ake.

On that, we notified them all to come and begin drawing home their cakes
the following Monday morning, for the ice was growing thicker all the
while; and the thicker it got, the harder our work would be.

They wanted about four thousand cakes; and as we would need help, we
took in Thomas Edwards and Willis Murch as partners. Both were good
workers, and we anticipated having a rather fine time at the lake.

In the woods on the west shore, nearly opposite where the ice was to be
cut, there was an old "shook" camp, where we kept our food and slept at
night, in order to avoid the long walk home to meals.

On Sunday it snowed, and cleared off cold and windy again. It was eight
degrees below zero on Monday morning, when we took our outfit and went
to work. Everything was frozen hard as a rock. The wind, sweeping down
the lake, drove the fine, loose snow before it like smoke from a forest
fire. There was no shelter. We had to stand out and saw ice in the
bitter wind, which seemed to pierce to the very marrow of our bones. It
was impossible to keep a fire; and it always seems colder when you are
standing on ice.

It makes me shiver now to think of that week, for it grew colder instead
of warmer. A veritable "cold snap" set in, and never for an hour, night
or day, did that bitter wind let up.

We would have quit work and waited for calmer weather,--the old Squire
advised us to do so,--but the ice was getting thicker every day. Every
inch added to the thickness made the work of sawing harder--at two cents
a cake. So we stuck to it, and worked away in that cruel wind.

On Thursday it got so cold that if we stopped the saws even for two
seconds, they froze in hard and fast, and had to be cut out with an ax;
thus two cakes would be spoiled. It was not easy to keep the saws going
fast enough not to catch and freeze in; and the cakes had to be hauled
out the moment they were sawed, or they would freeze on again. Moreover,
the patch of open water that we uncovered froze over in a few minutes,
and had to be cleared a dozen times a day. During those nights it froze
five inches thick, and filled with snowdrift, all of which had to be
cleared out every morning.

Although we had our caps pulled down over our ears and heavy mittens on,
and wore all the clothes we could possibly work in, it yet seemed at
times that freeze we must--especially toward night, when we grew tired
from the hard work of sawing so long and so fast. We be