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Show Another Myth? For 55 years Mrs. O'Leary's famous cow has been the most celebrated bovine in this country's history. Mrs. O'Leary's cow, was credited with having started the great Chicago fire in 1S71 by the simple expedient of kicking over her mistress' coal-oil lamp. But recently there have been attacks on the authenticity of the story; implications that it is just another myth, a pleasant-sounding fancy, an old wives' tale. Writes one man to say that Mrs. O'Leary's cow started a fire on Saturday night, which was put out, the great fire starting late Sunday night in a Section far removed from bossy's shed. Writes another to say that the whole yarn is constructed from applesauce. Luckily Mrs. O'Leary's notorious animal is dead, for surely if she were alive she would be unable to withstand these attacks on her integrity. One can picture the look of mild reproach in her soft brown eyes as a demon literalist approaches ap-proaches with documentary evidence and, with accusing finger pointed at her, declares, "You are a fraud." Under the circumstances, you would hardly expect the gentle creature to produce any milk at all. She would pine and languish beneath all this doubting scorn and die of self pity. For 55 years Mrs. O'Leary's Jersey, or Holstein or perhaps she was a Guernsey occupied her own little niche in the history of our great middle west. Why not leave her there in peace? As far as we know, she was a pretty fair cow and surely undeserving of all these assaults on her , good name. We are growing too literal-minded; the foundation shakes beneath the story of the cherry tree and George Washington's hatchet, and they do say that Paul Revere was immortalized by a poem rather than an actual deed. Why bother to disprove them? It costs us nothing to entertain an illusion or two, and few of us will thank the fact-loving historians who seek to explode them. |