Free Down Daisy Street by Katie Flynn Page A

often teased him about it.
    The two men were experienced milkers and very soon they were pouring the still warm milk from their buckets into the cooler from where it ran into the churn, though Alec kept Fenny’s milk to one side. In summer, they made the butter in the tiny tiled room just off the cowshed which did duty as a dairy, but in winter the churn was carried into the kitchen and the three members of the family took it in turns to work the handle until the milk gradually thickened into butter. Alec’s mother would then add salt to taste and carry the lump of butter back into the dairy where she would divide it into half-pound slabs and mark it with a wooden paddle which had a relief of a cow on it. Then the butter would be neatly wrapped in greaseproof paper and kept on the cold slab until it was taken off to market.
    The milking done, Alec and his father headed for the pump in the yard. It was a familiar routine; turn and turn about, they stripped and washed or pumped the icy well water up from the ground, and when they were both clean and respectably clad once more they made for the back door, eager to be in the warm. There were still jobs to be done, of course: pigs and horses to be fed, to say nothing of the poultry, though that was Mrs Hewitt’s task. The cows would have to be taken back to their pasture in the morning, the horses fed on bales of hay and some chopped mangolds, whilst the wild cats which thronged the barns would have a dish of milk and water put down for them and Cherry and Patch would wolf any scraps left over from the Hewitts’ own meal.
    Indoors, Mrs Hewitt was waiting for them. At this time of year, they never ate until darkness had fallen, but after milking Mrs Hewitt always provided mugs of tea and a good-sized slice of cake. Sometimes it was an apple cake, sometimes a fruit loaf, and occasionally, when eggs were plentiful, a jam-filled sponge as light as a cloud and so delicious that it rarely lasted longer than a day, but whatever Mrs Hewitt provided it was always good and set father and son up for the tasks which lay ahead.
    Today, it was a large slab of ginger cake, sticky topped and smelling of spices. Alec was halfway through his portion when he remembered the puppy and glanced around. He soon spotted it curled up in an old box stuffed with hay and smiled at his mother. ‘She looks right at home and I guess you’ve already fed her,’ he said. ‘I was going to offer her a bit of my cake but I reckon she need all the sleep she can get right now. When do you think I ought to go and tell Mr Drayton we’ve found one of his pups half drowned in a ditch? What if he want her back? Only she’d mebbe stray again; she need someone to watch over her, eh, Ma?’
    Bob set his mug down on the table. ‘He won’t want it back,’ he said authoritatively. ‘His bitch had a big litter; this one’ll be the runt. He’s a hard man but he wouldn’t let a pup starve, so he’ll be glad if your ma will take this one on.’ He glanced across at the slumbering pup. ‘I dare say it’ll be more trouble than most, for them red setters are all scared of their own shadows and daft as day-old chicks, but if you and your ma want the responsibility I s’pose I’ll hatta go along wi’ it.’
    Although the winter had been a wet one, spring came early. The trees which surrounded the Hewitts’ farmhouse were in full leaf by the end of April, and by May the grass was well grown and the Hewitts were looking forward to an excellent hay crop. Alec, trudging along the lane that led to the village, one warm May evening, was comfortably aware that the family were beginning to do more than just keep their heads above water. For as long as he could remember, his father’s ultimate ambition had been to own the farm and the land upon which he worked so hard, but because of the Depression such a thing-had not yet been possible. Only the previous day, however, Mr Hewitt had taken the pony and trap into Stalham and