All the essential points in this story were taken from the story of a four-year-old’s about a horse. He enjoyed the nonsense in telling it. Some of the four-year-old groups have appreciated the humor; some five-year-olds have not. Instead they have seemed confused.
WONDERFUL-COW-THAT-NEVER-WAS!
Once there was a wonderful cow,—only she never was! She always had been wonderful, ever since she was a baby calf. Her mother noticed it at once. She was born out in the pasture one sunny morning in June. As soon as she was born, she got up on her long, thin legs. She wobbled quite a little for she wasn’t very strong. Then she went over to her mother and put her nose down to her mother’s bag and took a drink of milk. This is what all the old cow’s babies had always done so the old cow thought nothing of that. But when this wonderful last baby calf had drunk its breakfast, what do you suppose it did? It stood on its head! Now the old cow had never seen anything like this. It was most surprising! It frightened her. She called to it:
“Oh, my baby, baby calf,
Your mother kindly begs,
Please, please get off your head
And stand upon your legs!”
But the baby calf only mooed. And it smiled when it mooed which the old cow thought queer too. None of her other babies had smiled. Then the calf said:
“I’m a wonderful calf,
And it makes me laugh
Such wonderful things can I do!
I stand on my head
Whenever I’m fed,
And smile whenever I moo,
I do,
I smile whenever I moo!”
“Dear me!” thought the old mother cow. “I never saw or heard anything like this!”
But this was only the beginning. The baby calf kept on doing strange and wonderful things till at last everyone called her Wonderful-calf-that-never-was! And many people used to come to see her stand on her head whenever she was fed. She did other queer things too! Once she pulled off the ear of another calf! And all she said was: “Poor little calf! You mustn’t go in the pasture where there are other calves!” But the little calf who had lost its ear said, “Yes, I must!” But after that Wonderful-calf-that-never-was was kept in the barn for a long time.