The domestic cow is another animal whose ways I have a chance to study, and also to obliterate in the garden.  One of my neighbors has a cow, but no land; and he seems desirous to pasture her on the surface of the land of other people:  a very reasonable desire.  The man proposed that he should be allowed to cut the grass from my grounds for his cow.  I knew the cow, having often had her in my garden; knew her gait and the size of her feet, which struck me as a little large for the size of the body.  Having no cow myself, but acquaintance with my neighbor’s, I told him that I thought it would be fair for him to have the grass.  He was, therefore, to keep the grass nicely cut, and to keep his cow at home.  I waited some time after the grass needed cutting; and, as my neighbor did not appear, I hired it cut.  No sooner was it done than he promptly appeared, and raked up most of it, and carried it away.  He had evidently been waiting that opportunity.  When the grass grew again, the neighbor did not appear with his scythe; but one morning I found the cow tethered on the sward, hitched near the clothes-horse, a short distance from the house.  This seemed to be the man’s idea of the best way to cut the grass.  I disliked to have the cow there, because I knew her inclination to pull up the stake, and transfer her field of mowing to the garden, but especially because of her voice.  She has the most melancholy “moo” I ever heard.  It is like the wail of one uninfallible, excommunicated, and lost.  It is a most distressing perpetual reminder of the brevity of life and the shortness of feed.  It is unpleasant to the family.  We sometimes hear it in the middle of the night, breaking the silence like a suggestion of coming calamity.  It is as bad as the howling of a dog at a funeral.

I told the man about it; but he seemed to think that he was not responsible for the cow’s voice.  I then told him to take her away; and he did, at intervals, shifting her to different parts of the grounds in my absence, so that the desolate voice would startle us from unexpected quarters.  If I were to unhitch the cow, and turn her loose, I knew where she would go.  If I were to lead her away, the question was, Where? for I did not fancy leading a cow about till I could find somebody who was willing to pasture her.  To this dilemma had my excellent neighbor reduced me.  But I found him, one Sunday morning,—­a day when it would not do to get angry, tying his cow at the foot of the hill; the beast all the time going on in that abominable voice.  I told the man that I could not have the cow in the grounds.  He said, “All right, boss;” but he did not go away.  I asked him to clear out.  The man, who is a French sympathizer from the Republic of Ireland, kept his temper perfectly.  He said he wasn’t doing anything, just feeding his cow a bit:  he wouldn’t make me the least trouble in the world.  I reminded him that he had been told again and again not to come here; that he might have all the grass, but he should