Moo Cow Tales.
Moo Cow Tales.
Cow in bushes
drop-cap
There was once a little calf who was always unhappy. He had a dear mother and two nice little white cousins, with brown ears, and a beautiful fieldto live in, quite full of buttercups and daisies, and cow-parsley, which little calves mustn’t eat because it makes them ill, and yet he wasn’t happy. It was really because all the other cows and calves could not understand him. And this was why: this little calf loved everything that was red, and, of course, you know that cows and bulls generally hate red things.
Now the field next to the cows’ field was a cornfield, and among the corn there were a great many scarlet poppies. The little calf thought that he had never seen anything so beautiful as these red flowers, and he alwayslonged to get into the cornfield and kiss the poppies and tell them how much he loved them. All day long he used to stand with his little face pressed against the hedge, looking into the cornfield, and when the farmer’s boy brought a bucket of food for the little calves, this little calf let his cousins eat it all up and stood gazing at his darling poppies.
One day he found a gap in the hedge, just big enough for a little calf to squeeze through, and in a twinkling he was through the hole and among his dear flowers. He rolled about in the corn and kissed the poppies and said: “Dear little bright flowers,I wish you would come into my field and live there with me,” but the flowers did not speak to him. Then he got up and wandered all over the field, talking to all the poppies, until at last he stopped before the largest and reddest poppy of all.
“How beautiful you are!” he said. “Can’t you speak to me?” and the tears came into his brown eyes because none of the poppies seemed to love him.
“Yes,” said the poppy, “I can speak to you. What do you want me to say, and why are you crying? Be careful not to drop your tears on me, because they are warm and would wither my petals.”
“I only wanted to tell you that I love you and want you to come and live with me in my field,” said the little bull-calf.
Cow in field
“Is it a nice field?” said the poppy.
“Yes,” he said, “it’s a beautiful field—full of buttercups anddaisies, and Mother lives there, and my cousins, and all Mother’s friends.”
“I don’t like buttercups and daisies and all your Mother’s friends,” said the poppy, “you must go away, little calf. And look!” she suddenly screamed, “you have trodden down all our dear friends, the corn-ears. Be off with you, at once, you wicked,wickedcreature!” and she waved her leaves and shook so much with anger that the little calf was quite frightened and stumbled through the corn to his old hedge. But just as he was going to get through the hole he heard a gentle little voice at his feet, and lookingdown, saw another poppy. She was smaller than the other poppies, but she looked at him with her beautiful black eye and said, “Dear little calf, I have watched you looking through the hedge every day, and I love you and will come and live in your field. Take me gently in your mouth and pull me up.”
But just as he was going to do it the poppy cried out: “Quick, little calf, quick! I hear the farmer’s footsteps. If he finds you here he will beat you. You must go back without me.” And the little calf scrambled back through the hole in the hedge just as the farmer came up. Ofcourse the farmer was terribly angry when he saw all his corn trampled down, and he sent some men to fill up the hole in the hedge at once, so that our little calf couldn’t get his dear poppy.
Now time went on and our little calf began to grow up, and he did all sorts of dreadful things, because he still loved everything that was red. He chased an old lady all down the lane because she was wearing a red shawl and he wanted to rub his head against it.
Cow following old woman
He ate up the paint-rag belonging to a man, who came to paint the cows in the cornfield, because it was covered with redpaint. I don’t know why it was covered with bright red, because cows are not bright red, or buttercups and daisies either, are they? But still it was. And one day he even went into the farmer’s wife’s red sitting-room and sat on the floor with his head among the scarlet cushions on the sofa. After this everyone thought he must be mad, and the farmer’s sons called him “the crazy bull-calf.”
But all this time he never once forgot his dear poppy, and every evening he went down to the hole in the hedge and talked through it to her, until the autumn came and she went to seed. Butwhen the next summer came, and he was almost a full-grown bull, he went down to his hole in the hedge, and there in his own field was a little red poppy, and he knew at once that it had grown up from one of the seeds of his own poppy, which the kind wind had carried and dropped in the cow-field. So all the summer he talked to his poppy and loved her, and she loved him and they were very happy. But when the autumn came the poppy knew she must die, and they were both very sad.
One day, when the young bull was lying down watching his dear poppy’s petals beginningto shrivel, and as he was trying to shield her from the sun, the Green Witch of the Fields came along. She stopped when she saw the two friends and the tears came into her eyes, because she was sorry for them. But she quickly dashed her tears away, because if a green witch ever drops her tears she loses all her power and becomes a sort of green stuff, which the wind carries away and drops on to the ponds. You must often have seen it there. Perhaps your nurse told you it was duckweed, but now you will know better, won’t you? And you must never try to walk on it because, yousee, the witches have lost their power and cannot hold you up. Well, when the witch found that the two friends could nearly make her cry she was very frightened, and she said to herself: “I must do something for the poppy so that she can always be with her friend, because if I pass by when the poppy is dead, I shall certainly drop my tears, and that would never do.”
Cow and fairy
So she waved her green wand over the poppy and changed her into a little red fairy.
“Now,” she said, “you can live for ever with your friend. Goodbye, dear children,” and she slipped away on the wings of the wind.
So now the bull had his poppy fairy always with him, and in the summer she rode upon his horns, and in the cold weather she sat inside his ear, just where the velvety soft hairs are. And in all the world there is not a more merry beautiful fairy than she, or a happier bull than he.