After that, all through the winter, our life was an unvarying routine of milking, feeding and watering the stock, preparing and eating meals limited only by our appetites, nursing the sick woman, and chopping firewood. From the first streak of dawn till the last gleam of twilight one or the other of us chopped the firewood. Neither of us was an adept at handling an axe. But Agathemer, with his half Greek ancestry and his wholly Greek versatility and adaptability, taught himself to be a good axeman in ten days. I bungled and blundered away at it all winter. Agathemer could cut a two-foot oak log into suitable lengths with a minimum of effort, with clean, effective strokes of the ringing axe, the cuts sharp and even; I could cut any log into lengths and enjoyed the effort, but I sweated over it and laid half my strokes awry, so that the ends of my lengths were notched and unsightly.
Also I broke five several axe-helves in the course of the winter. The first time I broke a helve Agathemer had no substitute ready, and, what was more, the fragment of the old helve was in so tight that he had to burn it out in the fire and then retemper and resharpen our one precious axe-head. His retempering and resharpening turned out all right, but he said his success was accidental and he might ruin the axe if he tried again. So he made two extra helves and had a dozen cornel-wood pegs ready to drive out the bit of broken handle next time I broke it; as I did, according to his laughing forecast.
The incessant labor of our days hardened both of us. Our muscles were like steel rods. We slept on our mattresses by that ash-covered fire as I had never slept at Villa Andivia or at my mansion in Rome. We ate enormously and relished every mouthful.
Riving lengths of logs with wedges and maul was a kind of work calling for no special skill; Agathemer taught me all he knew in a day or two. All winter we alternated this work with woodchopping, afterwards chopping the riven lengths into firewood lengths and then splitting these into firewood. Although we worked at riving and chopping and splitting every moment of daylight when we were not busy at something else, we never accumulated any comfortable store of firewood, so as to be able to rest even one day. We drank new milk by the quart, with both our meals; wine, abundantly as we were supplied with it and good as it proved to be, we drank sparingly, merely a draught at waking, one after each meal, and one at bedtime. What we took we took strong, mixing wine and water in equal proportions.
Both Agathemer and I preferred cows' milk and drank that only, as we gave cows' milk only to the sick woman. Both children preferred ewes' milk. As we had no hogs to feed we were put to it what to do with our surplus milk. Agathemer made a sort of soft cheese, by putting sour curds in a bag and hanging it up to drain. We both liked this and so did the little girls. But we could not use much this way. Agathemer, always resourceful, fed the dog all the goat's milk he would lap up, and, after he had set to curdle what seemed enough, mixed the rest, while fresh and sweet, with water and gave this mixture to the cows to drink, saying it increased their yield of milk. As the winter wore on he fed similarly the best milkers among the ewes and goats.
CHAPTER XIV
WINTER IN THE MOUNTAINS
Neither Agathemer nor I knew anything about bread-making. He tried, but merely wasted flour. And both of us hated the wearisome labor of grinding grain in either of the rough hand-mills which were in the store-house. He found a means of keeping us well fed, satisfied and looking forward to the next meal with pleasure. He screened a peck or so of barley, put it to soak in a crock, and then, when it was swelled, put it in a crock or flat- bottomed jar, with just enough water to cover it, and bedded this in the hot coals by the edge of the fire. There, under a tight lid, it stewed and swelled and steamed all day, unless he judged it done sooner. When it was cooked to his taste he mixed through it cheese, raisins, and several sorts of flavorings, also a little honey. The porridge-like product he baked, as it were, by turning a larger crock over the crock containing it. The result was always tasty and relishable.
I asked him why he used barley, not wheat, of which there was quite a supply. He said barley was supposed to be heating, and we certainly needed all the heating we could get.
The old smoked cheeses, of which an amazing number hung in the hut and store-houses, were, to me, very appetizing, used in this way, though too strongly flavored for me to eat any quantity of any sort as one would eat normal cheese. Agathemer said they had all been smoked too soon, while the cheese was yet soft, so that the smoke had penetrated all through the cheese. Certainly the outside of each cheese was mere soot to the depth of an inch, so that we had to throw it away. Even Hylactor would not eat it.