The builder of sleds had an excellent article of his own employed in his collateral enterprises. One day the customer whose old sled was now in the last stages of dilapidation, saw the mechanic on his way to town and came to an instant decision. He drove to the latter’s home, changed his horses to the mechanic’s sled and proceeded about his business. When he saw the owner he told him he could have his property back when he had finished the job promised weeks before. The mechanic grinned appreciatively, and in a very short time the contract was completed.
CHAPTER VI
Domestic Animals and Their Part in Legendary Humor
One of the strongest potential arguments in favor of the so-called “back to the farm” movement, is seldom appreciated by city dwellers, viz., the opportunity thus afforded for companionship with the domestic animals.
To the average person there are horses, cattle, dogs and cats; but those, especially farm people, who are in intimate daily contact with these animals, realize that every horse, cow, dog and cat has a separate individuality. Children brought up in such associations soon recognize all these distinctive traits and thereby acquire a much more broad understanding of the general manifestations of nature than is possible to the children brought up to look upon such animals with contempt, if not with dread.
People of average attainments in business, or socially, seldom appreciate how much contact with domestic animals has to do with the development of practical common sense and self-reliance among those who have been fortunate enough to spend their early days in an agricultural environment.
On every farm of any importance, the daily routine must to a certain degree take into account the varying individual traits and capacities of the farm animals. The boy who has grown up in these surroundings and who has been taught to restrain his impatience, to exercise forbearance and to help induce the sense of felicity and general comfort among the domestic animals on a farm, which is essential to their well-being, has incidentally laid the foundations for the development of that good judgment which usually determines the difference between success and failure.
The Story of a Wandering Sheep
The sheep is generally regarded as a very uninteresting animal, but occasionally there is an exception.
A man who had a small farm, stocked mostly with cattle, had a few sheep which he kept in a small pasture by themselves. Among this flock was a young masculine who had gradually acquired the opinion that he was an unusually brilliant and promising sheep. In order to exhibit the good opinion he had of himself he developed a pugnacious tendency and a disposition to wander about. Escaping from the pasture, he was reported one day as being a trespasser on the farm of a near neighbor.
The following evening the owner of the young sheep proceeded to the neighbor’s farm to reclaim the wanderer and put him back where he belonged. It had been a showery day and everything was saturated with rain. Approaching the farmyard where the strayed sheep was reported to be, the owner saw the wife of the farmer engaged in milking a cow. Incidentally, he saw the sheep on the other side of the cow from the matron. And almost immediately he saw other developments. The sheep had been regarded with strong disfavor by the strange cows with which he was surrounded and with a spirit of resentment he suddenly started head down at the cow being milked. Although the lady who was busily engaged in the milking process was totally unconscious of what was happening, it was not so with the cow. Just at the psychological moment, the cow sprang forward and the sheep came in violent contact with the lady and the milk pail. The impact was so great that the woman was thrown over backward in the soft mud of the barnyard, the contents of the pail being liberally distributed about her robust person.