While crossing Lurvey's Stream, the team had broken through the ice
where the current beneath was swift. He had saved the oxen; but the
sled, with our beef pork, beans and potatoes, had been drawn under and
carried away, he knew not how far, under the ice.
A stare of dismay from the entire hungry party followed this
announcement. It looked like no supper--after a hard day's work! Worse
still, to Addison and myself it looked like the crippling of our whole
program for the next five days; for a lumber crew is much like an army;
it lives and works only by virtue of its commissariat.
But now Aunt Olive rose to the emergency. "Don't you be discouraged,
boys!" she exclaimed. "Give me twenty minutes, and you shall have a
supper fit for a king. You shall have _white monkey_ on toast! Toast
thirty or forty slices of this bread, boys," she added, laughing
cheerily. "Toast it good and brown, while I dress the monkey!"
Addison, Thomas and I began toasting bread over the hot stove, but kept
a curious eye out for that "white monkey."
Of course it was figurative monkey. Aunt Olive put six quarts of milk in
a kettle on the stove, and as it warmed, thickened it slightly with
about a pint of corn-meal.
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