Hey Diddle Diddle, the Cat and the Fiddle 

The farmer went out early early in the morning to do the milking. Twenty degrees below zero, and going down. As he fought his way through the ice and snow to the barn, he thought about the boy. Let him sleep, let him sleep. But he knew it was unlikely the boy was asleep. Already, the habit was formed in the boy, as it was formed in the farmer himself. The boy would be eating breakfast, enjoying what would probably be the last leisurely morning of his life.

The farmer had reasons for letting the boy sleep in today. He missed him already, though. It was nice to have company in the cold and dark. The farmer wished, not for the first time, that he and his wife had been able to produce more than one child. The boy would have to hire help, when the parents got too old to do all this hard work anymore. He was a good boy, though. He would handle things just fine, once he was fully trained. At last, the barn. Lift the latch. Open the door. Step inside. Close the door.

Ahh. The first moment, always a pure pleasure. The warmth, the good smells of hay and straw and livestock. The farmer celebrated this transition every morning by standing reverently for a moment, or at least he had used to, before he had begun to train the boy. As he stood now, it came to him that it had been a long time, a long time. And why? Wasn't the boy old enough to step aside and wait? Yes. He was. Had been for a long time.

 "Even a child rubs off on ya," the farmer thought, as he stepped forward, deeper into the barn. And there was Elsie, and there was Maude, and Cloe, and Daisy. All standing, waiting, their deep voices adding texture to the sweet sanctuary that was the barn, his barn, and the farmer looked up at the skylight and wondered, as he wondered every day, what his predecessor had been thinking, putting that useless thing in there. Oh, sure, on fine days it let in a fair amount of light. But not at this hour of a morning. Not ever. At this hour, you had to use a lantern, summer and winter. Well. Time to get started.

It was the boy's job to clean the separator. Every day, the boy washed the separator, and then the farmer checked it, and then the boy washed it again. It was time the boy saw the reason behind it all, and that was why the farmer was here alone this morning. The separator would not be clean enough. The milk would be ruined. The boy would see. The farmer had not checked it at all last evening. He tried not to think about the separator while he gave the lantern a little more wick, and searched out the stool and the bucket. Thinking about it would make him feel stupid. What had he been thinking, leaving that separator dirty like that? How could he be sure the boy would see? The whole morning's milk would be spoiled, so why even use a bucket? He tried not to think about it, but he was not used to being out here alone of a morning. Not anymore.

"Mornin', Elsie," the farmer said, setting stool and bucket in place in one motion. He patted the cow's rump, and placed his own rump on the stool. "How ya doin' today, old gal?" Elsie, knowing that relief was imminent, stretched her neck and voiced her grateful good cheer.

The farmer tried not to think about it, but the separator, and the wasted milk, and the not being as sure this morning as he had been last night, distracted him, so that he forgot to rub his hands together before he reached out to grasp those udders, and the rest ---- the rest is history.