“Up chamber.”
“Why don’t you give that to Charles?”
“I will, father.”
This was a gun that Ben had cut off, in order to make it lighter, and got Uncle Isaac to make a light stock for it, and given it to John; but his father having given him a larger and better one since he had become accustomed to gunning, he didn’t use it.
“I’ll give you a real nice horn, Charles,” said the captain, “and you can scrape it and put the bottom in yourself.”
After dinner they set out for Uncle Isaac’s. They both rode on one horse; John got into the saddle, and Charles sat behind him on the pillion that Mrs. Rhines rode on when she went with her husband; he put his arms round John’s waist just as the women did when they rode. They had fun enough going over, and when they arrived found Uncle Isaac making cider.
“Well, boys,” said he, “you’ve come in the nick of time; I’m just going to lay up a cheese, and want some help to squat it.”
“We’ll help you,” said John; “we’re just the boys for that, and we can drink the cider, too.”
A very few of our readers may know how they made cider in those days in the new settlements, and a good many may not even know how it is made now. We will describe his cider mill and press. At the end of his orchard was a large white oak tree, more than four feet through; under this he had placed a large trough, dug out of a log; in this he put the apples. He then took an oak log about six feet in length, and six inches through, in the middle of which a hole was bored, and a round stick put through for a handle. A rope was attached to the top end, which reached, and was fastened, to a large branch of the tree. When he took hold of the handle, and struck the pounder down on the apples in the trough, the spring of the limb helped to lift it up, which was the hardest part of the work. Uncle Isaac had been pounding apples all the forenoon, and was now about to press them. Fred Williams now came along, whom John introduced to Charles as one of his playmates, and a real good boy. Fred blushed at this, for he felt that it had been but a very short time that he had deserved such a character.
Between the tree and the trough was an elevated platform of plank, jointed together, and watertight; on this was a square frame of boards, about four feet across, and six inches high; he laid some long straw on the edge of this frame, and then put in the apples; when the frame was full he turned the straw over the edge, and tucked it into the mass of bruised apples; he then lifted the hoop up the width of it, put on more straw, and piled it up again, till he had a square pile four feet high. The straw was to bind the edge, and keep the pomace from squatting out sidewise when he came to press it. This was called the cheese.