“Is Mr. Bert here?” she asked.
“Mister Bert,” he repeated with the slightest sarcasm. “And what would you be wantin’ with him?”
“Missis sent me. She . . . she said if he wasn’t here, I was to go down to the water.
“Oh, ay,” said the farmer more sarcastically, and in a way that indicated that that was all there was to say about that. “How’d you like ta milk?”
“Ay, try a hand,” said the voice of Clem, and a kind of steady swishing that had just begun to puzzle Flo stopped, and out unexpectedly from between the two end cows poked Clem’s head, also with cap askew. “Yo’ll be more use than traipsin’ after yon mon every time.”
“But . . . but Missis said . . .”
“There’s a stool an’ pail,” interrupted the farmer, nodding to an oblong opening cut back into the tremendously thick wall, “an’ Polly ’ere is a good ’un to start on.”
He lifted himself with a single heave, balancing in his left hand a polished bucket half-full of milk and in his right the stool which he had picked up from between his legs.
“Ee, I don’t know. I never . . .” began Flo surprised and hesitant.
“Put it here,” said Mr. Nadin, taking no notice. He moved the stool a bit closer, and when she held the bucket gingerly between her calves, he thrust it snugly up between her thighs. “If you dunna hold it, yo’ll have it punced away like a football. Sit up to her; Polly’s a good gal, she winna mind.”
Flo got the slightly musky cow smell for the first time. She felt chokey and wondered how she could escape, but the farmer was standing over her and Clem was on the gangway leaning against the wall, an expectant grin under the down curve of his cap. Flo looked up and caught the full flare of the flame in the wall-lamp and then could not see when she tucked her head down to peer under the cow.
“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.