LETTERS FROM AN OREGON RANCH
that may startle a waiting world. Slowly the temperature of the cream rose to 62½°. I could not understand its slowness,—mine having risen to at least 150° in the same time. The critical moment had arrived. The rich Jersey cream was poured into the churn, the lid clamped down, the cork pounded in with the potato-masher. The operator, seated, with book in hand, now read: “Eighty revolutions per minute the proper rate of speed.” To a lady of quiet habits that seemed “the pace that kills,” but at it I went with might and main, whirling the crank so fast I couldn’t count; it might have been eight hundred instead of eighty times per minute. Anyway, I got scared, thinking a hot-box might be the next feature; so I slowed down to perhaps eight revolutions a minute.
More comfortable now, I looked at the churning equipment, thinking all butter-makers should have a dairy-room where such things could be kept, and not need to be collected from the four quarters of the globe when wanted. I rather fancied I’d like such a one as Queen Victoria had at Balmoral Castle; but that seemed almost too aspiring. I then fell back on Mrs. Poyser’s, as described by George Eliot: “The dairy was certainly worth looking at. A scene to sicken for in hot and dusty streets,—such coolness, such purity, such fresh fragrance of new-pressed cheese, of firm butter, of wooden vessels perpetually bathed in pure water; such soft coloring of red earthenware and creamy
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