How fragrant, after that last job, was the atmosphere of the big stable, where the breath of the cows mingled with the incomparable smell of the new milk that was already frothing and foaming into the pail held between the knees of the Land Girl "Curley"—that straight-haired, smiling brunette.
She was sitting milking the biggest of the seven black-and-white cows that stood tied up in a row. At the stall next to her sat Sybil on a three-legged stool of heavy oak, also milking busily.
"Now, Joan, you shall start away on Clover here. She's the easiest," said Mrs. Price, leading me to a cow at the farther end of the stable—a cow that was snowy white but for the broad band of black that encircled her body and the black tassel of her tail.
The farmer's wife took that tail in her hand and with a twist of straw-rope tied it down to one of the cow's hind-legs.
"That is to stop her flicking you in the eye with it," explained Mrs. Price. "Now Vic always puts the tail to the cow's side and pins it down by leaning her head against it; but you can't manage that yet. Always nervous they are at first, with a stranger. Soon get used to you," Mrs. Price assured me, as the cow looked round, tossed her head, shuffled her little hoofs, and would have twitched that captive tail. "I'll talk to her a little."
Fondling her silky flanks, the farmer's wife spoke to Clover, in soothing, softly-accented words that I suppose were Greek to Curley and Sybil—but I still remembered a little of the language that had been chattered about me in those far-off school-room days, when I'd worn a plait and wandered about a Welsh farm, so differently run from this one.
I'd seen Dad's cowman stand to milk on the steep hillside, where the cows grazed. He had called to his cows just like this.
"Little heart!" cooed Mrs. Price, in Welsh. "Heart of gold! Best white sugar, you are! Little Clover, dear! I'll start her, Joan."
She set the wide-lipped pail under the cow, and with that other small, capable hand of hers began milking where she stood. Sharply and copiously the white spurts ran through her fingers.
"Now, Joan," she said in a moment. "Sit down to it. Take your pail so. Now your fingers like this. Now try."