CUTTING ICE AT 14° BELOW ZERO
Generally speaking, young folks are glad when school is done. But it
wasn't so with us that winter in the old Squire's district, when Master
Pierson was teacher. We were really sad, in fact quite melancholy, and
some of the girls shed tears, when the last day of school came and "old
Joel" tied up the melodeon, took down the wall maps, packed up his books
and went back to his Class in College. He was sad himself--he had taken
such interest in our progress.
"Now don't forget what you have learned!" he exclaimed. "Hang on to it.
Knowledge is your best friend. You must go on with your Latin,
evenings."
"You will surely come back next winter!" we shouted after him as he
drove away.
"Maybe," he said, and would not trust himself to look back.
The old sitting-room seemed wholly deserted that Friday night after he
went away. "We are like sheep without a shepherd," Theodora said.
Catherine and Tom came over. We opened our Latin books and tried to
study awhile; but 'twas dreary without "old Joel."
Other things, however, other duties and other work at the farm
immediately occupied our attention. It was now mid-January and there was
ice to be cut on the lake for our new creamery.
For three years the old Squire had been breeding a herd of Jerseys.
There were sixteen of them: Jersey First, Canary, Jersey Second, Little
Queen, Beauty, Buttercup, and all the rest. Each one had her own little
book that hung from its nail on a beam of the tie-up behind her stall.
In it were recorded her pedigree, dates, and the number of pounds of
milk she gave at each milking. The scales for weighing the milk hung
from the same beam. We weighed each milking, and jotted down the weight
with the pencil tied to each little book. All this was to show which of
the herd was most profitable, and which calves had better be kept for
increase.
This was a new departure in Maine farming. Cream-separators were as yet
undreamed of. A water-creamery with long cans and ice was then used for
raising the cream; and that meant an ice-house and the cutting and
hauling home of a year's stock of ice from the lake, nearly two miles
distant.
We built a new ice-house near the east barn in November; and in December
the old Squire drove to Portland and brought home a complete kit of
tools--three ice-saws, an ice-plow or groover, ice-tongs, hooks,
chisels, tackle and block.
Everything had to be bought new, but the old Squire had visions of great
profits ahead from his growing herd of Jerseys. Grandmother, however,
was less sanguine.
It was unusually cold in December that year, frequently ten degrees
below zero, and there were many high winds. Consequently, the ice on the
lake thickened early to twelve inches, and bade fair to go to two feet.
For use in a water-creamery, ice is most conveniently cut and handled
when not more than fifteen or sixteen inches thick. That thickness, too,
when the cakes are cut twenty-six inches square, as usual, makes them
quite heavy enough for hoisting and packing in an ice-house.
Half a mile from the head of the lake, over deep, clear water, we had
been scraping and sweeping a large surface after every snow, in order to
have clear ice. Two or three times a week Addison ran down and tested
the thickness; and when it reached fifteen inches, we bestirred
ourselves at our new work.
None of us knew much about cutting ice; but we laid off a straight
base-line of a hundred feet, hitched old Sol to the new groover, and
marked off five hundred cakes. Addison and I then set to work with two
of our new ice-saws, and hauled out the cakes with the ice-tongs, while
Halstead and the old Squire loaded them on the long horse-sled,--sixteen
cakes to the load,--drew the ice home, and packed it away in the new
ice-house.
Although at first the sawing seemed easy, we soon found it tiresome, and
learned that two hundred cakes a day meant a hard day's work,
particularly after the saws lost their keen edge--for even ice will dull
a saw in a day or two. We had also to be pretty careful, for it was over
deep black water, and a cake when nearly sawed across is likely to break
off suddenly underfoot.
Hauling out the cakes with tongs, too, is somewhat hazardous on a
slippery ice margin. We beveled off a kind of inclined "slip" at one end
of the open water, and cut heel holes in the ice beside it, so that we
might stand more securely as we pulled the cakes out of the water.
For those first few days we had bright, calm weather, not very cold; we
got out five hundred cakes and drew them home to the ice-house without
accident.
The hardship came the next week, when several of our neighbors--who
always kept an eye on the old Squire's farming, and liked to follow his
lead--were beset by an ambition to start ice-houses. None of them had
either experience or tools. They wanted us to cut the ice for them.
We thought that was asking rather too much. Thereupon fourteen or
fifteen of them offered us two cents a cake to cut a year's supply for
each of them.
Now no one will ever get very rich cutting ice, sixteen inches thick, at
two cents a cake. But Addison and I thought it over, and asked the old
Squire's opinion. He said that we might take the new kit, and have all
we could make.
