Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/172

 of those lamps seemed a burden greater than I could bear, but now, though it has not fallen from me, and never will, I fear, I have become resigned to the task as a part of the price one must pay for the “freedom of the hills.” And yet I do feel the revival of the coffee-mill and the lamp as a retrogression.

While I am becoming accustomed to the absence of gas for illuminating purposes, I bitterly deplore the loss of my gas range; the heat of a monstrous wood range in summer time, in a kitchen blessed with but one window, is beyond description. I honestly believe that if one out searching for Hades should about the noon hour poke his head in my kitchen, he would instantly shout, “Eureka! Eureka!” and cease his quest.

This range, to be kept up to the mark of duty, when fed by the light dry fir wood used here, must be crammed unceasingly; it gulps down a half-dozen sticks in as many minutes and immediately sulks for more. To keep the pot boiling with such fuel requires eternal vigilance.

There is no cooling off here by drinking ice-water, for, alas! there is no ice. While spring water is cold, one can’t help longing for the tinkle of ice in the pitcher; and iceless lemonade is, as we have found to our sorrow, “flat, stale, and unprofitable.” Ice-cream and those refreshing water ices!—let me not speak of them, for “that way madness lies.”