The independent-reporter. [volume] (Skowhegan, Me.) 1909-1955, 1922-11-02
That Vas A Cold Winter
(By r. 7. Patten)

tnaI experience Tor the Big Woods
page. Now | just like to write
stories or tell them. have been a
little cautious about this one however.
because there will be some things In
1t that might sound like exageration,
and | wish to avoid even the faintest
suggestion of untruth.
In perusing this narrative you must
remember that the circumstances re-
lated occurred many years ago and
that Aroostook County is something
like one hundred miles nearer the
Arctic Circle thGn this portion of the
Kennebcc Valley. II was so long
ago that | have almost forgotten the
name of the town; twas TT. Caribou
or Presque-kent or something of the
kind Anyhow, went there in the
early fall To work IN the Kane House.
afterwards learned that the hotel
got its name from DR.. Kane. the Arctic
explorer who passed several summers
there in training for his Arctic exped-
itions.
In speaking of summer. I must be
careful not To mislead anyone; it did
not always come in the same month,
Sometimes ii would be in June and
sometimes in August. 1t WAS always
short and mighty hot The ther-
mometer would climb above 40 de-
grees in the middle of the day and the
mortality from sunstrokes was appali-
! ing. These heated periods were
always great Inconvenience. We
had no wheel vehicles and for few
days and sometimes for a week or
two the shedding was very bad. Then
I too, we were so accustomed to travell-
! ing on snow shoes we could hardly
work without them and these summer
days with the thermometer from 35
! to 40 above zero would sometimes
! put the snow for a little while out of
condition for snow shoeing
A part of my duty was tending bar
and this included the care of the
alcoholics. Some people liked their
! liquor in liquid form. In the summer
we could serve brandy, alchol and
high test whisky that way and we
used to try to keep it from freezing
as long as we could in the fall. We
had IA splendid cellar with great
deep pit in it like an old fashioned
silo. We used to keep the stuff down
there and covered UP about four feet
deep with straw. In that way we
could keep the frost out of it. some
times until October. After that we
used to give up the fight and let
everything in the liquor freeze up
solid.
Our hotel was the pride of northern
Maine 1t had the most remarkable
dining table you ever saw. Right
down the center was a coal pocket
occupying about half the width of the
table. We kept a dandy fire going
in this day and night. A guest who
really insisted on liquor refresh
ments could push his coffee over onto
this and thaw it out any time. A man
who did so however was regarded as
a tender foot. Most everybody took
coffee, whisky and beer in strips
Our method as to coffee was to let 1t
freeze in niolds, especially construct
ed. so that we could tip them over,
rap the bottoms and the frozen form
would drop out. These molds were
in various forms and shapes. l can
recall how proud | used to be to see
the table all set up with nice little
cone of coffee at the right of each
plate.
Our table knives were constructed
with hacksaw backs. A man could
turn them over and saw off piece of
his coffee cone and this was consider
ed the proper thing TO do. 1t was
distinctly bad form to pick up the
cone in the hand and chew off a piece,
altho we had some patrons who did
that The hacksaw was also very
handy in cutting off slices of frozen
beer, whisky, brandy, etc, which we
served in slabs or cones. In fact.
these knife saws were the principle
implement around The table for the
steaues and pastrys usually required
to be sawed rather than cut.
did not have anything to do with
the table but | was familiar with what
went on there; some things about it
were very odd. The milking was
not done into a pail in the ordinary
way. The man would milk a COW
rather slowly and deliberately, the
milk freezing of course as 1t emerged.
He would break off this milk in frozen
pieces about twelve inches long,
something smaller than a lead pencil
and lay them in box like receptacle.
It was the hardest way to handle milk
YOU ever saw. These milk icicles,
so-called, would keep forever and
it was the most convenient form for
serving you can we'll imagine. We
always put six at each plate and
man could order if he wanted The
method was to eat a small slice of
coffee cone and then bite off a piece
of milk icicle. There we're many
advantages to this sort of thing altho
man had to get used to 1t.
| think the most interesting mani
festation of that cool climate Is the
modification of animal life. I was
astonished to find that dogs cats.
horses, rats and other animals were
tailess and earless. TO understand
how this happened you must recall
the Darwinnan theory, which is that
all animal life must adapt itself to
it's surroundings or it cannot survive.
In that country. of course. ears and
tails had been frozen off for thous-
and years. Each generation had
shorter ears and shorter tails for this
reason, until finally these appendages