A Busy Year at the Old Squires | Page 5

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