Bucolic Cows or Poor Water Quality?

16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today: 

Tuesday, July 25, 1911:  Cows got in the corn again, and as I am the cowboy I had to get them out. Tweetkins was here awhile this afternoon to converse with her dear Ruthie.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

This is the second time during July that the cows got into the corn.

Tweetkins refers to Helen Wesner, who often went by the nickname of Tweet. She was a friend of Grandma and her sister Ruth—though it sounds like she came to visit Ruth (rather than both of the Muffly girls) a hundred years ago today—and that Grandma was unhappy about being excluded from the conversation.

I really like the drawing in the 1911 advertisement that I used to illustrate today’s entry. A stream flows through the farm that Grandma grew up on so the cows probably were pastured in a field that looked similar to the field in the drawing.

I especially like the juxtaposition of the old (bucolic cows) and the new (airplane and sign for a De Laval Cream Separator).

However, when I showed the picture to my daughter she said, “Those cows are in the stream. That’s bad.” She spent a year as an AmeriCorps volunteer with a water quality organization—and spent part of that year encouraging farmers to build fences (or plant natural barriers) to keep cows out of streams.

It’s interesting how an illustration can evoke different feelings in different people. (Personally I still think it shows a peaceful scene with bucolic cows.)