When Life Was Young: At the Old Farm in Maine

by C. A. Stephens

Thomas thought we could lead or hold a heifer as small as this one, even if she was frightened. With the assistance of the farmer and his son, we adjusted the halter, gave the heifer nubbins of corn, coaxed her out upon the highway, and set off.

It soon became evident, however, that she was very timid. At every unusual object along the road her head was raised high, and it was only by much coaxing that we made any progress. Moreover, her fears appeared to increase with every onward step. Presently we met a dog, and for five minutes the heifer careered wildly on both sides of the road. The dog behaved very well, however, and made a wide detour to pass us.

A horse and buggy and a loaded wagon each made trouble for us. The driver of the team said, "You've got one of those wild Jerseys there; I'd sooner try to lead a deer!"

Thomas and I had found already that, small as she was, both of us could hardly hold her; she had a manner of bounding high with such suddenness that we had no chance to brace our feet. By this time she was inspecting everything by the roadside and far ahead, and an hour was spent in going half a mile.

Suddenly her head went up higher than ever. She had discerned what we had not yet seen, two girls coming on foot a quarter of a mile away. Not another inch could we make her budge, either by pulling or switching. Her eyes were fixed on those girls, and it was plain there would be trouble when they came nearer. Thomas bethought himself to blind her, however, and, taking off his jacket, wrapped it about her head and horns, while I took the precaution to pass the end of the halter around a post of the wayside fence.

Thus prepared, we stood waiting the approach of the girls, and if they had gone by quietly, our precautions would have sufficed; but they were greatly amused by the spectacle of our hooded heifer, and one of them laughed outright. At the sound of her voice our Jersey went into the air, broke the halter rope, and leaping blindly against the rail fence beside which we were holding her, knocked down a length of it and ran off across the field on the other side, with Thomas's jacket and the head-stall of the halter still on her head. We gave chase, but the heifer shook off the jacket and ran for a cedar swamp seven or eight hundred yards distant.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon in that swamp, engaged in efforts to approach near enough to the animal to seize and secure her. By this time all her wilder instincts appeared to have revived. She fled from one end of the swamp to the other, seeking the densest thickets of cedar and alder, where she would lie up, still as a mouse, till we found her; then she would make a break and run to another quarter of the swamp.

Hungry and tired out, I now earnestly desired to go home; but my resolute new acquaintance declared that they would all laugh at us if we returned without the heifer.

At length, we went back to Gurney's farm, just at dusk, spent the night there and in the morning proceeded to the cedar swamp again and resumed the hunt, the farmer and his son Oscar accompanying us out of compassion for our ill success.

An hour's search convinced us that the heifer had left the cedar thickets; and she was at last discovered in a pasture half a mile away, in company with six other young cattle to which she had joined herself during the night in spite of three intervening fences.