1871.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
387 
iBdDYs & mmwm Q 
Churns and Bottles. 
BY “CARLETON.” 
Churning! What would yon say, ray young friends, if 
yon were riding over one of the great prairies of the 
North-west, away ont on the frontier, fifty miles from 
any house, and were to find an old woman churning but¬ 
ter? Do you say that it is not a likely story ? Well, bnt 
you can see such sights on the frontier. I have been 
traveling day after day over these green fields of the 
North-west, and have driven my horse almost a hundred 
miles without seeing a house, but I saw hundreds of 
wagons moving in long procession over the prairies, 
their white canvas tops fluttering in the wind, and droves 
of cattle and sheep following behind. Boys and girls, 
with bare feet and frowzy heads, were driving them. 
There was a chicken-coop on every wagon, and a pig-pen, 
and the roosters were crowing, and the pigs grunting, 
and the sheep and lambs were bleating, and there was 
music from one end of the train to the other. These 
were settlers who had sold out their farms in Wisconsin 
and Iowa, and were moving on to Dakota, to find new 
homes in one of the richest valleys in the world, on the 
banks of the Red River of the North. 
But about the churning. The teams had gone into 
camp for the night; the oxen were unyoked, and were 
feeding on the tall grass; the cows had been browsing 
by the roadside all day long, and were glad to stand still 
and chew their cuds while the big girls milked them. 
The boys picked up some brush and sticks of wood, and 
kindled a fire, and went down to the brook and brought 
up pails of water. The women got their frying-pans 
down from the wagons, and hunted up pieces of pork 
from a barrel, and in a very short time there was a de¬ 
lightful smell of fried pork floating out on the evening 
air. And there a clattering of tin plates and cups, and 
knives and forks, which the little barefooted girls took 
out from a box beneath the wagon-seat. While all this 
was geing on, the gray-headed grandmother sat in her 
chair on the green grass, churning the milk in an old- 
fashioned dash-churn, and they all seemed to be just as 
happy and as contented as if they were at home. 
I think that the old grandmother had the hardest work 
to do. When I was a little boy, I used to hate churning. 
I never could see any fun in lifting the dasher, and send¬ 
ing it down with a jab, hour after hour. It made my 
arms and back ache, and once I declared I would go 
without butter rather than churn. This gray-liaired 
woman seemed to like it, and as I saw her lifting the 
dasher so steadily, it set my thoughts running over what 
I had seen in the way of butter-making in years gone by, 
and I remembered how vexed I used to get when the 
butter wouldn’t come; how once I began to churn in the 
morning, and kept at it all the forenoon and all the after¬ 
noon, and lost my temper, and wished the old churn was 
in Halifax, and, finally, got so mad that I jabbed the 
dasher down so hard that I split it, and came near staving 
a hole through the bottom; and how I churned, and 
churned, and churned, and still it wouldn't come, and 
went to bed with the back-ache, and got up in the morn¬ 
ing and found the butter had come of its own accord in 
the night, and came to the conclusion that I had made a 
fool of myself by getting angry. 
The witches used to get into the cream. People be¬ 
lieved in witches when I was a little boy, and I can just 
remember that one of the hired girls burnt out the old 
witch by dropping a red-hot iron wedge into the cream, 
and then the butter came at once. I never could find out, 
however, what became of the old witch. 
I have seen a great many kinds of churns, with cog¬ 
wheels, floats, rollers, paddles, dashers, rockers, and 
patent contrivances to make the butter come, but the 
funniest and queerest churn I ever saw was in the East¬ 
ern country ; and it undoubtedly was just such a churn 
as Abraham, and Jacob, and all the old farmers that we 
read about in the Bible had in their households. It was 
a funny affair, and if you were to guess a dozen times I 
do not believe you could tell how it was made. It had 
no dasher ; there was not a cog-wheel about it. It was 
made of raw hide—the skin of a goat, taken off from the 
animal with great care, and the hairy side turned in, and 
sewed neatly and tightly together with the sinews of the 
creature. It was sewed so well and so closely, that it 
Was water-tight. That is the way they make bottles in 
the old countries. I think it likely that Hagar had just 
such a water-bottle when Abraham sent her, with the lit¬ 
tle scapegrace Ishmael, out into the desert. I never 
thought it was very gentlemanly in Abraham to turn them 
out, but he wanted peace at home, and that was the way 
they did things in those olden times. That is the way 
they make wine-bottles in the East. Glass factories are 
not often found in Asia, but there are goats enough on 
the hills, and it is an easy matter to skin one, turn the 
skin inside out, and sew it up again—all but the neck. 
Every family has such a churn. The housewife puts the 
cream into the churn. Do you ask if she turns it in upon 
the hair? Certainly, for the skin will not soak through 
near so quickly with the hair on the inside as it other¬ 
wise would. When the cream is all in, a cord is tied 
around the neck, and then the boys and girls have a game 
of football. They kick the churn round the room, they 
toss it into the air, give it a lusty shaking, and keep it 
going until the butter comes. Such butter 1 It holds 
together well. It is about as well haired as any you can 
find in your own market. Please do not turn up your 
noses at it, for it is the best j r ou will get. Do wo eat it ? 
