That morning my master stopped first at a farmhouse where everything betokened plenty, but not thrift. A man was slopping hogs. The latter were in a small inclosure, wading in mud almost up to their bodies. How hungry they seemed, and how vigorously he dealt blows right and left, with a club he carried!
The low troughs were one-third full of mud, and into these he poured the swill.
"Dear me," I thought, "they can never eat it," but they did; that is, some of them. A few of the weaker ones were crowded back and got nothing.
Often in passing that place in winter, I have noticed that in feeding cattle, the fodder was thrown on the ground to be pawed over, stamped in, and the greater part of it wasted. The cattle here were thin-looking in the spring, with apparently no ambition but to find a tree or rail against which to rub. I was not surprised when I heard that that man had mortgaged his farm.
Toward noon of the day first mentioned we drove into a farmyard where a boy unhitched me and turned me into a nice pasture. There were several horses and cows beside. One of the latter ran ceaselessly from side to side of the inclosure, calling piteously. No need to inquire her trouble; one look into her dark, pleading eyes and any one could recognize a sorrowing mother. One of the horses told me that it had been just that way for almost a week; that day and night it was the same. Said he: "She has not eaten a mouthful since her little one disappeared. You see they let it run with her until it was seven or eight weeks old. She was so proud of it; and an uncommonly cunning calf it was. They were always together; but one day some men came and drove it away and she has been almost crazy ever since."
Just then the poor animal passed near us in the endless circuit, and such a look of agony and entreaty as she wore! Presently a man came to the bars; straight she rushed toward him, bellowing piteously. Of course, he passed indifferently by, and then, turning, she walked to a little clump of trees.
"See!" said my companion; "she will stop under that oak at this corner; there is where she used often to lie with the calf." And sure enough she paused there, smelling the ground over and calling in a low tone; then down on her knees she went, laying the side of her face against the sod and moaning and crying as any human mother would. Oh, it was pitiful, pitiful!
"One has to stand a good deal like that in this world," the big roan said, turning his face away, "and yet people think we dumb creatures have no feeling. I wish we hadn't. A while ago, the family let another cow and calf run together in the same way, and then butchered the little creature right before its mother's eyes. She has never been the same since; doesn't eat, and her milk isn't good. Poisoned with the grief and fretting, but the folks don't understand."
Another day I was grazing in the pasture of one of Master's patients, when I noticed a cow standing in the shade of a tree contentedly chewing her cud.
"A happy looking creature," I remarked to the old family horse, who was quietly grazing away his days.