Top of the Milk

Almost to the end, before all the cows were gone, Pop would bring our milk to us and leave it on the back porch. Then my mom would bring it in. But one day, Mom was not in the kitchen yet, so I went and got the milk; my cereal was already in the bowl. Then I opened the bottle and started to pour. Something was wrong, I thought. I poured out the milk till it looked like the milk I knew. “Okay, now I can eat.” Just then, my mom came in the kitchen. She saw I was having my breakfast, so she said to me, “What did you do with the top of the milk?”

“Oh, you mean that stuff I poured down the sink?” I answered back to her.

“What? You poured it down the drain?” she sort of screeched. That was when I knew I did something wrong. Then she told me that the top was the heavy cream, which is something you pour off and put in the fridge for when you need some cream. I said I was sorry, and I did not know that about the milk. She seemed to understand that I did not know this, so I never did that again.

After I ate my cereal, I went straight up to the farmhouse. Pop was already in the barn, so I went in to say good morning to Gramma and went out to collect the eggs. I saw Pop as I was going to the chicken coop, so I stopped and told him what happened with the top of the milk, and he laughed. Then he told me to go tell Gramma, so I did. She also laughed and she went over to the fridge and took out a jar and handed it to me. She then told me to bring it to my mom, so I was off. I went down the lane to bring the jar of heavy cream to Mom. She was still in the kitchen. I walked in and said, “Mom, Gramma gave this to me, for you.”

Mom smiled and said, “Thank you very much. You must have told Gramma.”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Okay, thank her for me, will you?”

“Okay, I will,” and back up the lane I went to collect the eggs.

Pop had special jars made when he had the milk business. The jar had Harold Price written on it in a half circle, then Shelter Island. I only saw a few when I was growing up, and I did not really think about them as something to put away and save to have later in life.