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It was Dairyman Crick's rule to insist on breaking down these partialities and aversions by constant interchange, since otherwise, in the event of a milkman or maid going away from the dairy, he was placed in a difficulty.
The dairyman paused, and one or two words of comment came from the listeners. Dairyman Crick's stories often seemed to be ended when they were not really so, and strangers were betrayed into premature interjections of finality; though old friends knew better. The narrator went on
"Fond memory, when all things fade we fly to thee," and in the paling light of an April afternoon the two women confronted each other from their respective sides of the party wall, recalling with shuddering breath the blots and blemishes of their neighbour's family record. There was that aunt of Mrs. Crick's who had died a pauper in Exeter workhouse every one knew that Mrs.
"My grandfather used to go to Conjuror Mynterne, out at Owlscombe, and a clever man a' were, so I've heard grandf'er say," continued Mr Crick. "But there's no such genuine folk about nowadays!" Mrs Crick's mind kept nearer to the matter in hand. "Perhaps somebody in the house is in love," she said tentatively. "I've heard tell in my younger days that that will cause it.
"Reckon I'll judge fur myself," interrupted Jude, starting off toward the creek, and followed by the woman. "I know whar Wider Beckel's is, an' an' I've done enough stealin', I guess, to be able to grab a little boy without gittin' ketched. Spanish Crick's purty deep along here, an' the current runs heavy, but "
Saunders' uncle on her mother's side drank himself to death then there was that Bristol cousin of Mrs. Crick's! From the shrill triumph with which his name was dragged in, his crime must have been pilfering from a cathedral at least, but as both remembrancers were speaking at once it was difficult to distinguish his infamy from the scandal which beclouded the memory of Mrs.
"Twenty acres, I guess not over twenty-five, no how." "And the house?" "Well, that wants fixin' some; and the bridge over the crick's putty bad, too, it will want putty nigh a new one. Why, the house is a story and a half like; and it's jist an entry stret through the middle, and a parlor on one side on't, and a kitchen on the t'other; and a chamber behind both on 'em."
The milkers formed quite a little battalion of men and maids, the men operating on the hard-teated animals, the maids on the kindlier natures. It was a large dairy. There were nearly a hundred milchers under Crick's management, all told; and of the herd the master-dairyman milked six or eight with his own hands, unless away from home.
About this time they would hear Dairyman Crick's voice, lecturing the non-resident milkers for arriving late, and speaking sharply to old Deborah Fyander for not washing her hands. "For Heaven's sake, pop thy hands under the pump, Deb!
"What town is this?" "Town! Call it a town if you want to. It's Wolf River. It's a shippin' point fer cattle, but it hain't no more a town 'n what the crick's a river. The trussle that washed out crosses the crick just above where it empties into Milk River. I've railroaded through here goin' on three years an' I never seen no water in it to speak of before, an' mostly it's plumb dry."
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