THE OFF SIDE OF THE COW
Old Wendell Hopkins’ hired man is an absent-
minded chap,
He’ll start for a chair, and like as not set down
in some one’s lap.
I happened along where he stopped to bait his
hosses the other day,
—He’d given the hosses his luncheon pail and
was trying to eat their hay,
—A kind of a blame fool sort of a trick for even
a hired man,
But he tackled a different kind of a snag when
he fooled with Matilda Ann,
—When he fooled with Matilda Ann, by jinks,
he got it square in the neck,
And the doctors say, though live he may, he’s a
total human wreck.
He’s wrapped in batting and thinking now
Of the grief in insulting a brindle cow.
Matilda Ann gives down her milk and she
doesn’t switch her tail;
She gives ten quarts—week in, week out, and
she never kicks the pail.
She doesn’t hook and she doesn’t jump, but even
Matilda Ann
Ain’t called to stand all sorts of grief from a
dern fool hired man.
And when he stubbed to the milking-shed in
sort of a dream and tried
To make Matilda “So” and “Whoa” while he
milked on the wrong, off side,
She giv’ him a look to wilt his soul and pugged
him once with her hoof,
And I guess that at last his wits were jogged as
he slammed through the lintel roof.
He’s got a poultice on his brow
Of the size of the foot of a brindle cow.
Now study the ways of the world, my son; oh,
study the ways of life!
It’s the hustling chap that gets the cash, or the
girl he wants for a wife;
It’s the feller that spots the place to grab, when
Chance goes swinging by,
Who gets his dab in the juiciest place and the
biggest plum in the pie;
There’s always a chance to milk the world—
there’s a teat, a pail, and a stool;
There’s a place for the chap with sense and grip,
but a dangerous holt for a fool.
For while the feller that’s up to snuff drums a
merry tune in his pail,
The fool sneaks up on the left-hand side and
lands in the grave or in jail.
—It’s an awkard place, as you’ll allow,
The off-hand side of the world or a cow.