One Wednesday morning in March, I’d woken because my baby sister, Mary (better known as “Bitsy”), wouldn’t stop crying. She gasped until her little face turned red as a beet. “She kept your poor father awake most of the night,” said Ma as she tried to feed a squirming Bitsy.

Bitsy had been a happy baby, but it seemed to me she cried a lot more lately. Or maybe it was just that, though she was only four months old, she sensed that something bad had happened to our family—and that all our lives were about to change.

The moment I set foot in the stables, I wanted to race right out.

“Have Danny go to Mr. Johnson’s dairy. It’s near his distillery on West 16th Street. He should ask for Mr. Glander,” Mr. Timm had told Ma.

I didn’t have to worry about finding it. The distillery smelled bad enough, with its chimneys spewing out black smoke. But the smell of manure led me to a large, muddy yard dotted with a few dilapidated sheds and several long narrow barns, nothing like the green pastures I’d imagined. Could this dairy really be the home of the Pure Country Milk brand we fed Bitsy?

The doors of the largest barn stood open. When I stepped inside, I almost gagged from the stench. A mix of mud and dung covered the wooden floorboards. Cows were packed into narrow stalls in two long rows. From the rear of each stall, manure seeped out in vile, black streams. There was a trough running along the front so each cow could eat.

This is awful, I thought.

Just then, I heard a rustle. A young calf stuck her head out from around her mother and stared at me with huge, curious eyes.

“Hello, little one,” I said softly. She looked out of place, like a flower poking its head up in the cracks of a sidewalk. My hand closed around the pencil in my pocket. It would be fun to try to capture her comical expression.

“What do you want here, boy?” A bulky man strode toward me.

“I—I’m here to see Mr. Glander,” I said.

“I’m Glander. Who are you?”

“Mr. Timm delivers our milk,” I began. “He said you lost your stableboy and might need another.”

“You don’t look strong enough to heft a shovel.”

“I learned to milk cows on my grandfather’s farm back in Ireland,” I said. “I can muck out stalls too.”

Mr. Glander sized me up. “All right,” he said. “You’ll do the mucking out in the barns and shovel manure into the carts. Stay out of the milk sheds. That’s where we prepare the milk for delivery. You got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll pay you 50 cents for a 10-hour day, six days a week.”

“I’m worth 65 cents a day, sir,” I declared. Sis had made me practice.

Mr. Glander glanced around. Then, maybe realizing I was the only boy to choose from, he said, “Fine, 65 cents.”

“I got a job!” I almost sang as I wove in and out of the crowds on my way home. At a flower stall, I saw bright-yellow daffodils, so fresh and sweet they made me think of the little calf. Daffodil. I’ll call her Daffodil, I thought. I was glad to know that there would be at least one friendly creature to greet me the next morning.

During my first week as a stableboy, I learned three important things.

The first was to keep my head down and my mouth shut. Second, no matter how hard I cleaned the stalls, the stink wouldn’t go away. The third: There was a reason the dairy smelled so bad. I discovered it one day as I watched one of the men pour foaming, hot liquid into a trough.

“What’s that?”    

“Swill, of course. It’s waste from the distillery—a grain mush left over from making the liquor.”

“It’s boiling!” I exclaimed, watching a cow step back as steam rose up.

“It’ll cool. They come to like it,” the man assured me. “Works out for Mr. Johnson, the owner. The swill is waste, and we just cart it over from the distillery next door.”

“Swill can’t be good for the cows,” I blurted. “Some of them have sores on their backs.”

“Let me tell you something about working here,” he hissed. “Keep your head down—”

“And my mouth shut,” I finished. 

The stables weren’t far from the Hudson River, and every day after work, I walked there to rinse off.  

Sis still wrinkled her nose at me every night. I could never totally get rid of the smell that clung to my skin. But I was able to fool my parents, who imagined me working on a small farm on the outskirts of Manhattan.

