In these days of specialization, when even the owner of a 200 acre farm does not keep cows if he keeps chickens or hogs, or keeps cows and no chickens, it is hard to believe how nearly self-sustaining the small farms used to be. Even with our small acreage, we always had horses, cows, pigs and chickens, and sometimes ducks, turkeys and guineas. We never kept more that two cows, but could not keep just one or she would get so lonesome she bawled all the time.

One cow we had was erroneously called "Gentle". She wasn't really vicious. She was just like a lot of people....always wanted to be where she wasn't. The grass looked greener over in Mr. Townsend's fields, and she was quite clever in getting over, through, or under the fence to get there. Oscar thought he would break that habit, so he fashioned a halter with a large linoleum blinder so she could only see the ground at her feet.

She walked pr0mptly over to the fence post, pushed the blinder up over her eyes, got down on her knees and wiggled under the fence. He then put a chain around her neck, tied a fence rail to it, to sort of discourage the wandering. The next day a man called up from South Bend and asked if we had a black cow. The man had gone up the road on the other side of the creek and saw the cow lying in the water with what looked like a small tree fastened to her, and he was afraid she would drown. So Oscar gave that up.

He then fastened another chain from the neck chain to one ankle so she could graze all right, but couldn't lift her head very high. Also next morning, when Bess and I were getting up, we heard a noise and looked out. "Gentle" had gotten out of the field, knocked down the garden fence, eaten all the Bellflower Apples off the ground, and after that, every morning she would hold the hobbled foot up in the air so she could eat off the brances.

Oscar threw in the sponge then and Father sold her to a dealer by the name of Will Fulton in West Lebanon. When Father sold an amimal to a neighbor, he always told them all their bad points as well as the good, but a dealer was fair prey. They asked no question when they bought, and told you nothing when they sold.

However, my Father's curiosity got the best of him, and when next he met Mr. Fulton, he asked about Gentle. Mr. Fulton said, "Oh, I sold her to an older woman in Whiskey Run and she asked if I had any more black cows like that one." It turned out the woman had no pasture and had to keep her cooped up in a stable all the time. Poor Gentle - we really felt sorry for her. That proud, free spirit, forever fated to spend the rest of her life in a dark stable where she could only dream of the lucious green grass in the Townsend fields.