On that, we notified them all to come and begin drawing home their cakes
the following Monday morning, for the ice was growing thicker all the
while; and the thicker it got, the harder our work would be.
They wanted about four thousand cakes; and as we would need help, we
took in Thomas Edwards and Willis Murch as partners. Both were good
workers, and we anticipated having a rather fine time at the lake.
In the woods on the west shore, nearly opposite where the ice was to be
cut, there was an old "shook" camp, where we kept our food and slept at
night, in order to avoid the long walk home to meals.
On Sunday it snowed, and cleared off cold and windy again. It was eight
degrees below zero on Monday morning, when we took our outfit and went
to work. Everything was frozen hard as a rock. The wind, sweeping down
the lake, drove the fine, loose snow before it like smoke from a forest
fire. There was no shelter. We had to stand out and saw ice in the
bitter wind, which seemed to pierce to the very marrow of our bones. It
was impossible to keep a fire; and it always seems colder when you are
standing on ice.
It makes me shiver now to think of that week, for it grew colder instead
of warmer. A veritable "cold snap" set in, and never for an hour, night
or day, did that bitter wind let up.
We would have quit work and waited for calmer weather,--the old Squire
advised us to do so,--but the ice was getting thicker every day. Every
inch added to the thickness made the work of sawing harder--at two cents
a cake. So we stuck to it, and worked away in that cruel wind.
On Thursday it got so cold that if we stopped the saws even for two
seconds, they froze in hard and fast, and had to be cut out with an ax;
thus two cakes would be spoiled. It was not easy to keep the saws going
fast enough not to catch and freeze in; and the cakes had to be hauled
out the moment they were sawed, or they would freeze on again. Moreover,
the patch of open water that we uncovered froze over in a few minutes,
and had to be cleared a dozen times a day. During those nights it froze
five inches thick, and filled with snowdrift, all of which had to be
cleared out every morning.
Although we had our caps pulled down over our ears and heavy mittens on,
and wore all the clothes we could possibly work in, it yet seemed at
times that freeze we must--especially toward night, when we grew tired
from the hard work of sawing so long and so fast. We became so chilled
that we could hardly speak; and at sunset, when we stopped work, we
could hardly get across to the camp. The farmers, who were coming twice
a day with their teams for ice, complained constantly of the cold;
several of them stopped drawing altogether for the time. Willis also
stopped work on Thursday at noon.
The people at home knew that we were having a hard time. Grandmother and
the girls did all they could for us; and every day at noon and again at
night the old Squire, bundled up in his buffalo-skin coat, drove down to
the lake with horse and pung, and brought us a warm meal, packed in a
large box with half a dozen hot bricks.
Only one who has been chilled through all day can imagine how glad we
were to reach that warm camp at night. Indeed, except for the camp, we
could never have worked there as we did. It was a log camp, or rather
two camps, placed end to end, and you went through the first in order to
get into the second, which had no outside door. The second camp had been
built especially for cold weather. It was low, and the chinks between
the logs were tamped with moss. At this time, too, snow lay on it, and
had banked up against the walls. Inside the camp, across one end, there
was a long bunk; at the opposite end stood an old cooking-stove, that
seemed much too large for so small a camp.
At dusk we dropped work, made for the camp, shut all the doors, built
the hottest fire we could make, and thawed ourselves out. It seemed as
though we could never get warmed through. For an hour or more we hovered
about the stove. The camp was as hot as an oven; I have no doubt that we
kept the temperature at 110°; and yet we were not warm.
"Put in more wood!" Addison or Thomas would exclaim. "Cram that stove
full again! Let's get warm!"
We thought so little of ventilation that we shut the camp door tight and
stopped every aperture that we could find. We needed heat to counteract
the effect of those long hours of cold and wind.
By the time we had eaten our supper and thawed out, we grew sleepy, and
under all our bedclothing, curled up in the bunk. So fearful were we
lest the fire should go out in the night that we gathered a huge heap of
fuel, and we all agreed to get up and stuff the stove whenever we waked
and found the fire abating.
Among the neighbors for whom we were cutting ice was Rufus Sylvester. He
was not a very careful or prosperous farmer, and not likely to be
successful at dairying. But because the old Squire and others were
embarking in that business, Rufus wished to do so, too. He had no
ice-house, but thought he could keep ice buried in sawdust, in the shade
of a large apple-tree near his barn; and I may add here that he tried it
with indifferent success for three years, and that it killed the
apple-tree.
