We made heroic efforts all the week to get the house settled by Sunday. Chitty came out by train each morning to perform prodigies of strength in placing furniture. Our eagerness to be ready by Sunday was owing to the fact that we had invited the family to spend the day with us. Helen was extremely nervous about the critical eye she knew my mother would cast over our housekeeping. Poor Helen had never kept house before, let alone in a land where many ways and customs were still strange to her. We drew up the plan for dinner a dozen times, trying to include things that would please my mother's taste and rejecting everything we feared was doubtful.
We explored the shops in the village, choosing a butcher, a grocer, a greengrocer, and a fishmonger after minute investigation. There was also the question of the baby's milk. The milkman, who took Helen's searching inquiries rather light-heartedly, finally told her he would "earmark" one special cow for her.
"What on earth did he mean by that, Ted?" she said, as we pursued our way up the High Street. "Will he brand the cow in the ear so he can tell her from the others?"
I leaned against a convenient lamp-post to laugh. Helen grew quite indignant.
"Ted, you are making an exhibition of yourself in the public street!"
"I'm sorry, dear," I apologized. "But you conjured up a vision in my mind of that good English yoeman swinging on to his broncho in the early dawn to ride forth and rope your cow, while the Mexican peons dash up with the branding irons—and all for a cow's ear."
"It may all be very funny," Helen snorted, "but I really think baby's milk is more important than your silly idea of humour."
It was not often that we failed to agree on a laugh.
"What is the joke, Ted?"
"The milkman, my dear, has been reading the speeches of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He is quoting a favourite phrase—that a certain item of revenue has been earmarked for a particular purpose. Thus he thought it good to earmark his cows. It's awful, my dear, when a joke has to be explained."