All of the Cubs except Brad were making ice cream in the church basement. Mrs. Holloway and Red’s mother had volunteered to direct the work. The two mothers had been kept busy offering suggestions, for none of the boys ever before had made ice cream except in the tray of a refrigerator.
Dan and Midge had cracked the ice in a gunny sack, hammering the stubborn chunks until they were of tiny, uniform size. The metal containers, with their wooden paddles, had been set into the packed freezers, and now the cranking had begun. Red was assigned to one, while Chub and Chips took turns at the other.
“My arm is getting tired,” Red complained. “Someone else take over!”
“You’ve hardly been at it two minutes,” Dan teased. Nevertheless, he seized the crank, turning it steadily and smoothly.
“Say, it’s going harder and harder,” he presently admitted. “Do you suppose the cream could be frozen?”
“Very nearly so,” declared Mrs. Holloway, packing more ice into the freezer.
Dan kept cranking. Melted salt water spilled faster and faster out of the little round hole in the freezer.
“This is getting awfully hard!” he gasped, exerting all of his strength to keep the crank moving.
“And this old freezer is stuck!” cried Chips, who was taking his turn at the other freezer. “It won’t budge an inch!”
“Shall we take a look?” asked Mrs. Holloway, relieving him.