A Tale from the 2013 “Merry Holiday Poems and Tales”
By
Gypsy Joy.
There once was a gentleman
who lived alone in a country house at the edge of a cow field in a picturesque village in the province of Ontario in Canada.
On the day before Epiphany Eve
he decided to have a walk through the snow covered pasture. He had been thinking of taking a sleigh ride on Epiphany Eve but first wanted to have a look where the road through the pasture was leading to.
Upon meeting a cow in the middle of his path he asked the cow to move out of his way.
The cow shook her head and said very politely:
“Sir, don’t mind me asking you, but did you read the
“No Trespassing”
sign? I walk and graze here everyday and I don’t think it would be wise if I moved out of your way.”
“Why not?”
the gentleman asked annoyed, as he was not often refused to do what he wanted to do. Angrily he said: “I should be allowed to walk or ride here, too, just like you!”
The cow let out a deep sigh as she replied:
“Let me just say Sir, I am not the one trespassing, if you get my hint”.
The cow sighed again and turned around. Planting her feet firmly in the grass she ignored the gentleman and just stared in the distance.
Nearby a robin
busily pecking in the fresh fallen snow, was listening in on the conversation between the cow and the gentleman, and wondered what was going to happen next.
The gentleman not knowing what to do with a cow who would not move said in a trembled tone of voice:
“well, I will just have you mooooved!”
The cow turned her head sideways and for just a moment she fixed her gentle eyes on the gentleman and then focussed again on something in the far distance. Gently shaking her head she mooo-ed to herself: “this gent is much too annoying and no match for me I will not even bother answering him. It just might stir up a bull fight.”
The next day very early in the morning
the gentleman still annoyed. removed the “No Trespassing” sign and put up a sign reading “This Link Has Mooooved”. When the cow saw the gentleman coming onto the path she stood up and mooo-ed to herself:
“Let’s settle this once and for all!”
Then she shook her cow bells one, two, three times and who should appear
by jolly a Mouseketeer!
The Mouseketeer greeted them both and casted a quizzy look at the dairy cow.
Next he walked over to the new sign and read what it said and looked around for a
“No Trespassing”
sign. Then the Mouseketeer pointed out to the two that legally there was no trouble at all, since there was no longer a “No Trespassing” sign to be found anywhere around.
The Mouseketeer
winked at the cow and saluted the gentleman and said:
“Sir, since you don’t seem to be trespassing here and if walking through the pasture is your pleasure, do so with caution and have a good walk to your destination.”
The gentleman very pleased now, thanked the mouseketeer and whistling happily he continued his way.
The cow shaking her cowbells lay down on the fresh fallen snow in the field as the mouseketeer pleased with himself disappeared. She was just about to take a short nap in the warm morning sun, when she saw the gentleman out of breath running past her as fast as he could with the snorting bull chasing him. The only thing that saved the gentleman from a rough meeting with the bull’s horns was the sign he had hung up that morning.
The bull
was getting old and although he could still out run many trespassers, his eyesight was not as good as it had been when he was a lot younger. When he saw the cow sign, the cow on the sign looked so real that he wondered why one of his cows he was guarding was standing on a sign. So he stopped to investigate, forgetting all about the trespasser.
The gentle cow watching the chase was amused and amazed.
In the evening when she lay snug in the hay in the warm barn, she told the other cows and calves what had been going on in her patch of the pasture that morning and the day before. The cows and calves found the incident so funny they chuckled most of the night.
The next day
all the cows and calves went to have a look at the new cow sign. They also watched from a distance the gentleman hanging up again the
“No Trespassing Sign”
Now located a few metres away from the cow sign.
The gentleman did not dare to remove the cow sign as the bull seemed to have taken a fancy to it.
He did not need another day or night of bull fright.
