A day on a real farm did not have a dull moment in it. It was not only full of incident and instruction but as compared with a generation ago it was different. Immediately a very young calf was noticed that, to use the farmer's unexpected phrase, his mother does not "claim." I supposed he would say that his mother would not "own." The cow was put in a stall, in a barn, the calf being nourished and thus openly adopted by the mother they became effusively chummy. At first the cow "did not care" for the calf. When care began a noticeable regard commenced.
How Much Like Folks
More curious still it seemed to find that in breaking out of a pasture the cattle were led by one member of the herd. The community of cattle would be quiet and contented except for one breaching individual. Here again I went to school to a farmer in the use of words. In his reference to this creature he designated the trouble maker as an "outlaw." I had not thought of applying that word to cattle.
Absence of the Big Stick
I stood still and wondered at the constant and varied use of the voice by a farmer as he moves about among the creatures that he owns. Armed with a whip, like an Irishman with his shillalah at a fair, I supposed he would keep it flourishing about his head and that he would be accompanied by a dog. An owner will not trust his cattle to the care of a man that employs a shepherd dog. Cattle must be kept quiet. A dog wakes them all up and sets back the gain that they would make for the day. Farmers and drovers are whistling, singing, calling, shouting, talking, all the time to their creatures and they like it.
An Outlaw in the Herd
It is everywhere, I suppose, well known that the western spirit has always been less tolerant of an outlaw than the people of the East are. I asked the ranch man what course he took with an outlaw among cattle. "As soon as I detect him I get rid of him, not stopping at anything to do it." On the fourth of July I went out upon the piazza of the hotel, and looking up the street I saw a man, hung in effigy, upon a telephone pole in front of his own store, with his name placarded upon the suspended figure, that it should not be a case of mistaken identity. He had offended the decencies of life. The townspeople waited for a day or two to see if the authorities took it up. There was nothing doing. Then the citizens made public what they thought of the outlaw.
Testing Mighty Principles by Small Experiments
It seems that Schopenhauer had a gold piece which he used to put beside his plate at the table where he ate, surrounded by the young officers of the German army, and which was to be given to the poor, the first time he heard any conversation that was not about promotion or women. If this experiment were tried one's contribution to charity would not be large, provided the subjects were changed in the various well known localities. In the time of the great inflation in Chicago when any one could make his fortune by simply buying building sites and selling out before the ink had dried with which the first transfer was recorded, the subject discussed in hotels and offices would be Corner Lots.
These locations were sold and resold, each time at a large advance on the former price, and became the inexhaustible topic of conversation. Everybody was growing rich on paper and The City of the Lakes was the Mecca of speculators, a genuine Eldorado, where affluence was made easy, and first lessons in finance were given. The original gold coin was staked amid specific well understood surroundings. When environment changes topics change. In one town all the talk is money, money. At a public table in some localities where once it was all horse talk, in one corner of the dining room, the interchange of mind is on the speed of automobiles, the improvement made in cars since two years ago, the amount of gasoline to the mile, and the comparative excellence of the different manufactures.