“La Cordera,” having lived to a mature age, was more matter-of- fact than her companions. She held aloof from contact with the world and contemplated the telegraph pole from a distance as purely an inanimate object of no use except to rub against.
“La Cordera” was a cow who had seen much of life, and for hours together she lay in the meadow passing her time meditating rather than feeding, enjoying the tranquillity of life, the gray sky, the peaceful earth, and seeking to improve her mind.
Pasture and preventing
She joined in the games of the children, whose duty it was to guard her, and had she been able she would have smiled at the idea that Rosa and Pinin were charged with her care—she, “La Cordera!”—with keeping her in the pasture and preventing her from jumping the fence and straying along the railway track. Just as if she would be inclined to jump! Why should she meddle with the railway track?
It was her pleasure to graze quietly, selecting with care the choicest morsels without raising her head to look about in idle curiosity, and after that to lie down and either to meditate or else to taste the delights of simply not suffering; just to exist—that was all she cared to do; other things were dangerous undertakings.
Her peace of mind had only been disturbed at the inauguration of the railway, when she had become almost beside herself with terror at seeing the first train pass. She had jumped the stone wall into the neighboring field and joined the other cattle in their wild antics; and her fear had lasted for several days, recurring with more or less violence every time the engine appeared at the mouth of the tunnel.
Little by little she realized that the train was harmless, a peril which always passed by, a catastrophe which threatened but did not strike. She therefore reduced her precautions and ceased to put herself on the defensive by lowering her head. Later on she gazed at the train without even getting up, and ended by entirely losing her antipathy and distrust and not looking at it at all.
In Rosa and Pinin the novelty of the railway produced impressions much more agreeable. In the beginning it brought excitement mixed with superstitious dread; the children danced wildly about and gave vent to loud shrieks; then there came a kind of quiet diversion, repeated several times a day as they watched the huge iron snake glide rapidly by with its burden of strange people.
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