This etext was prepared by David Widger, widger@cecomet.net
This etext was prepared by David Widger
The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Volume 4
One of the best things in the world to be is a boy; it requires noexperience, though it needs some practice to be a good one. Thedisadvantage of the position is that it does not last long enough; itis soon over; just as you get used to being a boy, you have to besomething else, with a good deal more work to do and not half so muchfun. And yet every boy is anxious to be a man, and is very uneasywith the restrictions that are put upon him as a boy. Good fun as itis to yoke up the calves and play work, there is not a boy on a farmbut would rather drive a yoke of oxen at real work. What a gloriousfeeling it is, indeed, when a boy is for the first time given thelong whip and permitted to drive the oxen, walking by their side,swinging the long lash, and shouting "Gee, Buck!" " Haw, Golden!""Whoa, Bright!" and all the rest of that remarkable language, untilhe is red in the face, and all the neighbors for half a mile areaware that something unusual is going on. If I were a boy, I am notsure but I would rather drive the oxen than have a birthday.The proudest day of my life was one day when I rode on the neap ofthe cart, and drove the oxen, all alone, with a load of apples to thecider-mill. I was so little that it was a wonder that I did n't falloff, and get under the broad wheels. Nothing could make a boy, whocared anything for his appearance, feel flatter than to be run overby the broad tire of a cart-wheel. But I never heard of one who was,and I don't believe one ever will be. As I said, it was a great dayfor me, but I don't remember that the oxen cared much about it. Theysagged along in their great clumsy way, switching their tails in myface occasionally, and now and then giving a lurch to this or thatside of the road, attracted by a choice tuft of grass. And then I"came the Julius Caesar" over them, if you will allow me to use sucha slang expression, a liberty I never should permit you. I don'tknow that Julius Caesar ever drove cattle, though he must often haveseen the peasants from the Campagna "haw" and "gee" them round theForum (of course in Latin, a language that those cattle understood aswell as ours do English); but what I mean is, that I stood up and"hollered" with all my might, as everybody does with oxen, as if theywere born deaf, and whacked them with the long lash over the head,just as the big folks did when they drove. I think now that it was acowardly thing to crack the patient old fellows over the face andeyes, and make them wink in their meek manner. If I am ever a boyagain on a farm, I shall speak gently to the oxen, and not goscreaming round the farm like a crazy man; and I shall not hit them acruel cut with the lash every few minutes, because it looks big to doso and I cannot think of anything else to do. I never liked lickingsmyself, and I don't know why an ox should like them, especially as hecannot reason about the moral improvement he is to get out of them.
Speaking of Latin reminds me that I once taught my cows Latin. Idon't mean that I taught them to read it, for it is very difficult toteach a cow to read Latin or any of the dead languages,—a cow caresmore for her cud than she does for all the classics put together.But if you begin early, you can teach a cow, or a calf (if you canteach a calf anything, which I doubt), Latin as well as English.There were ten cows, which I had to escort to and from pasture nightand morni