“Fore-tits first,” said the farmer in a caressing voice that helped her. He passed behind her and crouched so that she felt his breath. “Like this,” he explained, “fingers in line and press evenly inta the palm.”
She took the teats nervously and the cow stirred.
“Stond yo’, Poll,” coaxed the farmer. “It’s non forcing it out; it’s gettin’ her ta let it down. Oo knows you’re strange.”
The teats were smooth and warm. Flo could feel, too, the warmth of the animal as she leaned close, but tried not to let her shoulder touch.
“Dunna be feart. Oo’ll non let it come if you dunna give her confidence,” urged the farmer gently. “There’s nowt ta be feart on.”
Flo was fascinated. As she closed and relaxed her grip and drew the first weak dribbles she forgot nervousness, forgot the creasing of her skirt, the showing of her legs and Clem’s grinning stare. The uncertain dribbles she managed were tantalizing. Her right hand would get a sudden surprising flow, and her left, nothing; then nothing at all with either hand. There seemed to be no milk there to draw. Then Polly would let the teats fill and there was a satisfying tinkling trickle on to the bucket bottom.
“You’re shapin’,” said the farmer, getting up. “It’s non a job as anyone can do. There’s many folk can milk; but they’re non all milkers by a long chalk. Clem, ’ere, he’d milk a piece of brass piping, but he hasna got the touch.”
“You have ta be born with it,” Clem mimicked, slouching away down the uneven-floored shippon.
“Some folk have and some havena,” agreed the farmer, deep and confidential. “Keep trying . . . there’s no other way.”
Flo tried patiently. She wanted to please the farmer. She felt that it was a test. Her wrists began to ache until she could have cried out, but she determined to keep on as long as the farmer stayed.
“Try t’other paps,” he quietly advised after a while, and she was glad to change. She had imagined cows to be coarse-haired, like bears, but now she felt the silkiness of Polly’s bag resting on her right wrist. The back paps were shorter; she had to bunch her fingers to grip, only Polly seemed to be increasing confidence in her and let the milk flow more easily. There began to be a kind of hesitant rhythm and Flo felt the beginnings of pride and thought how she would write home.
“You’re non getting much froth,” said the farmer with his faint smile, “but you’re comin’ on. When you can get half a bucket of froth you con begin to count you’re a milker.” Then he showed her how to draw her first finger and thumb gently down the paps to drip off. “That’s one of the chief things,” he impressed on her. “If you leave cow’s partly-what done, you ruin ’em.”
He went to the door and she heard the milk from his bucket going into the sieve and pouring through into the big can. She tried perseveringly, till at last she was sure that Polly was as dry as could be, and this she felt was confirmed by Polly’s increasing restlessness. The cow must know how useless it was for her to keep on, so she got up. She forgot the stool and had to go back. She had about a quart, she judged, and she wondered if that was how much cows usually gave. Mr. Nadin met her at the door.
“Finished? Naa, let’s see,” and he led back. Grasping Polly’s tail low down with his left hand he curved it up, holding it under the weight of his hand on her haunch, and reached down with his right hand. For a moment he massaged Polly’s bag, then began to draw. His hand was huge and thick, but Flo, watching intently, got only an impression of its sensitiveness; it was a caressing hand, which surprised her by the instant, strong spurt of milk it induced. “Oo’s non quite dry, you see,” he said, not unkindly. “Fetch your bucket.”
He crouched holding the bucket with his left hand. Immediately Polly had her tail free she clouted him boldly, but he took no notice. The milk rang the bucket bottom. Flo felt chagrined; evidently, she thought, she was not a born milker. But after half a dozen good draws all that the farmer got were a few drippings.
“Best part of the milk,” he told her. “Creamy. You’ve non done so bad. Oo kept that drop up a purpose.”
Flo at once felt proud once more, for there was a subtle suggestion of approval greater than the words in their simple meaning expressed. And immediately after that the farmer abandoned her as it were. He said no more but went along by the buildings and turned in at another door. After a moment or two he came out and went farther along and in at a third door. In there he stayed. Of Clem or Bert there was no sign, and Flo, standing by the big can with her empty bucket, felt that none of them cared what she did. She wondered whether she ought still to go after Bert, but she decided to go back to the house. As she approached doubtfully Mrs. Nadin seemed to bounce into the doorway.
“Where’ve you bin?” she demanded. “Did you get him?”
“No,” Flo confessed, feeling guilty. “I’ve been learning to milk.”
“Milkin’ . . . there might be nowt else but milkin’ as mattered. You were taken on ta help in th’ house. Happen he’d like me ta milk an’ all. He’d like me ta run the whole ditherin’ place, outside as well as in, I reckon.”
“I’m sorry,” Flo murmured.
“You! What are you sorry about?” demanded the irate little woman. “You’ll have enough to be sorry about ’bout being sorry for someone else’s sorrers. I’ve bin waitin’ ta show you your bedroom.”
She bustled up the flagged passage that divided the house. From near the front door a steep stairway ran backward and took them on to a narrow landing with a long window at one end. There was exceedingly shiny oilcloth carrying a miniature turkey carpet design, brilliant in crimson and blue. Along it lay a narrow strip of grey matting bordered with a red line and two thinner green lines. Just by the top of the first flight a second lot of stairs, even narrower and steeper, took them to a small square landing. A single step on the left put them into a dark room with a single window at the far side, through which Flo saw the lake. The ceiling went up to the ridge like the side of a tent. There was a double bed with a pink counter-pane, a yellow painted dressing table with drawers, and an ottoman dressed in chintz with a design of little mauve-and-orange daisies.
“You con hang your best things here,” said Mrs. Nadin, in the corner opposite to the door, drawing aside on little brass rings a length of similar chintz, disclosing a triangle board fixed into the angle of the walls. Under the board was a hook like a tiny anchor with three tines. “If there’s anythin’ else you want, dunna be feart of opening your mouth. You’ve got a tongue, havena you?”
“Yes,” said Flo meekly.
“Most folks has. The old man’ll waken you of a mornin’, so dunna think as it’s hell’s bell.”
Immediately over the bed head Flo saw an iron bell as big as a four-pound jar, with a solid iron knob nearly as big as a golf ball on the end of the clapper. The bell hung on a spring which looked as if it were made of hoop iron. It was evidently rung by a wire that came through a slot in the wall.
“My, I shall be afraid of it falling,” exclaimed Flo.
“An’ if it does it’ll give you a rare clout. It’ll waken you, any road.”
“I’m a pretty good getter up.”
“So are most of us . . . when it comes ta gettin’ upstairs for bed,” said Mrs. Nadin drily. She was still a bit short of breath from the climb. She dropped down the single step and bobbed up on the far side and turned right along a narrow landing between a blank wall on the left and a handrail to prevent anyone from falling downstairs. At the end were two doors, one on the left into a long unlighted garret under the rafters (“Rubbish dump,” said Mrs. Nadin), and the other into a surprising room more than twice as long as it was broad. It ran the whole length of the house, for there was a window at either end, and at no place was the ceiling more than nine feet high, falling away to five feet high at the other side. Had the two beds which were pushed against the wall there not had low heads they would not have gone under. The beds were ten yards apart, apparently not wishing to have anything to do with one another.