“That money looks almost like profiteering, but it isn’t a bit!” declared Janet to herself. “Even if I sell the milk for fifteen cents a quart to Jimmy and the scouts, I will have a great big balance of profit. I’ll sell it for fifteen because I’ll be using the farm pastures and cow sheds on the place, and I will have to call on the scouts, now and then, to show me how to milk and churn the butter, so I will give them that cent a quart off the retail price.” Janet now began to consider herself a philanthropist.
“Besides the cheap milk the scouts get, I will send them a pot cheese, once in a while, and all the buttermilk they like.” But Janet suddenly thought of the prices charged in the city for fresh buttermilk, so she decided not to be too generous in giving away the buttermilk, but reserve that privilege for a later day.
“Butter is worth sixty-five cents a pound at Four Corners, but I don’t think Tompkins’s butter is as sweet as it might be,” was Janet’s criticism when she pictured the rich golden butter she would turn out of that churn!
“I don’t know how much butter a quart of milk makes, but say I can get ten pounds of butter a week, that makes six dollars and fifty cents for butter. Dear me! Just think of it! All that money and the cow only costs on an average of fifteen dollars a month to keep her in fine condition.”
When Janet got as far as this in her financial calculations, Mrs. James came out on the porch to see what she was so exultant about.
“Can you sit down a moment, Jimmy, and listen to this?” asked Janet, flushed with the thrill of soon being a millionaire.
“Two moments, if you need them,” smiled Mrs. James.
“Well, then, just listen to this. It’s true, too!” and Janet began painting a word-picture in such alluring colors as to cause her hearer to wonder what it all meant.
“No farm is really a farm, you know, Jimmy, until there is a cow on the place. Think of the rural delight of driving a gentle-eyed bovine creature to the pasture early in the morning while the dew is still sparkling upon every blade of verdure. Now feel the warm glow about the heart when you call for the cow at eventide and find her eagerly lowing at the gate of the pasture—eager to follow you home. Then the gratitude she pours out to you by means of pure, frothy milk—pouring into and filling full twelve-quart pails every day as a token of her thanks.”
Janet had to stop a moment for lack of breath, so Mrs. James took advantage of the enforced pause to say: “Is this the preface to a book you are writing, Janet, or are you planning to buy a cow on instalments and need me to endorse the promissory note for you?”