Donald was bright and willing, and eventually was able to get near enough to Poppy to milk her, though she never liked him.  The Finn woman was the only person with whom she was in sympathy.  I think they were both Socialists.  Donald said we must do something about the flies.  I told him about my attempts to dress her in burlap, and we concluded that a spray was the thing.  Donald brought a nice antiseptic smelling mixture, and we put it on her with the rose sprayer.  Probably we were too impulsive; anyway, the milk was very queer.  Did you ever eat saffron cake in Cornwall?  It tasted like that.  The children declined it firmly, and I sympathized with them.  After practice we managed to spray her in a more limited way.

By this time we were having sherbet instead of ice-cream for Sunday dinner, and my ideas of a private cow had greatly altered.

I have a black list that has been growing through life; things I wish never to have again:  tapioca pudding, fresh eggs if I have to hear the hen brag about it at 5 A.M., tripe, and home-grown milk, and to this list I have lately added cheese.  Every one is familiar with the maxim that rest is a change of occupation.  J——­, being tired of Latin verbs, Greek roots, and dull scholars generally, took up some interesting laboratory work after we emigrated to California.  Growing Bulgarian bacilli to make fermented milk that would keep us all perennially amiable while we grew to be octogenarians, was one thing, but when the company, lured by the oratory of a cheese expert, were beguiled into making cream cheese—­just the sort of cheese that Lucullus and Ponce de Leon both wanted but did not find—­our troubles began.  The company is composed of one minister with such an angelic expression that no one can refuse to sign anything if he holds out a pen; one aviator with youth, exuberant spirits, and a New England setness of purpose; one schoolmaster—­strong on facing facts and callous to camouflage, and one temperamental cheese man. (It turned out afterward, however, that the janitor could make the best cheese of them all.) Developing a cheese business is a good deal like conducting a love affair—­it blows hot and cold in a nerve-racking way.  It is “the Public.”  You never can tell about the Public!  Sometimes it wants small packages for a small sum, or large packages for more, but mostly, what it frankly wants is a large package for a small sum!  Some dealers didn’t like the trade-mark.  It was changed.  It then turned out that the first trade-mark was really what was wanted.  Then the cheese man fell desperately ill, which was a calamity, as neither the Book of Common Prayer, an aeroplane, nor a Latin Grammar is what you need in such a crisis.

J——­ waded dejectedly about in whey until a new cheese man took the helm.  He also fell ill.  I always supposed that making cheese was a kind of healthful, bucolic occupation, but I was wrong.  Apparently every one that tries it steers straight for a nervous break-down.  I have gotten to a point myself where, if any one quotes “Miss Muffet” to me, I emit a low, threatening growl.