In
the twelve months of her sojourn with us she had fifteen different
kinds of disease, every one of which advertised itself by the
stopping of her milk, When she had none, she never once gave down
the milk without grudging it. With three of us to hold her legs
and tail lest she step in the pail or switch our ears, she would
reach back and eat the vest off my back where I sat milking her.
But she does not belong in this story, thank goodness! If she had
never belonged to me or mine, I should be a better man to-day; she
provoked me so. However, I cannot reasonably lay the blame for her
on the doctor. His cow was friendly enough. It was Sport, the old
dog, that made the heaviest and at the same time a most ludicrous
item in my duties as hired man. Long past the age of sport of any
kind, he spent his decadent years in a state of abject fear of
thunder and lightning. If only a cloud darkened the sun, Sport kept
up a ceaseless pilgrimage between his corner and the kitchen door
to observe the sky, sighing most grievously at the outlook. At
the first distant rumble--this was in the month of May, when it
thundered almost every day--he became perfectly rigid with terror.
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