The dimonsthrator had rigged up a belt to Tammas’s threshin’-machine, an’ run it from that to the separator, as he called it.
The separator itself was a terrible disappointin’ conthrivance at the first look, an’ no size av a thing at all for the money they said it cost. But whin the dimonsthrator begin to tell us what it would do, an’ how by just pourin’ the milk intil a metal ball an’ bizzin’ it round, ye could make the crame come out av one hole, an’ the milk out av another, we began to think more av it.
Nobody liked to spake out wi’ the man there, but there was a power av whisperin’.
“It’s a mighty quare conthrivance,” sez wan.
“Did ye iver see the like av it?” sez another.
“Boy-a-boys,” sez James Dougherty, “the works av man is wonderful. If my ould grandmother could see this, it would break her heart. ’Twas herself was the handy dairy-woman, too; but what’d she be till a machine?”
But most av thim wouldn’t say one thing or another till they seen it workin’; an’, ‘deed, we were all wishin’ he’d begin. We had to thole, though; for the dimonsthrator was a bumptious wee man, an’ very fond av the sound av his own voice, an’ kept talkin’ away wi’ big, long words that nobody knowed the manin’ av but himself, till we were near deaved.
So we were powerful glad whin he sez to Mrs. McGorrian: “Now, Madam, if you’ll be good enough to bring in the milk, I will proceed to give an actual demonstration.”
But Mrs. McGorrian is a quiet wee woman, an’ wi’ all the crowd there, an’ him callin’ her Madam, she was too backward to get up out av the corner she was in; an’ she nudges Tammas to go, tellin’ him where to get the milk.
So Tammas goes out, an’ presently he staggers in wi’ a big crock in his arms, an’ sets it down.