By the way, I am afraid every thought of poor Harry and his perplexities had been swept clean out of my mind by the much more staggering conversation that had followed almost immediately upon his proposal, on that never-to-be-forgotten Sunday afternoon; what an extraordinary "Day of Rest" it had turned out!
But, as every Land-girl knows, the most paralysingly interesting Day Off cannot stop the relentless return of the Work-a-day Week.
CHAPTER XXXII
BUTTER-MAKING—WITH ACCOMPANIMENT
"There grows a flower in our garden
Men call it Marygold,
And if you will not when you may
You shall not when you wolde."
FOLK-SONG.
On Monday I was churning again for dear life as if I had no thoughts of a world beyond that of the big, cool, whitewashed dairy with its slate floor, its table set with pudding-dishes in which fresh cream was standing, its tall, covered, red-and-black crocks holding two gallons of sour cream for the butter.
Helped by Mrs. Price, I tipped the sour cream into the big brown barrel-shaped churn; I added the hot water; I gave a few turns to the handle of the churn. Then I took the bung out of the hole to let the air escape, having been warned, the first day of my churning, by an alarmed cry from the farmer's wife: "Let the air out! The air out! Mercy! The girl will burst the churn for me. Don't you know it's like you have to hold a baby up when he's halfway through feeding? Don't you ever forget that again, my dear!"
I did not forget again; and now the whole process was familiar to me of that homely miracle of butter-making.
Round and round went the handle—not violently and spasmodically, as in my early days of setting about any job, but rhythmically and steadily. Oh, yes, I'd learnt my lesson of letting "things do themselves"; never again would I imagine that violence meant strength, any more than one need suppose that some one speaking in a loud voice must be talking sense! It was Dick Holiday who had first taught me that, and had taught the principles of handling anything, whether it was spade or churn...
Round and round ... I glanced at the tiny glass "window" of the churn. No. Not yet was it crowded with any little yellow granules that announce that the butter was "coming." Today the butter was obstinate.