"Here is something which always stops me," said Mr. Carter. "It is like
running into a big spider's web."
A woman coming up the road was driving eight or nine cows, each
attached to a long rope, which she held in her hand. It seemed like a
maze to an outsider, but she drew in first one rope, and then twisted
another, and pulled back another, until she finally got her charges to
one side of the road.
The cows are taken out to pasture, where there are no regular fields
where they may run loose. So they must be guarded in this manner, and
when they have eaten one spot up clean, they are taken on to another.
Farther up the road two children were watching some goats on the side
of the road, but in this case each goat's rope was tied to an iron
stake which was driven in the ground, so the children could amuse
themselves until it was time to move the animals on to a fresh bit of
pasturage.
"Your horses wear gay clothes," said Mr. Carter, as they passed a great
lumbering wagon, swung between two big wheels, drawn tandem-wise,--that
is, one horse in front of the other,--by five heavy-limbed Norman
horses.
Around their big clumsy wooden collars, which are usually painted in
bright colours, was draped a dark blue sheepskin blanket. On their
heads bobbed big tassels of blue and red, or blue, red, and yellow,
which so dangled in their eyes that one wonders how they could see at
all.
The leader was more finely dressed than the others. His neck-blanket
had long stole-like ends, that hung almost to the ground, and an extra
high collar with more tassels. All this may not be comfortable for the
horses, but they looked so very picturesque, one hopes that they did
not mind it.
The automobile now whizzed by a team of slow-moving cream-coloured
oxen,--beautiful beasts with yokes twisted around their horns instead
of around their necks. They never so much as lifted their sleepy eyes
to look at our party.
"This is another frequent obstacle in the way of the automobilist,"
said Mr. Carter, as they came in sight of a flock of sheep with their
shepherd, which completely blocked up the road. "But I do not object
to stopping in this case, for it is worth one's while to watch the
sheep-dogs do their work."
The children stood up in the auto and watched the amusing performance
with much interest, and Pierre barked his appreciation. The dogs
knew perfectly well which side of the road must be left open for the
automobile, and they began to drive the sheep toward the other side,
pushing them and barking at them; the slow ones they would catch by the
wool, give them a little shake, as much as to say "you had better move
quickly," and then pull them out of the way, looking back every few
minutes to see how near to them was the automobile.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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