Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 August 1891 — Snow-White Oxen. [ARTICLE]

Snow-White Oxen.

Have you ever seen the white oxen, of Italy? I do not mean those of Southern Italy, where every pair of horns is a wonder, where the question! is not whether the load of hay, but the horns, can pass through a gate. Ourj oxen here in Central Italy are prettier* animals—white as snow, large, but splendidly proportioned, pretty littlei black horns and eyes. Jupiter! I have! never seen such eyes! (Beg pardon*' but I may as well say “Jupiter** at once, and have done with it; you knowi the old story as well as I, and I be-! lieve could no more help thinking of it than I if you were to see the splendid 1 oxen.) Just a little ways outside the! walls - of Perugia, down on the hillside among the olive trees, where we got walking almost every day, is a litue farm-house, before the door of whichJ tied by his horns to a fig tree, we see’ very frequently the very beau ideal of these animals, and have become so* attached to the pretty creature that] we tremble for fear we shall lose him in the fair. We looked for him yesterday morning, for I am sure even among his many thousand snow-white fellows we! should have recognized him at once if we had seen him. I suppose his poormaster, for whom, perhaps, he is the] only treasure, would like to sell him,< yet I cannot help hoping when we go] that way again we shall find him still! tied to the fig tree, turning upon us; those beautiful eyes to welcome our approach. Such lashes! half as long as my finger, jet black, and resting, when he shuts his eyes, on his silky white cheeks with such effect. I could easily believe that, like a coquettish, beauty, he does it with a purpose. I do not know how many of these! splendid animals were on the fairground yesterday. Two or three days ago a farmer boy, who volunteered to instruct us concerning the comingi fair, when we asked him how many oxen we should see there —if many, thousands—answered, with a smile of 1 >ity at our ignorance: “Oh! more than that!—many millions!” Well, supposing there was a field as large as F ranklin Square, New York, covered as thick as they could stand with snow-white oxen—every one snow white —how many oxen would there be? I think there were more than could etaod on Franklin Square, but I do rot think there were “many millions,” Afterward, when we had returned to the city, we went to the highest point, called “Porta Sole,” and looking from there down on the white field, were reminded of the miracle of snow which fell once in midsummer in Rome on a square just as large as the basilica' (Santa Maria Maggiore) which was afterward built on the spot thus miraculously indicated.