CHAPTER XVIIIA BIG SPLASH
There was silence in the dark cave of ice following that big noise from the sky. Then came a steady roar of sound.
“It’s raining cats and dogs outside,” said Farmer Joel. “We got here just in time.”
Suddenly Margy began to whimper and then she began to cry.
“What’s the matter, my dear?” asked her mother.
“I—I don’t like it in here!” sobbed Margy.
“I—I don’t, either, an’—an’ I’m goin’ to cry, too!” snuffled Mun Bun.
“Oh, come, children!” exclaimed Mr. Bunker, with a laugh. “Don’t be babies! Why don’t you like it in here?”
“I—I’m ’fraid maybe we’ll be struck by lightning,” whimpered Margy.
“Oh, nonsense!” replied her mother.
“No lightning ever comes in here,” said Farmer Joel. “Why, if lightning came in there couldn’t be any ice. The lightning would melt the ice, and it hasn’t done that. I’ll show you a big pile of it back in the cave. Of course no lightning ever comes in here! Don’t be afraid.”
The thunder was not so loud now, and as no lightning could be seen because the Bunkers were far back in the dark cave, the two smallest children stopped their crying.
“Is there really ice in here?” asked Russ.
“It feels so,” said Rose, with a little shiver.
“Yes, there’s ice here,” went on the farmer. “It comes every year, and stays until after the Fourth of July. Come, I’ll show you.”
Lighting a match and setting ablaze a stick he picked up from the dry floor of the cave in the rocks, Farmer Joel led the way toward the back of the dark hole. The blazing stick gave light like a torch.
It grew colder and colder the deeper they went into the cave, and Mrs. Bunker, with a little shiver, exclaimed:
“It is cold in here!”
“We won’t stay very long,” said Mr. Todd.“I’ll just show the children the pile of ice and then we’ll go back to the front part of the cave where the air is warmer. This shower will soon be over and we can go outside again.”
They walked on a little farther and suddenly Rose cried:
“Oh, I see it! I see a big pile of ice!”
The light from Farmer Joel’s blazing stick glittered on a sparkling mass of ice and snow in the deepest, darkest part of the cave.
“Is it real?” asked Mun Bun.
“Touch it and see,” advised his father.
Mun Bun put his little hand on the sparkling pile. He drew it quickly back with a murmur of wonder.
“Oh, it’s terribly cold!” he exclaimed.
“It’s real ice, all right,” laughed Farmer Joel.
“How does it get in here?” Russ asked.
“There is a hole in the roof of the cave—the roof that is made of rocks,” explained the farmer. “You can see where some water is pouring in now from the rain.” The children looked and saw drops falling on top of the pile of ice.
“Not as much water comes in here in thesummer as in winter,” explained Farmer Joel; “for now the holes in the rocky roof are filled with bushes and leaves. But in the winter, when the leaves dry out, there is quite an opening. Rain and melted snow runs in and it is so cold here that a big, solid chunk of ice is frozen.”
“But what makes it stay here when summer comes?” asked Rose.
“Because the warm sun cannot shine inside the cave to melt the ice,” explained her father.
“That’s right,” added Farmer Joel. “Some years we can come here even in the middle of August and chop out chunks of ice.”
“I should think you could make ice cream,” said Russ.
“Sometimes we do,” replied Mr. Todd.
“Oh, could we do that now?” cried Rose eagerly.
“We haven’t any freezer nor the things to make ice cream with,” objected her mother.
“Couldn’t we take some of the ice home in the wagon?” Russ wanted to know.
“Yes, you could do that,” said Farmer Joel kindly.
For a few minutes longer the six littleBunkers remained looking at the big mass of ice—ice in the middle of summer. Then as the torch was burning out and as it was chilly after the warm outdoors, Mrs. Bunker told the children to go to the front of the cave.
“But we’ll come back and get some of the ice to make ice cream,” stated Russ.
“Yes,” agreed Farmer Joel.
As he had said, the storm did not last long. Soon the black clouds rolled away, the thunder and lightning ceased, and the sun came out, warmer than before. Out of the ice cave rushed the children, merrily shouting and laughing.
“Be careful now!” called their mother. “The woods are very wet!”
But dry places were found under thick evergreen trees, and there the six little Bunkers played until it was time to go home.
“And now for the ice!” cried Russ, as the wagon was driven up close to the entrance to the cave.
“I want to break off a chunk!” cried Mun Bun.
But it was decided best not to let the smaller children go into the ice cave while pieces werebeing broken off to take to the farmhouse for ice cream. So Russ and Rose were the only ones allowed to see Farmer Joel, Daddy Bunker, and Adam North break off pieces of ice with heavy sticks of wood. Out to the wagon the chunks were carried. There they were covered with straw to keep them from melting too much.
“Now for some ice cream!” cried Russ, as they drove home. “I don’t believe you could find ice in the summer time in many places, could you?” he asked.
“Well, no,” his father told him. “Not every place has an ice cave, though they are not as rare as you might suppose. Sometimes, in deep, rocky glens where the sun seldom shines, I have seen ice as late as the end of May. But I never saw a real ice cave before.”
