'Trampled by Cows' by Joyce Hayward

When we were young my playmate and I used to run errands to the village shop.
One day we called on Mrs Hudson, an old, but spritely, widow who lived in the large house on our way there. She gave us a list and enough money to buy ourselves an ice lolly for doing the shopping.
On the way back, because the bag was heavy, we carried the bag between us and ate our lollies with the other hand. We saw some men fishing in the canal, so we decided to go down to the towpath to see if they had caught anything. We left the shopping bag under a bridge, where it was cool, until we came back.
Whilst we were busy nosing at the fishermen the lock keeper came to fetch his two cows up that grazed along the side of the canal. He was going to milk them; but as they passed under the bridge they trampled over our shopping bag and one relieved herself as well. It splashed all over the contents of the bag. We quickly ran to rescue it and tried desperately to clean it up before calling at Mrs Hudson’s. The contents were squashed and bag was in an awful state.
‘Whatever happened here?’ she asked us.
‘It wasn’t us Missus. We went to see what the fishermen were doing and put the bag down. Then Mr Rowlands came and fetched his cows. It wasn't us it was them who did all the damage.’