Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/89

 life made a pound of butter, but you know there is a certain charm connected with every new experience,—although at this later date my ardor has considerably diminished. After breakfast, I found our ranchmen had an errand at a saw-mill back in the mountains. Mary was going with them, and I was urged to go too; but that churn was drawing me like a lodestone,—not for worlds would I have left it. I had learned that a part of the road they were going over ran along a narrow ridge on either side of which was a deep canyon, a sort of Scylla and Charybdis affair; and having a horror of such a road, I made that my excuse for not going, not mentioning the churning, intending to surprise them agreeably on their return, both families being quite destitute of butter.

As soon as they were fairly off, I rushed for the churn,—a barrel-shaped revolving affair, which, it seemed to me while lugging it in, ought to have been built on rollers or at least on casters. Then came the treasured can of cream, the butter-bowl, ladle, mould, oiled paper, long-handled spoon, jar of salt, thermometer, teakettle of hot water, and two pamphlets on the art of butter-making. One of the latter had come with the churn, giving full instructions; the other, equally explicit, was from a State Agricultural College. I sat down to consult these authorities.

“First scald the churn.” Easy enough! I poured in the boiling water, and began whirling the crank