follows:
"The amount of it is this. I live out in Jefferson county, and I come
in on the new Northwestern road, just to get recreation. I am a
farmer, and keep cows. I recently read an article in your paper about
a dairymen's convention, where one of the mottoes over the door was,
'Treat your cow as you would a lady,' and the article said it was
contended by our best dairymen that a cow, treated in a polite,
gentlemanly manner, as though she was a companion, would give twice as
much milk. The plan seemed feasible to me. I had been a hard man with
stock, and thought maybe that was one reason my cows always dried up
when butter was forty cents a pound, and gave plenty of milk when
butter was only worth fifteen cents a pound. I decided to adopt your
plan, and treat a cow as I would a lady. I had a brindle cow that
never had been very much mashed on me, and I decided to commence on
her, and the next morning after I read your devilish paper, I put on
my Sunday suit and a white plug hat that I bought the year Greeley ran
for President, and went to the barn to milk. I noticed the old cow
seemed to be bashful and frightened, but taking off my hat and bowing
politely, I said, 'Madame, excuse the seeming impropriety of the
request, but will you do me the favor to hoist?' At the same time I
tapped her gently on the flank with my plug hat, and putting the tin
pail on the floor under her, I sat down on the milking stool."
"Did she hoist?" said we, rather anxious to know how the advice of
President Smith, of Sheboygan, the great dairyman, had worked.
"Did she hoist? Well, look at me, and see if you think she hoisted.
Say, I tell you now in confidence, and I don't want it repeated, but
that cow raised right up and kicked me with all four feet, switched me
with her tail, and hooked me with both horns, all at once; and when I
got up out of the bedding in the stall, and dug my hat out of the
manger, and the milking-stool out from under me, and began to maul
that cow, I forgot all about the proper treatment of horned cattle.
Why, she fairly galloped over me, and I never want to read your old
paper again."
We tried to explain to him that the advice did not apply to brindle
cows at all, but he hobbled out, the maddest man that ever asked a cow
to hoist in diplomatic language.