"By Gum," he exclaimed, "if here ain't a bovine cow looking at us. I ain't milked one for forty years, but I'm not afeard to try. 'Member, Pete, when we used to milk the cows back in old Connecticut on the farm. After working in the hay all day, I'd go down in the side hill pasture, that was so steep that you had to hold on with your toes and your teeth to keep from sliding down to the brook."
"You bring it back to me just like it was a living picture," said Pete, his hard face softening under the gentle showers of memory.
"Then I'd drive the black and white one that was breechy, and the red mooley, the yaller and white that gave the richest milk. I'd drive them into the stanchions in the old barn, with the ground floor stoned up on the side, where it was sunk into the hill."
"But it was winter, Cap'n," said Pete, "that it was interesting doing the chores," and he blew reminiscently on his fingers, "snow two feet on the level and the sun a piece of blue ice in the sky. A condemned sight better place than Californey, where you don't feel no more alive than a enbalmed corpse."
The Captain began now a series of manœuvres to get within range of one of the cows so that they might have fresh milk for breakfast. He managed it finally, and he certainly looked like a peaceful old farmer as with his gray head against a fat red cow's flank, he milked into a large tin cup. Pete selected a black mooley and soothed by the man's persuasive manner, she consented finally to give down a thin blue stream. But the saturnine mate was less successful as he knew much more about navigating a ship than he did about cows.
Finally after much awkward manœuvring, he got a cow cornered and began operations upon the left side with the result that the cow landed upon him with her hoof and sent him sprawling on his back to the great delight of the Captain.
"Hurt bad, Bill?" inquired the Skipper with mock sympathy, "I'm afeard that you will never make a farmer."
"I never calkerlated to," replied the mate. "It ain't my line of business."
"Don't tell me that," said the Captain, "I can see that for myself. Come up here and I'll give you a drink."
They had scarcely finished their simple breakfast when Jack Cales gave a sudden alarm.