The elevated wooden sidewalk and roadway. O’Leary stomped them with a worn boot and uttered a few profanities - or so we would imagine. Over went the lamp, sparking a few odd pieces of hay. This article is adapted from Hannah B Higgins’ book “ The Grid Book,” a meditation on ten grids that changed the world. Maybe the normally compliant cow just didn’t want to give it away that day. Maybe there were too many biting flies in the air. Maybe Catherine O’Leary’s cowshed was sweltering. But it was hot and dry there’d only been five inches of rain since July. One of five cows in this informal dairy, she normally yielded easily to the patient caress of her udder by practiced hands. As the story goes, in an unnumbered shed behind the cottage at 137 De Koven Street in Chicago, a hitherto unremarkable cow kicked the lantern lighting her milking. It distills in one stanza, complete with mischievous bovine protagonist, one of our most enduring modern myths. Soon after the Great Chicago Fire burned from October 8 to 10, 1871, this anonymous poem appeared in the Chicago Evening Post. There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight. The cow kicked it over, winked its eye and said, One dark night - when people were in bed, BeeLine Reader uses subtle color gradients to help you read more efficiently.
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