Nine Maids a Milking

(please expect more children's stories! Fun to write and an opportunity to be as silly as ever... well silly without being judged for it, perhaps!)


Mary lived on a dairy farm. Her dad looked after the cows and Mary and mum would milk them. She knew every cow by name and they all knew her.
She would pick up her stool and walk with her mum to the barn and say, “Hello Daisy.” And Daisy would flick her tail and say, “Moo!”
She would say, “Hello Buttercup.” And Buttercup would chew some hay then say “Moo!”
She would say, “Hello Tulip.” And Tulip would blink her big eyes and say, “Moo!”
She would say, “Hello Clover.” And Clover would twitch her ears and say, “Moo!”
Finally she would say, “Hello Marigold.” And Marigold would nod her head and say, “Moo!”
Five beautiful black and white cows to milk each day and then mum and dad would deliver the milk when Mary was at school.
But the village was growing, people were building new houses and the new folks said the milk was too expensive and any way, it was not like the super market milk. They asked for semi-skimmed and wanted it to be delivered before breakfast.
Dad said that they didn’t make enough milk to sell to the supermarkets and their milk was too good to be skimmed or semi-skimmed. “You can’t do that to my milk! Oh no you can’t.”
They only had enough room on the farm for five cows and that was that. If they couldn’t make a living with the farm they would have to stop and get office jobs. They would have to sell the cows.
So one Sunday afternoon, as Mary was walking through the woods near the farm thinking about the problem she stopped and let out a big sigh.
“What shall we do?” She said to herself.
“About what?” came a small, snappy voice.
“That’s funny,” She said, “I talk to myself a lot but I have never had any replies!”
“Don’t be silly,” said the voice, “you were talking to me.”
Mary looked down and saw a little pixie standing on a large stone. He looked crossly at her and said, “Well? Now that you’ve tricked me into speaking to you I will have to grant you a wish. Only one, mind you! You are not allowed to be greedy!”
“Wow!” Mary shouted, “How exciting! A real wish?”
“Of course,” grumbled the pixie who did not seem as keen on the idea as Mary was.
“No tricks?”
“No tricks, but you have to wish now. You cannot wait!”
Mary thought hard, she thought even harder, then she thought until she felt herself beginning to pop and realised she had been holding her breath.
“Phew! OK, I know what I want to wish for.!”
Alright, tell me.”
“Well, we have five cows and we milk them every day but they don’t produce enough, the milk is not the sort the people in the village want and they want to buy it at supermarket prices!”
“So what is your wish?”
“I want two cows to make skimmed, two to do semi-skimmed and one to make real milk and I want them to make lots and lots more milk than they do at the moment!”
“Hmm,” said the pixie, “that seems like a lot more than one wish to me.”
“No, it is only one wish but as it has to be done to a herd of cows it just seems like more.”
“OK.” Said the Pixie, “Inky binky tiddly winky, alakazam kazoo, all you’ve said in this long (but single) wish, it will soon come true.” Then he turned around three times and disappeared.
In the morning Mary got up and helped her mother milk the cows as usual.
“That’s funny,” said her mum, “Daisy’s milk is different.”
“That’s because Daisy and Marigold are giving us skimmed milk. Buttercup and Tulip will give us semi-skimmed and Clover will give us the best milk of all.”
“I know you told us that yesterday, Mary, but I never thought it would really happen!”
That day, they milked and milked, they filled every bottle and bowl, cup and tub, bath and jar and it still seemed to flow without a stop.
Dad said, we are going to need more help with this, so he got on the ‘phone and asked the Job Centre for milk maids. Then he spoke to the supermarket and agreed a price for the skimmed and semi-skimmed and even for his finest milk, too.
It was sad for mum and Mary when they agreed they should leave it up to the milk maids from now on. But it was exciting, too. And all through the day and all through the night as many as nine milk maids could be seen busy milking in a row.
Two milked Daisy and two milked Marigold and the skimmed milk never tasted so good.
Two milked Buttercup and two milked Tulip and the semi-skimmed shimmered in the light.
But only one was needed to milk lovely Clover as she produced only the finest milk, and the best milk always took longer to do.
One breakfast time, as mum and dad watched the morning milkmaids take over from the night shift ladies, Mary said, “Wishes are amazing, aren’t they?”
“Yes Mary, that is true.” said dad. “But wouldn’t it have been easier to wish for a bucket or a hose pipe that was always full of milk?”
“Yes, but then we would have sold our cows and we would not have been dairy farmers anymore!” replied Mary.
Which was true.