On Saturday of that cold week he came to the lake with his lame old
horse and a rickety sled, and wanted us to cut a hundred cakes of ice
for him. The prospect of our getting our pay was poor. Saturday,
moreover, was the coldest, windiest day of the whole week; the
temperature was down to fourteen degrees below.
Halse and Thomas said no; but he hung round, and teased us, while his
half-starved old horse shivered in the wind; and we finally decided to
oblige him, if he would take the tongs and haul out the cakes himself,
as we sawed them. It would not do to stop the saws that day, even for a
moment.
Rufus had on an old blue army overcoat, the cape of which was turned up
over his head and ears, and a red woolen "comforter" round his neck. He
wore long-legged, stiff cowhide boots, with his trousers tucked into the
tops.
Addison, Thomas and I were sawing, with our backs turned to Rufus and to
the wind, and Rufus was trying to haul out a cake of ice, when we heard
a clatter and a muffled shout. Rufus had slipped in! We looked round
just in time to see him go down into that black, icy water.
Addison let go the saw and sprang for one of the ice-hooks. I did the
same. The hook I grabbed was frozen down; but Addison got his free, and
stuck it into Rufus's blue overcoat. It tore out, and down Rufus went
again, head and ears under. His head, in fact, slid beneath the edge of
the ice, but his back popped up.
Addison struck again with the hook--struck harder. He hooked it through
all Rufus's clothes, and took a piece of his skin. It held that time,
and we hauled him out.
He lay quite inert on the ice, choking and coughing.
"Get up! Get up!" we shouted to him. "Get up and run, or you'll freeze!"
He tried to rise, but failed to regain his feet, and collapsed.
Thereupon Addison and Thomas laid hold of him, and lifted him to his
feet by main strength.
"Now run!" they cried. "Run before your clothes freeze stiff!" The man
seemed lethargic--I suppose from the deadly chill. He made an effort to
move his feet, as they bade him, but fell flat again; and by that time
his clothes were stiffening.
"He will freeze to death!" Addison cried. "We must put him on his sled
and get him home!"
Thereupon we picked him up like a log of wood, and laid him on his
horse-sled.
"But he will freeze before we can get this old lame horse home with
him!" exclaimed Thomas. "Better take him to our camp over there."
Addison thought so, too, and seizing the reins and whip, started for the
shore. The old horse was so chilled that we could hardly get him to
hobble; but we did not spare the whip.
From the shore we had still fifteen or twenty rods to go, in order to
reach the camp back in the woods. Rufus's clothes were frozen as stiff
as boards; apparently he could not move. We feared that the man would
die on our hands.
We snatched off one of the side boards of his sled, laid him on it, and,
taking it up like a stretcher, started to carry him up through the woods
to the camp.
By that time his long overcoat and all the rest of his clothes were
frozen so stiff and hard that he rolled round more like a log than a
human body.
The path was rough and snowy. In our haste we stumbled, and dropped him
several times, but we rolled him on the board again, rushed on, and at
last got him inside the camp. Our morning fire had gone out. Halse
kindled it again, while Addison, Thomas and I tried to get off the
frozen overcoat and long cowhide boots.
The coat was simply a sheet of ice; we could do nothing with it. At last
we took our knives and cut it down the back, and after cutting open both
sleeves, managed to peel it off. We had to cut open his boots in the
same way. His under-coat and all his clothes were frozen. There appeared
to be little warmth left in him; he was speechless.
But just then we heard some one coming in through the outside camp. It
was the old Squire.
Our farmhouse, on the higher ground to the northwest, afforded a view of
the lake; and the old gentleman had been keeping an eye on what went on
down there, for he was quite far-sighted. He saw Sylvester arrive with
his team, and a few minutes later saw us start for the shore, lashing
the horse. He knew that something had gone wrong, and hitching up old
Sol, he had driven down in haste.
"Hot water, quick!" he said. "Make some hot coffee!" And seizing a
towel, he gave Sylvester such a rubbing as it is safe to say he had
never undergone before.
Gradually signs of life and color appeared. The man began to speak,
although rather thickly.
By this time the little camp was like an oven; but the old Squire kept
up the friction. We gave Rufus two or three cups of hot coffee, and in
the course of an hour he was quite himself again.
We kept him at the camp until the afternoon, however, and then started
him home, wrapped in a horse-blanket instead of his army overcoat. He
was none the worse for his misadventure, although he declared we tore
off two inches of his skin!
On Sunday the weather began to moderate, and the last four days of our
ice-cutting were much more comfortable. It had been a severe ordeal,
however; the eighty-one dollars that we collected for it were but scanty
recompense for the misery we had endured.