On a sunny Saturday afternoon, I was driving my daughter to her weekly swimming lesson. As we came to a heavily traveled street, we saw an unusual procession approaching: a bony, wild-eyed cow followed by many cars, and boys on bicycles and on foot.
"That poor cow!" I said angrily. "Those ignorant city people are frightening her."
At that time, my daughter, aged nine, believed that her papa was equal to any crisis. "What are you going to do?" she asked.
"See that piece of rope around her neck?" I said. "After I leave you at the swimming center, I'll go back and catch her and hold her for her owner, who's probably trying to find her." Having milked cows as a boy and worked with beef cattle, I knew — so I thought — all about cows.
Later I learned that this particular cow had come from at least seven miles away and, on the way, had knocked down several people. She had passed a baseball field, breaking up the game and flattening the umpire in passing. In brief, ruins lay behind her. The crowd was not following her with intent to harm her, but merely to see what she would do next.
I left my daughter at the swimming center, circled back and found the cow standing at the grassy edge of a side street, breathing heavily. The crowd surrounded her — at a respectful distance. I parked my car, pitying their ignorance, walked up to the cow in what the onlookers assumed to be a fearless manner.
She watched me narrowly as I approached, turning her head to view me with one big eye, then the other. At thirty feet from her I have a slight hesitation, at twenty a serious doubt. At ten feet I stopped and realized the truth. Here was a cow foreign to my experience. Driven completely crazy, she was ready to charge anything that moved.
✍️ 续写要求 · 两个段首句
🧭 段首句① As I was about to turn and run, two policemen arrived.
🧭 段首句② We tied the rope around the tree and began to discuss what to do with the cow. ＋ 正能量结局