e found Mr. Biles in the yard mending the valve of his
pump; and when the judge made a jocular remark to the effect that the
dairy must be in a bad way when the pump was out of order, Mr. Biles,
rising with his hammer in his hand, said,

"Oh, I ain't going to deny that we water the milk. I don't mind the
joking about it. But all I say is that when people say we do it from
mercenary motives they slander the profession. No, sir; when I put
water in the milk, I do it out of kindness for the people who drink
it. I do it because I'm philanthropic--because I'm sensitive and can't
bear to see folks suffer. Now, s'pos'n a cow is bilious or something,
and it makes her milk unwholesome. I give it a dash or two of water,
and up it comes to the usual level. Water's the only thing that'll do
it. Or s'pos'n that cow eats a pison vine in the woods; am I going to
let my innocent customers be killed by it for the sake of saving a
little labor at the pump? No, sir; I slush in a few quarts of water,
neutralize the pison, and there she is as right as a trivet.

"But you take the best milk that ever was, and it ain't fit for the
human stomach as it comes from the cow. It has too much caseine in it.
Prof. Huxley says that millions of poor ignorant men and women are
murdered every year by loading down weak stomachs with caseine. It
sucks up the gastric juice, he says, and gets daubed all around over
the membranes until the pores are choked, and then the first thing you
know the man suddenly curls all up and dies. He says that out yer in
Asia, where the milkmen are not as conscientious as we are, there are
whole cemeteries chock full of people that have died of caseine, and
that before long all that country will be one vast burying-ground if
they don't ameliorate the milk. When I think of the responsibility
resting on me, is it singular that I look at this old pump and wonder
that people don't come and silver plate it and put my statue on it? I
tell you, sir, that that humble pump with the cast-iron handle is the
only thing that stands betwixt you and sudden death.

"And besides that, you know how kinder flat raw milk tastes--kinder
insipid and mean. Now, Prof. Huxley, he says that there is only one
thing that will vivify milk and make it luxurious to the palate, and
that is water. Give it a few jerks under the pump, and out it comes
sparkling and delicious, like nectar. I dunno how it is, but Prof.
Huxley says that it undergoes some kinder