“Keep my head down. Keep my mouth shut.” I repeated those words to myself many times in the weeks to come. But it got harder and harder to see Daffodil and the other cows in such misery. Each cow was tied in a stall and was never taken out into the fresh air or allowed to walk around. I’d noticed that Daffodil had started to get ulcers like the other cows.

I always saved Daffodil’s barn for last when I’d have the place to myself. I’d gotten in the habit of letting Daffodil loose. She loved to follow me around. I wished I could take her to the river so she could feel the sun on her back and even eat some real grass.

I’d be fibbing if I told you I didn’t cry sometimes. But I couldn’t tell my family about what I saw or how I wanted to quit that job. How could I add to the problems we already had?

I’d have to stick it out. Besides, what could I do to change anything?

My father got better slowly. But Bitsy seemed to grow worse. She cried constantly. Sometimes she rubbed her tummy like it hurt. She woke several times a night, crying to be fed. It was almost like the milk didn’t satisfy her. One night, Bitsy began to whimper. I got up and padded across the room. “Come on, Bitsy,” I whispered. “I’ll give you a bottle.”

We had a small icebox, where my mother kept the milk. I lit a lamp and poured milk into her bottle. For the first time, I looked at it closely. If Pure Country Milk came from the cows I saw every day, how pure could it be?  

I wondered what really went on inside those milk sheds.

The next morning, I left home earlier than usual and ran the two miles to West 16th Street. When I got to the dairy, I stood behind one of the milk sheds.

Through a crack in the wall, I could make out Mr. Glander standing over a large vat. Another man began pouring something into it while Mr. Glander stirred the mixture.

“So we water it down first, like this,” Glander was saying. “Then we’ll add that chalk, flour, and starch to thicken it again. And that’s how one gallon of milk from the cows becomes several gallons of Pure Country Milk! Now it’s ready to pour into cans and load onto the carts for delivery.”

Delivery! So this is what we’d been feeding Bitsy.

I slipped away and made my way to the nearest barn. I was shaking. Not only were the cows sick from being fed swill, Mr. Glander (following Mr. Johnson’s orders) was watering down the milk. Even worse, the milk was being doctored with other substances—like chalk—to make up for the poor consistency.

Pure Country Milk was a lie. 

By the time Mr. Glander came into the barn, I was mucking out a stall as usual. “Good morning, Mr. Glander,” I said. My head was whirling with confused thoughts.

“Get over to the big barn, Daley,” he ordered. “Mullen needs your help.”

Mr. Mullen was waiting for me near Daffodil’s stall. “We got a dead one to sell as meat. Help me haul ’er outta here,” he said shortly.

Daffodil was lying stiff on the ground. I pressed my nails into my palms to keep from crying.

That’s when I made up my mind. I’d never drawn Daffodil while she was alive. But I’d do it now.

On my way home I bought the new issue of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. I stood pressed against a building, away from the crowds rushing past me. I found what I was looking for, and then I made my plan.

“What are you drawing?” Sis asked that evening. She was bouncing Bitsy on her hip to get her to sleep.

“Nothing much,” I said, covering my paper. “Drawing baseball players.” Every boy on Prince Street was excited about the New York Knickerbockers.

“I can always tell when you’re lying,” she said.

I hesitated. But I had to tell someone.

“Sis, that dairy is a bad place. We have to stop feeding Bitsy milk from there. It’s making her sick.”  

I opened the notebook. “This shows how crowded the stalls are.” Turning the page, I said, “The cows get sick from eating the swill from the distillery. This is a calf that died today.” I showed her my last drawing. “And this shows men adding flour and chalk to the milk we buy for Bitsy.”    

My sister sank into a chair. Tears filled her eyes. “Is this true, Danny?”

“Yes. And lots of poor families like us buy Pure Country Milk,” I said. “Everyone believes they’re feeding their babies good, fresh milk.”

Sis was quiet for a long moment. At last she said, “I’ll talk to Ma about the milk. She can tell our neighbors, at least. But you can’t go back there.”

