"'Ee could try a hand this evenin' when our lad brings the cows in. They be fair easy--them's we've got now. Easy quarters they all of them have and they stand quiet enough wi' a bit of coaxin'. I dessay 'ee could coax 'em well enough. 'Ee've a softy voice to listen to when 'ee's wantin' a thing and means to get it."
She laughed.
"I didn't know I had," she said.
"No? Women doant know nawthin', seems to me. 'Mazin' 'tis to me how well they manages along."
She went into the cow sheds that evening and had her first lesson. It was tiring and trying and unsuccessful and her back ached. But in the last few minutes, just when she was giving up all hope of ever being able to do it and the strain of trying had relaxed in her fingers, a stream of milk shot forth from the quarter she held in response to the simplest pressure of her hand.
"That's it! That's it!" exclaimed the boy.
"Doant 'ee get into the way of strippin' 'em with 'ee's fingers, not till they've got to be stripped and 'twon't come t'other way."
She rose the next morning early when through her window she heard the cows coming into the yard and slipping on her clothes without thought of how she looked, she went down to the shed and tried again.
In three days' time she had mastered it and gave an exhibition of her skill to Mr. Peverell who stood by with smiles suffusing his face.
"That'll do," said he. "The lad couldn't do no better'n that."