“You gave me the chance to work on my machine a little more.”

“Well, I’m glad for that.”

“What do you think?”

“Actually, it’s wonderful fun,” said Thaddeus. “Why didn’t anyone ever tell me how dull the three-piece-suit life was?”

“This can get tedious too,” replied the baron. “Somebody has to be here twice a day, 365 days a year. There are no vacations if you have dairy cows.”

“I’m sure that’s true. But there’s something so wholesome about it all, interacting with the ground, the dirt, with these animals who know nothing but the most basic needs of life. I can see why you love what you do and why you want to be part of it with your men.”

The baron’s farm, like even the smaller ones of the region, did not exclusively produce any one crop or commodity, but with variety insured against the massive failure of a single product or a devastating drop in price. In addition to his herd of dairy cows, he raised a nearly equal number of bulls, which he sold for beef; grew rye, wheat, summer and winter barley, sugar beets, corn, oats, and potatoes; and raised three dozen or so pigs.

Once the milking was completed, they carried the full containers to the back of a flatbed wagon to be pulled by tractor to the loading platform out beside the main road, where they would be picked up and taken into the processing plant in Niedersdorf. But now the faithful milk givers had to get on with their vital business for the day—ten hours of contented grazing, from which tomorrow’s milk, and next winter’s fertilizer over barren fields, and the following summer’s wheat would all result.

“Stand over there,” the baron instructed Thaddeus as he swung open one of the large doors at the barn’s end. “They all know the way to the field, but there are always one or two ornery ones that will try something if you let them. They’re particularly feisty on Sundays because they know I’m alone.”

“What do I do then?” asked Thaddeus, the uncertainty suddenly showing again in his voice.

“I’ll go on ahead. The lead cows will follow me and all the others will come along. All you have to do is follow the last one out of the barn to make sure they keep going. Some of them are so slow that if you don’t make them move, they’ll just stop and lie down in the path!”

“But what if they won’t go, what do I do?”

“Just yell at them, give them a swat on the rump.”

“What if they get upset, or if they run at me or something?”

The baron laughed. “You’re not afraid, are you, Thaddeus? Of a little old cow?”

“They’re not so little!”