“I’ve milked for all maks o’ fowks sin’ father deed,” she went on, “bettermy fowks and poor widdies.  Once I milked for t’ King.”

“Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle?”

Lizzie knew nothing about pleasantry, and was not put out by my frivolous question.

“‘Twern’t nowther o’ them places,” she continued; “’twere Leeds Town Hall.  Mother read it out o’ t’ paper that he was comin’ to Leeds to go round t’ munition works, and would have his dinner wi’ t’ Lord Mayor.  So I said to misel:  ‘I’ll milk for t’ King.’  He’s turned teetotal, has t’ King, sin t’ war started, and I telled t’ cows all about it t’ neet afore.  ‘Ye mun do your best, cushies, to-morn’, I said.  ‘T’ King’ll be wantin’ a sup o’ milk to his ham and eggs, and I reckon ’twill do him more gooid nor his pint o’ beer, choose how.  An’ just you think on that gentle-fowks has tickle bellies.  Don’t thou go hallockin’ about i’ t’ tonnup-field, Eliza, and get t’ taste o’ t’ tonnups into thy cud same as thou did last week.’  Eh! they was set up about it, was t’ cows; I’d niver seen ’em so chuffy.  So next day, just to put ’em back i’ their places, I made em gie their milk to t’ owd fowks i’ t’ Union.”

“Who else have you milked for?” I asked, after a pause, during which she had moved her stool from Eliza to roan Anne.

“Nay, I can’t reckon ’em all up,” she replied.  “Soomtimes it’s weddin’s an’ soomtimes it’s buryin’s; then there’s lile barns that’s just bin weaned, and badly fowks i’ bed.”

“And will you sometimes milk for a lady I know that lives in Leeds?”

Lizzie was silent for a moment, and then asked:  “Is shoo a taicher, an’ has shoo gotten fantickles and red hair?”

“No,” I replied, and I thought with some amusement of the freckled face and aureoled head of the village schoolmistress, who had got across with Lizzie on account of her inability to do sums and speak “gradely English.”  “She’s an old lady, with white hair; she’s my mother.”

“Aye, I’ll milk for thy mother,” Lizzie answered; “but I’m thrang wi’ sodgers this week an’ next.”

“Soldiers in camp?” I asked.

“Nay, sodgers i’ t’ hospital.  Poor lads, they’re sadly begone for want o’ a sup o’ milk.  I can see ’em i’ their beds i’ them gert wards, and there’s country lads amang ’em that knows all about cows an’ plooin’.  Their faces are as lang as a wet week when they think on that they’ve lossen an arm or a leg, an’ will niver milk nor ploo no more.  Eh! but I’m fain to milk for t’ sodgers.”

“But how can you be sure that the right people get your milk?” I asked at last.

She did not answer at once, and I knew that she was wondering at my stupidity, and considering how best she could make me understand.  But she could find no words to bring home to my intelligence the confidence that was hers.  All that she could say was:  “It mun be so.”

“It mun be so.”  At first I thought it was just the usual game of make-believe in which children love to indulge.  But it was much more than this, and the simple words were an expression of her sure faith that what she willed must come to pass.  “It mun be so.”  Why not?  “If ye have faith, and shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done.”