Bullheaded: Unwilling to take advice, to admit error.

An exceedingly powerful bull dominated most of the countryside. He walked where he wished, consumed the best grass, monopolized the coolest shade, and he did his business with little or no regard for what a disagreeable color the creek was turning.

Some squirrels resented him, and a few red squirrels from a far-distant pasture sneaked under his fence and chewed off a pair of tall trees that fell on some of his cows. Enraged, he charged out of his pasture all the way to their distant hills and, although he never could catch the alpha squirrel, he chased those he could find up into trees.

Frustrated, his eye settled another group of squirrels, who owned some of the choicest clover known – clover the bull very much wanted to have because his own supply was running low. The bull’s advisers insisted that an ugly chief squirrel in that clover pasture had secret rhinoceroses who could swim the pond and attack the bull – to say nothing of hostile red squirrels allowed in his trees.

Even though no one had ever seen such rhinos and no food for them was known to exist – as well as the fact that the ugly chief gray squirrel hated red squirrels – the bull was not of an inquiring nature. He knew his advisers were the best to be had.

And, after all, there was that clover.

He invited animals in nearby pastures to join him in his adventure, but few thought that the ugly gray squirrel amounted to much, and all but one or two said fear of rhinoceroses was nutty. Disregarding their advice, he drank his fill of cool water, pawed the ground and, in a shocking and awesome display, knocked down the old tree in which the ugly gray squirrel lived. But, despite thorough search, there were neither rhinos nor red squirrels to be found.

No matter, he was impressed with his own performance, and awarded his chief advisers, mistaken though they had been, a Bull Medal of Honor each and declared a day of victory celebration.

But – but – there was more difficulty. The local gray squirrels remained amazingly truculent. He couldn’t seem to make friends with them. So, with more bullish flourishes, he announced a new program to teach the squirrels “bovine herd behavior.” Poor bull. The gray squirrels had never eaten grass and knew not how. They continued to remain not only ungrateful, but, indeed, hostile. They even attacked his privates, a most unseemly thing, particularly since he had not thought to provide any covers for such a vulnerable area.

So once again he changed his strategy. This time he wanted to create “stability” in the squirrel pasture, a plan much closer to solving the clover problem. But he had no luck with this plan, either. Rather than stability, restlessness among the natives increased by the day. Poor bull. Even though there were no rhinos, bovine decision-making did not prove enticing to squirrels and stability seemed further and further away, he remained bullish, saying, “If a little don’t do it, I’ll try a lot!”

And here we must leave him – bullheaded as he is.

Rodney Quinn, a resident of Gorham, is an author and former secretary of state.