does not
know what makes the teats sore, but he has an unquestioning faith in a
certain ointment, recommended to him by a man who knows less about
cows than he does himself, which he causes to be applied at irregular
intervals--leaving the mode of application to the discretion of his son.
Meanwhile the teats remain sore.

Having made the cow fast, the youngster cautiously takes hold of the
least sore teat, yanks it suddenly, and dodges the cow's hock. When he
gets enough milk to dip his dirty hands in, he moistens the teats, and
things go on more smoothly. Now and then he relieves the monotony of
his occupation by squirting at the eye of a calf which is dozing in the
adjacent pen. Other times he milks into his mouth. Every time the cow
kicks, a burr or a grass-seed or a bit of something else falls into the
milk, and the boy drowns these things with a well-directed stream--on
the principle that what's out of sight is out of mind.

Sometimes the boy sticks his head into the cow's side, hangs on by a
teat, and dozes, while the bucket, mechanically gripped between his
knees, sinks lower and lower till it rests on the ground. Likely as
not he'll doze on until his mother's shrill voice startles him with an
inquiry as to whether he intends to get that milking done to-day; other
times he is roused by the plunging of the cow, or knocked over by a calf
which has broken through a defective panel in the pen. In the latter
case the youth gets tackle on to the calf, detaches its head from the
teat with the heel of his boot, and makes it fast somewhere. Sometimes
the cow breaks or loosens the leg-rope and gets her leg into the bucket
and then the youth clings desperately to the pail and hopes she'll get
her hoof out again without spilling the milk. Sometimes she does, more
often she doesn't--it depends on the strength of the boy and the pail
and on the strategy of the former. Anyway, the boy will lam the cow down
with a jagged yard shovel, let her out, and bail up another.

When he considers that he has finished milking he lets the cows out
with their calves and carries the milk down to the dairy, where he has
a heated argument with his mother, who--judging from the quantity of
milk--has reason to believe that he has slummed some of the milkers.
This he indignantly denies, telling her she knows very well the cows are
going dry.

The dairy is built of rotten box bark--though there is plenty of good
stringy-bark within easy distanc