The Dairy

We moved again - to a red-top house on a hilltop half-mile from town. There was a big red barn too, with enough stalls to take care of the extra cows Papa had bought. There was nothing on that hill to stop the wind but barb-wire fences. And it sure got cold that winter. Papa asked me if I could help him milk. So at five every morning he and I went out to milk in that cold barn. Mama helped in the afternoons. Papa milked around 20 cows then by hand and there were 3 or 4 of the 20 gentle enough that Mama and I could milk them. Milk at that time sold for 10c a quart! Papa sold the morning milk to cafes in bulk but the evening milk was bottled and that meant lots of bottle-washing. Most of the bottles came back clean and required little washing, but there were always a few customers who never washed their bottles. I dreaded washing and scalding those.

Papa called his dairy Sweetwater Dairy and his dairy had a good reputation. We still had Nellie, our chestnut mare. Papa delivered milk in his clean, enclosed milk-wagon called a hack. He had painted it pale green with the name Sweetwater Dairy in black lettering across it. And, of course, the hack was pulled by Nellie who seemed to have almost human understanding of her job. Once late in the evening Nellie came in home pulling the milk wagon, and some of the bottles of milk, but no Papa. Mama was upset. She began calling some of the customers along the route asking about Papa - if he had been there with the bottled milk. At first the answers were "yes", then a lady said she had seen Nellie and the hack at the curb for a few minutes but she didn’t find any bottled milk at the door. After Mama got this same answer from several others, she knew something was wrong. Before long, after dark, Papa came in - walking. He was angry that Nellie came home without him. But he admitted he lingered to talk with a customer - evidently too long, so Nellie thought. Next day different ones along his route told him Nellie had stopped at every house on his milk route and waited long enough for him to take the milk to the door, then she pulled on to her next stop. She didn't miss a customer, not one! Mama said Nellie was smart and had taught Papa a lesson. -Excerpt from, 'I Remember Papa', Irene Rountree (eldest daughter) in remembrance of Albert N Simpson (1874-1928), Oct 1981