[XX.]
THE BUTTER STORY
NCE upon a time there was a farm-house, and it was painted white and had green blinds; and it stood not far from the road. In the fence was a wide gate to let the wagons through to the barn. And the wagons, going through, had made a track that led up past the kitchen door and past the shed and past the barn and past the orchard to the wheat-field.
In the morning, when Uncle John had milked all the cows, he took all the milk, in the big pails, to the milk-room that was in the corner of the barn, and he poured it through a cloth into some cans. Then he carried the pails to the kitchen door, and Aunt Deborah washed them out with cold water. Then she poured some very hot water into them and rinsed them out, and set them in the sunshine. And Uncle John went back to the milk-room and took the cans of milk and carried them out to the spring-house.
The spring-house was a little low house that was in the orchard, and a stream of water ran right through the middle of it. It was the same stream of water that ran on through the big field where the cows went to eat the grass, and then it ran on, under the road and through another field and into the river. They didn't have ice then, in the summer time, but the water of the little stream was cool, and they used that to keep the milk and the butter from getting too hot. They had made a trench for the water to run through, and in the bottom of the trench they had put great flat stones, so that the water ran over the stones. And on top of the stones the water wasn't deep at all.
So Uncle John took the milk to the spring-house and poured it into big flat pans, and set the pans in the water on the flat stones, so that the water would keep the milk cool while the cream came to the top. The cream is the yellow, fat part of milk, and when the milk stands still, the cream comes to the top.