It’s early. There’s only one light on in the house. It’s the lamp on the end table. The rooms are open enough that the glow reaches into the kitchen where Martin slips on his old hunting jacket that hangs on a nail by the back door. He pats the jacket’s side pocket to verify that his flashlight is where it’s supposed to be.

He slips on his Planter’s Feed & Seed cap, grabs the two buckets near the sink, one empty and one with water, then heads out the back door.

Although this has been Martin’s routine at this time of morning nearly every day of his life, he never tires of it. He’s a little slower getting out of bed than he used to be. Not later, just slower to move and get vertical. It takes longer to get his senses about him.

But when he steps out into the darkness of the morning, he feels right. He knows that this is what he’s meant to do, who he’s meant to be.

He looks up for a moment. It’s overcast and dark as a cave out here. There’s a coolness in the air that tells him the old world is still on schedule. The Master hasn’t gone to sleep at the wheel.

“Years ago,” he thinks to himself, “I used to be out here with my grandpa.”

It was a different house just down the road a piece. A different back door, and a different time. But it had the same kind of feel to it.

“Come on. Step up with me,” his grandpa would say. “Old Nellie is gonna be waiting on us.”

Martin fills his cheeks with air and lets it escape slowly through his lips like through the end of a balloon. He steps up and heads for the barn.

He doesn’t use the flashlight. He could almost walk this path with his eyes closed. You spend enough time in the dark and you get comfortable with it. He can feel the right hand turn around the smokehouse. He knows the gate to the feed lot is just to the left.

As he walks along, he calls out to Nellie Bell. “Whuuu-up.” A few more steps. “Come on.” He snaps off the end of the call hard, like a bite.

There’s a connectedness, he thinks to himself, in this life. No man makes his way but by what he learns from those who have gone before him. And he knows that he is fast becoming a relic of the past. His grandson is not with him on this journey as he was with his. The young will not know the way of the old unless they are joined together in the simple course of living.

In a way, being out here by himself makes him suddenly feel lonely. He knows full-well that he will be the last one of his ancestors to live this way. To live by simple means. To hold on to the old ways.

He hears Nellie Bell stirring in the pen. She knows it’s time for milking.

Sometimes, he wonders to himself why he holds on. Especially on a cold wet morning he tends to regret his life choices a little bit.

“Dag-nabbit,” he thinks. “What in the world am I still doing this for? They’ve got milk down at the grocery store these days, and it’s cheaper than the feed.”

Martin feels his way into the cover of the barn. He reaches for the pull cord on the single light bulb that dangles over the milking stall. Two or three cats meow and scurry out of the way into the shadows. Just like Nellie Bell, they know the routine.

Nellie is already standing in her stall. He reaches into the crib, scoops up a bucket of cotton seed meal, pushes his way past the old Gurnsey, and pours it into the feed trough. Nellie blows and munches for a moment. She then raises her head and turns to look back at Martin, feed stuck to her wet nose, her tongue working to remove it.

He’s sitting on his stool beneath the old gal, beginning to wash her teats. Nellie seems satisfied and turns back to her feed.

In spite of sometimes being bored with his routine, he knows that his routine is where he is most comfortable. Some men need more out of life, whatever that is. Martin has found that less is enough for him.

He took the family on vacation once. They went to the beach. He asked his neighbor Fred Colter to milk Nellie for him while he was gone, just to keep her fresh. He about worried himself to death the whole time. He was glad to be home when it was over.

“Maybe I should have been wiser with my boys.”

He’s thinking as he squeezes. The stream makes a ‘ting’ at first in the bottom of the bucket. The cats gather and wander back and forth between Nellie’s back hooves. He squirts one in the face, then shoos it away with his boot.

“Maybe they would have wanted this if I had done it differently,” he wonders.

One generation is really no smarter or wiser than the other. It’s just that life changes. Opportunities change. The world changes without regard to the old ways. The appearance of the gasoline tractor that one generation swore ruined the young folk, is the appearance of the TV that “ruined” another.

Martin couldn’t have done it differently. His boys made good choices. He knows that. But he hates that he’s thinking about putting away the milk pail. Maybe it’s time to give it up.

“They got milk and butter at the store,” keeps going through his mind.

Nellie finishes up her feed about time the pail gets full. It’s a rhythm that he and the old cow understand. She rocks back a half step, which tells him she’s done. He pats her on the haunches close to his face, which tells her she did good.

There’s a touch of daylight on the horizon as he leaves the barn. He opens the gate to let Nellie out to pasture. He can see the full light of the kitchen through the windows along the back porch. He knows that Martha will have breakfast ready in a few minutes.

Reflection can be good for a man he thinks. A man needs to sort out things once in a while. He also thinks that too much reflection can ruin a man. There’re too many questions for which there are only complicated answers. Some answers can’t be had this side of heaven. So, sometimes it’s just better to live and not worry about the what ifs and the whys.

Martin pushes the kitchen door open and sets the milk pail on the counter. He can see his wife standing at the stove, her back to him. She’s scrambling eggs and folding in some cheese just the way he likes them.

“How’s the morning out there?” She asks without turning around.

He walks over and gives her a peck on the ear from behind.

“It couldn’t be a finer morning.”