“Go ahead an’ milk her, Mr. Bradford,” I sez. “You’re the only one what knows how to milk, or who cares to drink it. What you goin’ to milk it in?”
“I never milked in my life,” sez he; “but I saw it done once when I was a boy, an’ I’m goin’ to try to milk in my hat.”
He had a bad time of it; but he only got kicked twice, an’ both times it was short, glancin’ blows, not much more ’n shoves. Finally, he came over to where me an’ Tank was settin’ an’ flopped himself down beside us. “Can’t you strangle her with those ropes?” he sez, in what might well be called deadly earnest.
We shook our heads, an’ continued to sit there lookin’ at the cow as though we expected she’d point the way out of our trouble. Presently the calf remembered his own appetite, an’ rushed up an’ gave a demonstration of what neat an’ orderly milkin’ was. Horace sighed. “Gee, I bet that’s good,” he said, the water drippin’ from his lips again. He had been four days without food, walkin’ all that time through the mountains, sleepin’ out doors with no cover but a slicker; and he had about burned up all his waste products, which Friar Tuck said was a city man’s greatest handicap. His eyes got a little red as he watched the calf, an’ I saw that he meant to slaughter it; so I sez to him: “That’s the way to milk, Mr. Bradford. Why don’t you sneak up on the other side an’ try it that way, the same time the calf is?”
He studied a moment, an’ then shook his head. “No, she could tell me from the calf,” he said sorrowful. “Our foreheads are shaped different, an’ I’d have to get down on my hands and knees. She’d tell me in a minute, an’ I don’t want to be on my hands an’ knees when she kicks me.”
“We could throw an’ hog-tie her,” sez Tank; “and you could get it easy an’ comfortable. Would you want us to do that, Mr. Bradford?”
Horace jumped to his feet an’ shook his fist in Tank’s face. “Don’t call me Mister again,” he yelled. “I’m plumb sick of it. If I ever live to get another bath an’ back East where the’s food in plenty, why, I’ll take up the Mister again; but now that I’ve got to a point where I have to suck milk from a hog-tied cow, you call me Horace, or even Dinky—which was my nickname at school. Yes, for heaven’s sake, tie the cow. I have to have milk, an’ that’s the only way I see to get it.”
Well, Tank an’ I was so full o’ laugh we could hardly truss up the cow; but we finally got her on her back so ’at she couldn’t do nothin’ but snap her tail, an’ then Horace threw his hat on the ground, an’ started in. I was entirely joyful: I knew ’at Spider Kelley, an’ as many o’ the boys as could sneak away, were watchin’ us from up on the hill, an’ this was the grand triumph of my treatment for nerves.
Horace approached the cow with consid’able caution, as she was in an awkward position. The calf had been interrupted in his meal, before he had squenched his thirst, an’ he was still prospectin’ about on his own hook.
“Here,” said Horace, givin’ him a push, “this is my turn.”