is is happening, but I'm going to show you
at least, WHAT happened."

He picked up a pair of milk buckets from a rack beside the door and
walked towards the cow stalls, Peterson trailing. "This." Johnny said,
pointing to the larger of the two animals, "is Queenie. Her milk is
just about as fine as you can get from a champion milk producing line.
And this," he reached over and patted the flank of the other cow, "is
Sally's Cloverdale Marathon III. She's young and up to now has given
good but not spectacular quantities or qualities of milk. She's from
the same blood line as Queenie. Sally had dried up from her first calf
and we bred her again and on Wednesday she came fresh. Only it isn't
milk that she's been giving. Watch!"

Kicking a milking stool into position, he placed a bucket under
Queenie's distended bag and began squirting the rich, foaming milk into
the pail with a steady, fast and even rhythm. When he had finished, he
set the two full buckets with their thick heads of milk foam, outside
the stall and brought two more clean, empty buckets. He moved to the
side of the impatient Sally. As Peterson watched, Johnny filled the
buckets with the same, flat, oily-looking white fluid that Sally had
been producing since Wednesday. The scientist began to show mild
interest.

Johnny finished, stripped the cow, and then carried the pails out and
set them down beside the first two.

"O.K., now look them over yourself," he told Peterson.

The scientist peered into the buckets. Johnny handed him a ladle.

"Look, Culpepper," Peterson said, "I'm a physicist, not a farmer or an
agricultural expert. How do you expect me to know what milk is supposed
to do? Until I was fifteen years old, I thought the milk came out of
one of those spigots and the cream out of another."

"Stir it," Johnny ordered. The scientist took the ladle angrily and
poked at the milk in Queenie's buckets.

"Taste it," Johnny said. Peterson glared at the younger man and then
took a careful sip of the milk. Some of the froth clung to his lips and
he licked it off. "Taste like milk to me," he said.

"Smell it," Johnny ordered. Peterson sniffed.

"O.K., now do the same things to the other buckets."

Peterson swished the ladle through the buckets containing Sally's milk.
The white liquid swirled sluggishly and oillike. He bent over and
smelled and made a grimace.

"Go on," Johnny demanded, "taste it."

Peterson took a tiny sip, tasted and then spat.