“A very extraordinary thing. There’s a cow down in the Lane,” said Michael, jumping up and down on the window seat.
“A cow? A real cow – right in the middle of a town? How funny! Mary Poppins,” said Jane, “there’s a cow in the Lane, Michael says.”
“Yes, and it’s walking very slowly, putting its head over every gate and looking round as though it had lost something.”
“I wish I could see it,” said Jane mournfully.
“Look!” said Michael, pointing downwards as Mary Poppins came to the window. “A cow. Isn’t that funny?”
Mary Poppins gave a quick, sharp glance down into the Lane. She started with surprise.
“Certainly not,” she said, turning to Jane and Michael. “It’s not funny at all. I know that cow. She was a great friend of my Mother’s and I’ll thank you to speak politely to her.” She smoothed her apron and looked at them both very severely.
“Have you known her long?” enquired Michael gently, hoping that if he was particularly polite he would hear something more about the cow.
“Since before she saw the King,” said Mary Poppins.
“And when was that?” asked Jane, in a soft encouraging voice.
Mary Poppins stared into space, her eyes fixed upon something that they could not see. Jane and Michael held their breath, waiting.
“It was long ago,” said Mary Poppins, in a brooding story-telling voice. She paused, as though she were remembering events that happened hundreds of years before that time. Then she went on dreamily, still gazing into the middle of the room, but without seeing anything.
The Red Cow – that’s the name she went by. And very important and prosperous she was, too (so my Mother said). She lived in the best field in the whole district – a large one full of buttercups the size of saucers and dandelions standing up in it like soldiers. Every time she ate the head off one soldier, another grew up in its place, with a green military coat and a yellow busby.
She had lived there always – she often told my Mother that she couldn’t remember the time when she hadn’t lived in that field. Her world was bounded by green hedges and the sky and she knew nothing of what lay beyond these.
The Red Cow was very respectable, she always behaved like a perfect lady and she knew What was What. To her a thing was either black or white – there was nothing in between. Dandelions were either sweet or sour – there were never any moderately nice ones.
She led a very busy life. Her mornings were taken up in giving lessons to the Red Calf, her daughter, and in the afternoon she taught the little one deportment and mooing and all the things a really well brought up calf should know. Then they had their supper, and the Red Cow showed the Red Calf how to select a good blade of grass from a bad one; and when her child had gone to sleep at night she would go into a corner of the field and chew the cud and think her own quiet thoughts.
All her days were exactly the same. One Red Calf grew up and went away and another came in its place. And it was natural that the Red Cow should imagine that her life would always be the same as it had always been – indeed, she felt that she could ask for nothing better than for all her days to be alike till she came to the end of them.
But at the very moment she was thinking these thoughts, adventure, as she afterwards told my Mother, was stalking her. It came upon her one night when the stars themselves looked like dandelions in the sky and the moon a great daisy among the stars.
On this night, long after the Red Calf was asleep, the Red Cow stood up suddenly and began to dance. She danced wildly and beautifully and in perfect time, though she had no music to go by. Sometimes it was a polka, sometimes a Highland Fling and sometimes a special dance that she made up out of her own head. And in between these dances she would curtsey and make sweeping bows and knock her head against the dandelions.
“Dear me!” said the Red Cow to herself, as she began on a Sailor’s Hornpipe. “What an extraordinary thing! I always thought dancing improper, but it can’t be since I myself am dancing. For I am a model cow.”
And she went on dancing, and thoroughly enjoying herself. At last, however, she grew tired and decided that she had danced enough and that she would go to sleep. But, to her great surprise, she found that she could not stop dancing. When she went to lie down beside the Red Calf, her legs would not let her. They went on capering and prancing and, of course, carrying her with them. Round and round the field she went, leaping and waltzing and stepping on tiptoe.
“Dear me!” she murmured at intervals with a ladylike accent. “How very peculiar!” But she couldn’t stop.
In the morning she was still dancing and the Red Calf had to take its breakfast of dandelions all by itself because the Red Cow could not remain still enough to eat.
All through the day she danced, up and down the meadow and round and round the meadow, with the Red Calf mooing piteously behind her. When the second night came, and she was still at it and still could not stop, she grew very worried. And at the end of a week of dancing she was nearly distracted.
“I must go and see the King about it,” she decided, shaking her head.
So she kissed her Red Calf and told it to be good. Then she turned and danced out of the meadow and went to tell the King.
She danced all the way, snatching little sprays of green food from the hedges as she went, and every eye that saw her stared with astonishment. But none of them were more astonished than the Red Cow herself.
At last she came to the Palace where the King lived. She pulled the bell-rope with her mouth, and when the gate opened she danced through it and up the broad garden path till she came to the flight of steps that led to the King’s throne.
Upon this the King was sitting, busily making a new set of Laws. His Secretary was writing them down in a little red notebook, one after another, as the King thought of them. There were Courtiers and Ladies-in-Waiting everywhere, all very gorgeously dressed and all talking at once.
“How many have I made today?” asked the King, turning to the Secretary. The Secretary counted the Laws he had written down in the red notebook.
“Seventy-two, your Majesty,” he said, bowing low and taking care not to trip over his quill pen, which was a very large one.
“H’m. Not bad for an hour’s work,” said the King, looking very pleased with himself. “That’s enough for today.” He stood up and arranged his ermine cloak very tastefully.
“Order my coach. I must go to the Barber’s,” he said magnificently.
It was then that he noticed the Red Cow approaching. He sat down again and took up his sceptre.
“What have we here, ho?” he demanded, as the Red Cow danced to the foot of the steps.
“A Cow, your Majesty!” she answered simply.
“I can see that,” said the King. “I still have my eyesight. But what do you want? Be quick, because I have an appointment with the Barber at ten. He won’t wait for me longer than that and I must have my hair cut. And for goodness’ sake stop jigging and jagging about like that!” he added irritably. “It makes me quite giddy.”
“Quite giddy!” echoed all the Courtiers, staring.
“That’s just my trouble, your Majesty. I can’t stop!” said the Red Cow piteously.
“Can’t stop?” Nonsense!” said the King furiously. “Stop at once! I, the King, command you!”