But in the whole course of my numerous mistakes and blunders, whether ludicrous, serious, or embarrassing, I believe I have never mistaken a cow for a human being, as was done by old Dr. E——. It was many years ago, when Boston Common was still used as a pasture, and cows were daily to be met in the crooked streets of the city, that this gentleman, distinguished for the courtesy and old-school politeness of his manner, no less than for his extreme near-sightedness, was walking at a brisk pace, one winter's day, and saw, just before him, a lady, as he thought, richly dressed in furs. As he was passing her, he thought he perceived that her fur boa or tippet had escaped from her neck, and, carefully lifting the end of it with one hand, he made a low bow, raising his hat with the other, and said in his blandest tone, "Madam, you are losing your tippet!" And what thanks did the worthy Doctor receive, do you think, for this truly kind and polite deed? Why, the lady merely turned her head, gave him a wondering stare with her large eyes, and said, "Moo-o-o-o!"
As an offset to this instance of courtesy and good-breeding lavished on a cow, let me give you, as a parting bon-bouche, another cow anecdote, where, as you will see, there was no gentle politeness wasted.
The Rev. Dr. H—— was an eccentric old man, near-sighted of course,—all eccentric people are,—who lived in a small country town in this neighborhood. Numerous are the traditionary accounts of his peculiarities,—of his odd manners and customs,—which I have heard; but it is only of one little incident that I am now going to speak. A favorite employment of this good man was the care of his garden, and he might be seen any pleasant afternoon in summer, rigged out in a hideous yellow calico robe, or blouse, with a dusty old black straw hat stuck on the back of his head, hoeing and digging in that beloved patch of ground. One day as he was thus occupied, his wife emerged from the house, dressed in a dark brown gingham, and bearing in her hand some "muslins," which she began to spread upon the gooseberry-bushes to whiten. She was very busily engaged, so that she was not aware that her husband was approaching her with a large stick, until she felt a smart blow across her shoulders, and heard his peculiar, sharp voice shouting in her ears, "Go 'long! old cow! Go 'long! old cow!"
[FLOWERS FROM A STUDENT'S WALKS.]
As the animal dies of inanition if fed on but one kind of food, however congenial, yet lives if he has all in succession, so is it with complex man.
Learn retrenchment from the starving oyster, who spends his last energies in a new pearly layer suited to his shrunken form.
As animals which have no organs of special sense know not light or sound as we do, yet shrink from a hand or candle because their whole bodies are dimly conscious, thus we have a glimmering perception of infinite truths and existences which we cannot grasp or fully know because our minds have no special organs for them.
The prick in the butterfly's wing will be in the full-grown insect a great blemish. The speck in thy child's nature, if fondly overlooked now, will become a wide rent traversing all his virtues.