Jessie Changes Hands

Northland Age, Volume IX, Issue 63, 17 May 1940, Page 1

Jessie Changes Hands

Last autumn we bought Jessie. She was a black and white debutante cow. She had come in a family party all the way from Ireland to the Ipswich market. We spent a lot of time walking round the cattle pens looking at the stock and telling one another what we should buy if we had the money. Then we saw Jessie and her sisters, and immediately fell for her charms. Up came the Irishman who owned them. There is no doubt that the Irish individually are a charming race and none so charming as a cattle dealer with a prospective purchaser. He carried no bombs and smelt strongly of whisky. We were very excited when the bell rang for the market to begin and offered up silent prayers that Jessie would be ours. It didn’t take long to see that ail the bidding was being done by three or four Irishmen, who owned the cattle. In between bids they told us what wonderful beasts they were, and how their price would soar It was obvious that none of the cattle was sold in the ring and that they were all bought in by their owners. We , knew that the real fun would begin afterwards at the haggling by the cattle pens. Anyhow, to cut a long story short, Jessie and a dozen of her half-sisters became ours and it was | not long before they were spending \ their honeymoon with Jimmy the bull on our island marshes. Not long ago Jessie surprised us I all by producing a black and white I calf, not in the least like Jimmy and doubtless the result of some illicit Irish romance. She looked lovely j with her calf but, as letters from the j bank about our overdraft came pouring in like flood water, we decided regretfully that Jessie must go to market. So next morning her beauty treatment began. She was tied up in a stall while Bill sand-papered her horns, then polished them till they shone soft and white. We combed her tail and brushed her coat, then stood back and “looked upon our work and saw that it was good.” The sight of Jessie was pleasing to the eye, and we went into breakfast talking of how we would spend the fantastic sum she would surely fetch. Soon we were jolting across the causeway which leads from the island to the shore with Jessie in the trailer behind the car. She was mooing frantically for her calf, which was tied up in a sack in the seat behind and calling just as loudly for Jessie. The sea birds rose into the air and wheeled around. They were startled by the rumbling trailer, and Jessie’s black and white head and shintng horns sticking up on top. All went well and we got to market without a puncture. But our hearts sank as we saw the stall into which Jessie was driven: it was No. 13. Our bad luck soon followed, for the calf, who had got very hungry during the long drive, was in such a hurry to get his “elevens” that he slipped up and made himself an awful mess. He couldn’t get what he wanted anyhow, the silly little idiot, because he had a net tied over his nose so that Jessie’s bag should be full of milk and look well in the ring. At last the fatal hour arrived and we moved into the ring with all the other farmers. They eyed me disapprovingly, for I was the only one that wasn’t wearing a hat. Some of them wore bowlers, some brightlychecked caps, one or two looked quite natural in soft felt hats. The most unfavourable glances were cast by a relic of the last century who himself sported a brown bowler and side whiskers. Nancy, my wife, went to one side of the ring and I to the other to stand next to the man who often pinches the cows as they come in to make them kick. For no one likes to buy a kicking cow, it is so awkward for milking. I had instructions to open bidding at £2O and step violently on the toe of the pincher if he showed any signs of tormenting “our Jess.” The first dozen cows sold well, and my heart was pounding with excitement as I saw Jessie’s head come round the corner. In she stepped, looking too beautiful for words with her calf running up and down and kicking up his heels in annoyance at not biing able to have a drink. Jessie walked round the ring, being prodded by a man with a stick, and I swear she winked at me when I opened the bidding two pounds higher than the price we had agreed on beforehand. I looked up and caught a glance of horror on Nancy’s face. For a few seconds there was silence broken only by the auctioneer’s voice repeating my bid. My heart dropped to my boots. I realised I had “gone and done it” and no one was going to bid. V/'th anxious eyes I stared round the

ring to see if really someone wasn’t nodding at the auctioneer. “Twenty-

two, twenty-two, twenty-two pounds I am bid,” he continued, and then, oh blessed relief, £23, but only for a second’s respite, for I saw Nancy had saved the situation by making a bid from the other side. Then in a rush they came: twenty-four pounds—-twenty-five pounds—twenty-six, twen-ty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty pounds—thirty pounds, ten shillings—Jessie was sold. I felt quite weak and my knees shook, and I hardly noticed how the calf was selling. I heard the man who had bought Jessie bid forty-five shillings, someone else raised him half-a-crown, there was a fairish pause and the calf went for fifty shillings. I walked round to join Nancy for I felt we should celebrate immediately at Jessie’s wonderful price, but 1 soon learned there were complications. Nancy had bought in the calf herself, for, as she quickly explained, Jessie would be heart-broken if they were parted. Somehow we must make Jessie’s new owner buy it, even at the risk of losing five shilling’s ourselves. Soon we spotted him and asked him to come and have a drink. After two pints of beer he was Cursing himself for being such a fool as to let Jessie’s calf go, and it only needed one more half-pint after that for him to buy at our price. We went back and said good-bye to Jessie.—David HaigThomas.