'H'm! Tssp! Fine ol' institootion the Old Country, but cert'nly a bit
servileacious. D'jerknowhowtermilkercow?'
'I've been milking four, night and morning, for over two years,
s'--Mister Perkins,' I answered, with some pride.
'Good for yez, Nickperry. Whataboutgardening?'
'I worked in the garden every day at the Orphanage, s'--Mister
Perkins.'
Mr. Perkins smiled even more broadly than usual. 'It's "Mister" not
"Smister" Perkins, Nickperry.'
I smiled, and felt the colour rise in my face. (How I used to curse
that girlish blushing habit!)
'Tssp! Well, I see you can take a joke, anyway; an' that's even more
important, really, than horticulturous knowledge. Tssp! There's my
breakfast bell, an' I'm not dressed. Jus' come along this way,
Nickperry.'
In the neatly paved yard at the back of the house stood a
well-conditioned cow, of the colour of a new-husked horse chestnut. She
was peacefully chewing her cud, oblivious quite to the flight of time.
Mr. Perkins ambled swiftly into the house, rolling out again, as it
seemed within the second, as though he had bounced against an inner wall,
and handing me a milk-pail.
'Stool over there. Jus' milk the cow for me, Nickperry.
Seeyagaindreckly!'
And he was gone, having floated within doors, like a huge ball of
thistledown on well-oiled castors. Next moment I heard his mellow,
rotund voice again, several rooms away.
'Sossidge! Sossidge! Whajerdoin'?' Then a pause. Then--'Keep brekfus'
three minutes, Sossidge; I'm not dressed.'
With a mind somewhat confused, I turned to the red cow, and my first
task for Mr. Perkins. Bella--I learned subsequently that the cow, when
a young heifer, had been given this name by Mr. Perkins, because she
distinguished herself by bellowing incessantly for a whole night--proved
a singularly amiable beast. I was light-handed, and a fair
milker, I believe. Still, my hands were strange to Bella; yet she gave
down her milk most generously, and, though standing in the open,
without bail or leg-rope, never stirred till the foaming pail was
three parts full, and her udder dry. It was something of a revelation
to me, for our cows at St. Peter's had been rough scrub cattle, and
had been left to pick up their own living for the most part; whereas
Bella was aldermanic, a monument of placid satiety.
I very carefully deposited the pail inside the scullery entrance, and
withdrew then to a respectful distance, with Bella. Would this amazing
Mr. Perkins engage me? There was no doubt in my mind that I hoped he
would. I had seen practically nothing of the place, and my impressions
of it must all have been produced by the personality of its owner, I
suppose. But it did seem to me that this establishment possessed an
atmosphere of cheery kindliness and jollity such as I had never before
found about any residence. The contrast between this place and St.
Peter's was extraordinarily striking. I wondered what Sister Agatha
would have made of Mr. Perkins, or he of Sister Agatha. 'Acidulacious'
was the word he would have applied to Sister Agatha, I thought, with a
boy's readiness in mimicry; and I chuckled happily to myself in the
thinking.