Burlington Free Press

A Cow retailed and curtailed.

A TALE OF A TAIL.

A cut and shuffle fellow, who had been regularly educated to the profession of card playing, a close student, who at the midnight taper had spent many a silent hour studying out the mysteries of faro, brag poker, seven-up, and of 'stocking' and 'putting up' cards, lately, after an unfortunate game of 'seven up,' found himself hard up in a western city. His shufflings began to be understood wherever he made his appearance, and the consequence was, he seldom shuffled long in any place before he was obliged to cut. On the present occasion he had concluded to make a 'sudden, a mysterious disappearance' in the night, and having in vain searched about for some trifling tokens by which to remember the friends with whom he was obliged to part so unceremoniously he took his departure at midnight, unencumbered with baggage, and without a sixpence in his pocket.
It happened that some few miles lay between him and the ferry which he meant to cross in the morning, and while jogging on in the moonlight, studying how to swindle the ferryman and secure a breakfast on the other side, he discovered a cow a poor inoffensive beast, which, by some misfortune, had lost its tail, lying right in the path before him. Feeling somewhat lonely, he thought it would afford him company and amusement to drive the cow before him to the ferry, and accordingly he raised the ruminating quadruped with a stick and using such persuasions as were likely to be understood, he went forward with his design. The cow seemed to prefer the fields and bushes each side of the road to the road itself, and this occasioned great delay and inconvenience, so that daylight rose and found the cow and her new proprietor still far distant from the ferry.
With the daylight came also another discovery which was by no means agreeable; the cow had no tail! here was a tale unfolded! The cow with no tail would be very apt to prove a tell-tale, and thereby subject the cow-holder to a cow hide. What was to be done? To tell a false tale was easy, but to tie on a false tail required genius of another kind. Fortune favored our hero however, and passing a country slaughter-house he observed the hide of an ox, tail and all, hanging on the fence. His bowie-knife soon whipped off the tail, and driving the cow into the bushes where he would not be observed. he managed to make the dead tail hang to the live stump in a manner very dubious and uncertain. It had to do, however, and fifteen minutes more found the re-tailed cow on board the ferry boat along with the tail-or, who had provided her with a new tail.
Success now seemed certain, when a man appeared riding in hot haste to the ferry, mounted upon an old horse that seemed to have been urged nearly to its last gasp. The man dismounted and hurried on board the boat. He marched right up to the cow, and his lips were already open for an exclamation of triumph, when his eyes fell upon the tail. A strange mystery now seemed to take possession of him. He walked round and round the cow, looked at its legs, its horns, its eyes, its head, and then he would give a mysterious and bewildered glance at the tail. He lifted his hat carefully off his head, and holding it in his left hand with the five digits of his right he commenced a sort of phrenological friction of his pericranium.
Cases and occurrences of small parties of travelers disappearing mysteriously on the road. Now the ox's tail was such a miserable deception, and so awkwardly managed at best. that discovery of the trick seemed inevitable, and the state of perplexity and fear in which our professor of 'High, Low, Jack and the Game' was placed, may be imagined. His alarm was probably high, his hopes low, he had missed his trick in endeavoring to turn up a Jack, and the game was up with him. He had a dash of impudence. however, always ready at a pinch, now with admirable assumption of open hearted honesty and independence, he walked up to the man who was examining the cow.
"Neighbor, I reckon there aint a better cow than that in these parts!" said he, in such a manner as to give his remarks the meaning of an interrogatory.
"Well I don't know, stranger," replied the man, and he still continued his examination of the cow, seeming to grow more puzzled every moment.
"That 'ere is the finest critter, neighbor, that was ever milked. I say, you seem to fancy the animal; maybe you'd like to buy her?"
"Buy her!" exclaimed the man, opening his eyes with a strange stare of perplexed astonishment; "why look here, stranger, if that cow had no tail, I'd swear she was mine!"
"You'd what?"
"I'd swear she was mine."
A capital idea now flashed upon the professor. He was in momentary dread of the ox's tail dropping off, and a way to remove his alarm and the tail together occurred to him.
"Look here, neighbor," said he calling a flush of blood to his face, and pretending to be highly incensed, "are you in earnest? I should just like to hear you say that a-gain!"
"Say it again! To be sure I will. I never saw such a resemblance in my life.- If that cow had no tail, I'd swear she was mine."
"Well, now, let's see you swear," said the professor, and he jerked out his knife, whipped off the tail, taking care to hit the old stump and make it bleed, and flinging the evidence of his roguery as far as his strength would send it into the stream, he exclaimed, seemingly in a tower of passion, "Now stran-ger, let's see you swear!"
The owner of the cow was fairly beaten. He took another look at her, gave a glance after the tail, stared for a moment at the professor, and then walked ashore and mounted his old horse. He turned again to look at the cow, and as the boat put off, he thus soliloquized aloud:-"well, of all the most extra-ordinary resemblances I ever did see! that's my cow's head-there's her old broken horn-I'll swear to her fore legs-I'll swear to her hind legs-I'll swear to every inch about her but her tail!"