“A polar bear could live in that cave, couldn’t he?” asked Mun Bun on the way home.
“Yes, it might for a little while,” said Farmer Joel, “but I guess it would miss the ocean. Polar bears need salt water to swim in, as well as ice chunks to keep them cool.”
“I hope no polar bear comes to live in that cave while we’re here,” remarked Margy.
“Don’t worry, darling!” laughed her mother. “None will.”
There was plenty of the ice left when the farmhouse was reached. Russ and Laddie took it from the wagon and cracked it in burlap bags, while Farmer Joel brought out some coarse salt with which to mix it. Salt always causes ice to melt faster, and it is only when ice melts and gives out the cold locked up in it that ice cream can be made.
Norah soon had the freezer full of a mixture of sugar, cream and some sliced bananas, since the children liked that flavor, and in a little while Russ and Laddie were turning the handle.
By supper time the ice cream was frozen, and for dessert they had a dainty dish made from ice brought in the middle of summer from the dark cave. The six little Bunkers thought it quite wonderful.
The next day Rose saw Farmer Joel carrying what seemed to be a pail of thick, yellow sour cream out of the kitchen.
“What are you going to do with that?” asked Rose. “Are you going to feed it to the pigs?” For she had often seen sour milk taken to the pen of the big and little squealers.
“Give this to the pigs? I guess not!” laughed Farmer Joel. “This is rich, sour cream, and if my sister were here she would churn it into butter. But as she is gone I’m taking it to my neighbor, Mr. Ecker. His wife will churn it for me.”
“Oh, couldn’t I churn?” asked Rose. “I’d love to!”
Farmer Joel set the pail of cream down on a chair and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
“Churning is hard work,” he said. “Sometimes it’s a long while before the butter comes. Of course we have a churn, but——”
“Oh, I’ll get Russ to help me and we’ll take turns churning!” cried Rose. “Please let me.”
And Farmer Joel did. He brought up the dasher churn from the cellar. Norah scalded it out with hot water, and when it was cool the sour cream was put in it and the cover made fast. Then Rose took hold of the handle of the dasher, which was like the handleof a broom, and moved it up and down through a hole in the cover, as Farmer Joel told her to.
Chug! Chug! Ker-chug! went the churn dasher, splashing up and down in the thick, yellow cream. Some of it, in little golden balls, came up on the handle of the dasher, above the cover.
“That’s butter,” Rose told Mun Bun and Margy, who were watching her.
Margy put out a chubby finger, got a yellow dab and tasted it.
“’Tisn’t a bit like butter!” she said, disappointedly.
“It will be when it is salted,” her mother told her.
When Rose grew tired Russ took a turn, and so did Laddie and Violet, and soon the dasher was so heavy that none of the children could lift it.
“I guess the butter has come,” said Farmer Joel. “Yes, there it is. Look!” he added as he took off the cover, and the children saw big golden yellow lumps floating about in what was now white buttermilk, for all the cream had been changed into butter.
“How are you going to get it out?” asked Rose.
“I’ll show you,” answered Farmer Joel, who had often watched his sister do this work. He moved the flat dasher up and down, slowly turning it the while, and in a minute or two there was gathered on the top of the dasher all the floating lumps of butter.
These were lifted out and put in a wooden bowl and Norah “worked out” the buttermilk, leaving, finally, a firm, yellow lump of butter.
“There you are!” cried Farmer Joel. “When it is salted you may eat some on your bread for supper.”
And the six little Bunkers did, saying it was the best they had ever tasted. Daddy Bunker and his wife drank some of the buttermilk left in the churn after the butter was taken out. But when Russ tasted it he made a funny face and cried:
“Sour! Ugh! Sour!”
“Of course!” laughed his mother. “Buttermilk is always sour. But it is good for you, and I like the taste of it.”
“You can have all of mine,” said Russ.
“And I don’t want any, either,” Rose made haste to say.
Thus it was that butter was made, and it came out well except that, almost at the last minute, Mun Bun took the plug out of the bottom of the churn and let some of the buttermilk run over the floor. But Norah soon wiped it up.
The next day Russ decided that he would make a larger mill for his water wheel in the brook to turn, and Laddie offered to help him. The two boys went down to the stream with bits of wood, a hammer and nails, and they were busy for some time. Mrs. Bunker had taken the other children for a walk in the forest not far away.
While Russ was working at the new mill Laddie piled up stones and bits of sod on top of the dam already built, to make it higher so the water back of it would be deeper.
“The deeper the water is and the higher we have the dam,” Russ explained to Laddie, “the faster the wheel will turn.”
“Yes, it’ll be fine,” agreed Laddie, tugging at a big stone to get it on top of the dam.
Russ was putting the new play mill in placeand was getting ready to connect it to the water wheel when suddenly he heard a big splash up at the dam, which he could not see plainly because a bush was in the way.
“What happened, Laddie?” asked Russ. “Did you drop something in the water?”
“I—I dropped—my—myself—in!” gasped Laddie. “Oh, Russ, I’m all the way—in! I—I’m all—the—way—in!”