“She has got nice teats, and milks easy, at any rate,” said Mrs. Bell.
The Kicking Cow. Page [233].
The words were scarcely out of her mouth when the cow gave the pail a kick so vicious as to send it spinning over the floor, spattering her with milk.
“It is because she is in a strange place, and is afraid of a stranger,” said Mrs. Bell; and, holding the pail in one hand, she continued to milk with the other. The cow began to kick, first with one leg and then the other, without an instant’s intermission, so that to milk was impossible.
Charlie, who was in the barn-yard, milking the other cows, now came to the rescue. “I never saw a cow I couldn’t milk,” he said; and taking up one of her fore legs, fastened it to the rack with a rope. “Kick now, if you can.” Placing the pail on the floor, he began to milk with both hands; but the vicious brute, springing from the floor, fell over upon him, spilling the milk, breaking the bail of the pail, upsetting Charlie’s milking-stool, and leaving him at full length on the floor, in not the most amiable mood (for his wife could not refrain from laughing). He beat her to make her get up, but she was sullen, and get up she wouldn’t. He twisted her tail, but she wouldn’t start. He then, with both hands, closed her mouth and nostrils, strangling her till she was glad to jump up. Thinking she had got enough of it, he began again to milk, when away went the pail into the manger, and the milk into Charlie’s face. Provoked now beyond endurance, he beat her till she roared; but the moment he touched her teats, she began to kick as bad as ever. In short, all the way he could milk her at all was to fasten her to the stake next the side of the barn, build a fence on the other side, so that she couldn’t run around either way, then tie her hind legs together, milk her till she threw herself down, and then finish the operation as she lay.
While all this was going on, the dog kept up a furious barking.
“What is that dog barking about, Mary?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. Perhaps there’s a skunk or a woodchuck under the barn.”