THE MAN WHO LOVED HIS COW MORE THAN HIS WIFE
By Troy Morash

 

Once upon a time, in a land unknown to us and far, far away, there lived a potato farmer. He had a little house with a small piece of land, nothing special, nothing to bite your elbows about but enough to keep him satisfied. He had only his wife and his cow to keep him company.

Every morning the farmer woke up, had his breakfast, watered his potatoes, kissed his wife good-bye and went out into the pasture to play with the cow for the rest of the day. The farmer and the cow spent endless hours together because the farmer loved her so much and tried real hard to understand her. He tried talking to her and even got down on his knees and ate grass and tried mooing. This greatly disturbed passing villagers and travelers. But however hard he tried and much to his disappointment,the farmer couldn't become like his beloved cow, and therefore could not understand her.

Every night for dinner, the farmer brought the cow to the table and told his wife all about his day with it. But soon the poor woman started to suffer from jealousy and started having terrible thoughts of taking the cow to the butcher's. The farmer's wife thought her husband was mad and she ceased to understand him.

'You never give any attention to my needs,' she said to him one night when the three of them sat around the dinner table.

'That's not true my dear,' said the farmer, 'you're pretty too, it's just that you don't like grass and mooing and for some strange reason I've grown curious about just those things.'

'But I'm your wife, I'm like you, not like some beastly animal. We speak the same language for goodness sake. We can talk to one another. It upsets me, seeing you spending your time with something as the likes of that. Besides, the cow smells so bad. I don't smell that bad, do I?'

The farmer looked softly into the cows eyes and replied, 'My dear, what can I say? You don't know how to moo.'

Make no mistake about it, the farmer cared dearly for his wife and she was beautiful. But her petty ways bored him. She cared only for the way she looked and what the villagers thought. She always had to have the best clothes, which cost money. She always had to have the best jewelry, which cost money. She always had to have the best make-up and perfume, which cost more money. And she always had to be out to show off to the villagers what she was worth, which cost even more money. So you see, the wife cost the farmer a lot of money, not to mention what it cost to feed her, for she ate like a whole herd of cows.

The cow cost nothing to dress up, for she needed no clothes. The cow needed nothing to make itself look pretty, for the cow was neither pretty nor ugly, she was simply a cow. And the cow cost nothing to feed as long as there was plenty of fresh green grass in the fields and water in the pond.

There were of course other reasons why the farmer enjoyed spending time with the cow. For instance she always looked content. Sometimes he would spend hours staring into his beloved cow's eyes and wonder at its countenance. His wife was never content. The cow never spoke. His wife always went on and on. The cow never blushed nor did she become angry, attributes his wife seemingly did not have nor care to acquire. So now perhaps you can see why the cow was so dear to the farmer.

Then one day his wife said to him, 'You love that stupid cow more than you love me, don't you?'

'Well let's not exaggerate my dear,' answered the farmer politely although admittedly a little confused, 'I need you as much as I need her. It's only because the cow gives me so much more pleasure that I spend so much time with her. However if it was not for you I would not be with her so much. The cow makes the milk and you, my dear, drink it. The more you drink the more I can milk,' and with that the farmer went out to the pasture to play with his beloved cow.

After some time the villagers began to talk about the mad farmer and soon the gossip reached his wife's nostrils and ears. They told her many nasty things that were not true. They told her that her husband was crazy, a lunatic, that if they had children together, the children would be mad too and that the only hope was to cut the farmer's head off.

His wife was very embarrassed and offended even though she felt the villagers were right.

'We have ceased to understand you, my dear. Why do you stay with him?' they asked her.

'You're much too beautiful to be such a fool,' they told her.

'You really deserve much more and certainly much better,' they said to her.

'You know my dear, you should cut his head off and start all over again. It seems the only civilized thing to do,' they suggested to her.

'If you want my advice, and who but that mad farmer wouldn't; I think it's best that when you've taken his head from his shoulders that you don't feed it to any decent animal. I suggest, my dear, you burn it. It would be the civilized thing to do,' they pleaded with her. The old women went on like this for several years.
Finally, one day the wife approached the farmer during his one o'clock mooing lesson and told him she was leaving him.

'Farmer, I think you are brainsick and I no longer understand you. I'm lonely and I hurt, therefore I'm leaving you and this crazy village and am going to start over,' she said all teary eyed. She began to pack her bags, weeping all over her clothes.

When the farmer looked into her teary eyes he realized that she was as far from him as he was from the cow. And he felt sad for her because he knew how difficult it was not to understand someone he loved. And so he finally realized that he did not understand his wife at all. He begged her not to go. He told her he would miss her and to prove it he vowed to play with the cow only at night when nobody could see him and he promised to spend more time with her.

And so the farmer and his wife were in love again--most of the time. They went to shows and he found joy in them, which surprised him. She was also surprised because now that she had her husband back, she realized that she did not like going out that much after all and found herself taking a mooing lesson every once and a while. In fact since she hardly went out any more she gave all her fancy clothes away to the army. They talked about many things and stayed up late laughing. She didn't even mind the cow joining them for dinner from time to time. And she did not care what the village people said. They were, to her, silly old women.

And so the farmer was happy, his wife was happy and the cow was content as always. And there it is, a contented ending!

© 2002 Troy Morash. All Rights Reserved.