Certainly; and when you read about butter and honey in 
the Bible, when you think of Samuel, David, and Daniel, 
of Paul, Peter, and the Saviour, as sitting down to dinner 
and eating bread and butter, you may be sure the butter 
was churned in such a churn. 
Upon the whole, I think I had rather have an old-fash¬ 
ioned dash-cliurn than a goat-skin, even if it does make 
my back ache. 
Minnesota, August, 1871. 
Aunt Sue’s Puzzle-Box. 
[An apology is due to Aunt Sue and the boys and girls 
who enjoy her Puzzle-Box. Aunt Sue wrote, asking the 
editors what day they would need her “notices to corre¬ 
spondents,” and the editor whose business it was’to 
write and tell her, neglected, forgot, omitted, or some¬ 
thing, and did not reply. She called in at the office the 
other day, on her way to the sea-shore, and was so good- 
natured about it, that the delinquent editor felt very much 
ashamed of himself. So if correspondents have to wait 
another month for replies, it is not Aunt Sue’s fault, for 
she is altogether too fond of corresponding with children 
to intentionally neglect them.— Editor.] 
NUMERICAL ENIGMA. 
1. I am composed of 11 letters : 
My 11, 10, G, 3, is the name applied to the principal 
branch of a river. 
My 5, 2, 3, 4, is a propeller. 
My 1, 9, 8, 3, is a sort of oven. 
My 4, 6, 8, 7, is a measure. 
My whole is one of the kings of Europe. Frank. 
SQUARE WORD. 
2. Square the word “ Write.” Star and Crescent. 
BLANKS. 
(Fill the following blanks with words pronounced alike 
but spelled differently.) 
3. Will you-me a-? 
4. The-sang a plaintive-. 
■ the men saw the - 
■ will read a-. 
They gave 
-will 
■ to read. 
9. His ■ 
■—-—•• the tree, 
was that of a — 
- man. 
The Italian Boy. 
CROSS-WORD ENIGMA. 
10. My first is in shadow but not in storm. 
My next is in substance by not in form. 
My third is in rain but not in snow. 
My fourth is in reap but not in mow. 
My fifth is in pipe but not in bowl. 
My sixth is in mouse but not in mole. 
My seventh is in bird but not in cage. 
• My eighth is in sulky but not in stage. 
My ninth is in bran but not in meal. 
My tenth is in grouse bnt not in teal. 
And now, if you’re patient, and clever, and witty, 
My whole you’ll discover, the name cf a city. 
Uncle Ed. 
PUZZLE. 
(Make sense of the following letters.) 
11. Y A D O T 
O M O T O 
RRELD 
R P Y L N 
O U E I A 
WT N T C 
WOFFU 
H A T Y O E. L. Clark, 
proverb PI. 
(Make five proverbs out of the following 4.3 words.) 
12. A good man goes to pay a debt. 
The only child goes sorrowing. 
It is easier to revenge at sixteen. 
He is to blame: health will prove it. 
Do that which is above a wrong. 
Wealth at sixty is better than a borrowing. 
L. S. C. 
ANAGRAMS. 
13. Exit rum. 
14. Depart sea. 
15. Under fish. 
16. Prim men’s vote. 
17. For Mrs. Peer. 
18. None dip cream. 
19. Train must enlist. 
20. In a census. 
21. Seven crags. 
22. Tries cord. 
23. Otrynocilica samrenn manemod metsee. 
GRETCHEN. 
417. Illustrated Rebus .—This seems to be a very in 
genious way of imparting good advice of a kind which, 
is equally applicable to old and young. 
HAUTBOY. 
E®-' " -- — 
418. Illustrated Rebus .—That does not look very 
poetical. It seems more agricultural, with sheep, swine, 
roots, and things; yet it is two lines from a very beauti¬ 
ful poem that every boy and girl ought to have by heart.. 
419. Illustrated Rebus .—Aunt Sue says that the above¬ 
rebus is a selfish man’s motto. If so, do not try to 
follow its teachings when you have made it out. 
ANSWERS TO PUZZLES IN THE AUGUST NUMBER. 
1. Aunt Sue. 2. Lighthouse. 3. Lady’s Slipper. 4. 
Americanize. 5. Invisible. 6. Penniless. 7. Light¬ 
house. 8. Gentleman. 9. Mistaken. 10. Heroine. 11. 
Romances. 12. Shivered. 13. Volcanoes. 14. Delinea¬ 
tion. 15. Interested. 16. Alternated. 17. Sluggishness.. 
18. Orchestral. 19. Traveller: 
T 
ARE 
HEART 
PERVERT 
TRAVELLER 
FAILURE 
INLET 
JET 
R 
