"
Tuesdays and Fridays were the churning days, and on those mornings I
remember that we were wont to peer into the kitchen as we came to
breakfast and mutter the unwelcome tidings to one another that old
Mehitable was out there waiting--tidings followed immediately by two
gleeful shouts of, "It isn't my turn!"--and glum looks from the one of
us whose unfortunate lot it was to ply the dasher.
Addison, I recollect, used to take his turn without much demur or
complaint, and he had a knack of getting through with it quickly as a
rule, especially in summer. None of us had much trouble during the warm
season. It was in November, December and January, when cold cream did
not properly "ripen" and the cows were long past their freshening, that
those protracted, wearying sessions at the churn began. Then, indeed,
our annual grievance against grandmother Ruth burst forth afresh. For,
like many another veteran housewife, the dear old lady was very "set" on
having her butter come hard, and hence averse to raising the temperature
of the cream above fifty-six degrees. Often that meant two or three
hours of hard, up-and-down work at the churn.
In cold weather, too, the cream sometimes "swelled" in the churn,
becoming so stiff as to render it nearly impossible to force the dasher
through it; and we would lift the entire churn from the floor in our
efforts to work it up and down.
Pages:
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76