The Off Side of the Cow

Old Wendell Hopkins' hired man is an absentminded chap,
He'll start for a chair, and like as not set down in some one's lap.
I happened along where he stopped to bait his hosses the other day,
--He'd given the hosses his luncheon pail and was trying to eat their hay,
--A kind of a blame fool sort of a trick for even a hired man,
But he tackled a different kind of a snag when he fooled with Matilda Ann,
--When he fooled with Matilda Ann, by jinks, he got it square in the neck,
And the doctors say, though live he may, he's a total human wreck.
He's wrapped in batting and thinking now
Of the grief in insulting a brindle cow.
Matilda Ann gives down her milk and she doesn't switch her tail;
She gives ten quarts--week in, week out, and she never kicks the pail.
She doesn't hook and she doesn't jump, but even
Matilda Ann
Ain't called to stand all sorts of grief from a dern fool hired man.
And when he stubbed to the milking-shed in sort of a dream and tried
To make Matilda "So" and "Whoa" while he milked on the wrong, off side,
She giv' him a look to wilt his soul and pugged him once with her hoof,
And I guess that at last his wits were jogged as he slammed through the lintel roof.
He's got a poultice on his brow
Of the size of the foot of a brindle cow.

Now study the ways of the world, my son; oh, study the ways of life!
It's the hustling chap that gets the cash, or the girl he wants for a wife;
It's the feller that spots the place to grab, when
Chance goes swinging by,
Who gets his dab in the juiciest place and the biggest plum in the pie;
There's always a chance to milk the world-- there's a teat, a pail, and a stool;
There's a place for the chap with sense and grip, but a dangerous holt for a fool.
For while the feller that's up to snuff drums a merry tune in his pail,
The fool sneaks up on the left-hand side and lands in the grave or in jail.
--It's an awkard place, as you'll allow,
The off-hand side of the world or a cow.