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