21 January 2024: "There are two sorts of people in the world — those who love animals, and those who do not. I have seen them both, I have known both; and if sick or oppressed, or borne down with dreadful sympathies for a groaning nation in mortal struggle, I should go for aid, for pity, or the relief of kindred feeling, to those I had seen touched with quick tenderness for the lower creation,—who remember that the 'whole creation travaileth in pain together,' and who learn God’s own lesson of caring for the fallen sparrow, and the ox that treadeth out the corn. With men or women who despise animals and treat them as mere beasts and brutes I never want to trust my weary heart or my aching head; but with Dely I could have trusted both safely, and the calf and the cat agreed with me" (Cooke 187).
Sitting here this afternoon, typing up notes on Cooke's stories while BabyCat and Jo chase each other around the room, these words from "Dely's Cow" sure ring true to me, just as they have every day of my conscious life.
Work Cited
Cooke, Rose Terry. "How Celia Changed Her Mind" and Selected Stories. Edited by Elizabeth Ammons, Rutgers UP, 1986.
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