“I have to! We need the money.” I gathered my drawings. “Besides, I need to find out more.”

Over the next two weeks, I was the perfect stableboy. I kept my head down. I kept my mouth shut.

But I kept my eyes open. And, just like Sis, I did a lot of arithmetic.

I counted the cows packed into each barn and kept a tally of how many died. At night, I bent over my notebook, making sketches and writing down everything I’d learned.

Then, just when I had all the information I needed, I got caught.

One afternoon I went to get a drink of water at the pump. Mr. Glander was standing behind me. As I leaned over, my notebook fell out of my pocket. Mr. Glander picked it up and began turning the pages. His face turned red with rage. “Why, you little scoundrel!”

Without thinking, I snatched the notebook. I began running, slipping and squelching through mud and filth. I ran out of the yard, past the distillery, and down Hudson Street. I ran all the way to the address I had memorized: 19 City Hall Square.

The sign on the door read: FRANK LESLIE'S ILLUSTRATED NEWSPAPER.

“Are you all right, lad?” A man got up from a desk. He looked startled. No wonder: I was covered in mud and panting hard. I held out my notebook. “I need to give this to Frank Leslie.”

The man took it. “What’s this all about?”

“Swill milk,” I panted. “Swill milk is hurting babies.”

He turned over one page, then another. He gave a low whistle.

“My name is Danny Daley. I work at the 16th Street Dairy. My boss caught me with this. I took it and ran. I read the paper all the time. I thought . . . I wanted . . .”

“You thought Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper should take on these villains, is that it?”

Had I been wrong in coming here? I thought of Bitsy. I raised my head and met his eyes.

“Yes sir! Someone needs to expose this scandal. Babies are getting sick. And the animals suffer too.”

The man looked at me for a moment. Then he called to a teenage boy nearby. “Thomas, bring a glass of water for our young hero here.”

“I’m not a hero at all! I was scared,” I whispered. “I’m just an ordinary boy.” If I had acted sooner, I might have saved Daffodil. And maybe Bitsy wouldn’t have gotten so sick.

“Most heroes are just ordinary people. And I’d bet most of them also feel scared at some point,” the man said. “Now, sit down. You look as if you’re about to topple over.” 

“I shouldn’t. I stink. And I’m covered in mud.”

“Nonsense,” laughed the man. “Reporters are always up to their necks in mud. That’s the only way to get the story.”  

I wasn’t sure I believed him.

“Is Mr. Leslie here today?”

“My boy, I’m Frank Leslie.” He took the glass from the boy and handed it to me. “And this is my crack illustrator, Thomas Nast, who’s not much older than you. He’s 17. Thomas, this boy wants to make a stink about swill milk. His name is Danny Daley. I think we should call him ‘Stink Daley.’ Does that suit you, lad?”

Stink Daley. I grinned. “Yes sir.”

Frank Leslie reached out to shake my hand. “Welcome, Stink.”

So that’s how I got my name—and my start as an illustrator.

I learned three important things my first week as a part-time newsboy and apprentice artist at Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.

The first was to keep my head up. The second was to raise my voice. And the third was always to ask hard questions, because that was the only way to get to the truth. 

It turned out that the scandal was even bigger than I imagined. The 16th Street Dairy wasn’t the only one making swill milk. Mr. Leslie himself took on the investigation, visiting other dairies in New York City and Brooklyn, and discovered mistreated cows and contaminated milk. Thomas drew more pictures for the story.

A few weeks later, in May 1858, the front page of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper carried a startling exposure of the swill-milk trade, calling particular attention to the conditions at the 16th Street Dairy.

I wish I could tell you our efforts led to the immediate downfall of distillery owners like Mr. Johnson and his friends, who tried to cover up the swill-milk scandal because profits were more important to them than people’s health.

But it took years to pass laws to protect babies like Bitsy and the many others who got sick or even died because of swill milk. It took the hard work of investigators like Frank Leslie and Thomas Nast. And it took ordinary people brave enough to make a stink.

People like me: Stink Daley.