Year: 1874

My friend, Juckins, always had fancy that
he would some day make his "tarnal fortin,
selling patent rights, and under that beautiful
illusion invested his "pile" in q modern self
sealing, double acting reciprocating churn. 1t
was big venture, and the churn was big
thing. You had only to set under a COW, and
milk her into it, then give three turns of the
sixty pounds of nice summer butter, according
to the age of the COW. There was only one
drawback to that churn. If the cow was very
old one, the quality was liable to vary to the
lowest grade Of boarding house butter, colored
with annatto and favored with cabbage, and
sometimes, as the Dutch folks say in the Mo
hawk valley, ga little frowey."


Well, Juckins set out with that model churn
to "sell the right" for Herkimer county, in the
State of New York, and the first place at which
he pitched was Little Falls. He had out his
posters la Barnum, and got the Little Falls
illustrated NeWs, a semi i-demi-occasional paper,
to give him puff. The editor was little
asthmatic, and the puff sounded more like a
oheese, and possibly threw cold water on the pro-
ject. But the time for the exhibition came, and
Juckins was on hand with his churn, hand
full of thermometers, a ahydrometer, and don't
know but he had barometer also. Some folks
say he Gid.


The churn had been duly "loaded" with
cream, and he had undergone the usual prelim-
mary process of churning, SO as to have the
butter in "two minutes" by the Squire's watch.


Juckins mounted his dry goods box, and be-
gan q scientific address to the gentlemen from
therural districts upon the physiological, chem
ical, marphological and neurological properties
Of cream, and dwelt with genuine pathos upon
those degenerate qualities of the lacteal "upper
crust" which defeated the buttery hopes OF the
churnist.


Meanwhile a waggish fellow who was always
ofh aJa 10
kind of 81 Slocum sort Of cuss,) was circula-
ting around that churn under the pretense of
examining it, and while doing so slyly slipped
into it lump of Babbitts doubly concentrated
extract of chemical erasive soap!


By this time Juckins had lectu red his audi
ence up TO the point of appreciation of that
church so he jerked off his coat and proceeded
to illustrate the herculean feat of churning
butter in two minutes (by the Squires watch. }


Juckins took hold of that crank with the air
of a man who knows what he is about, and it
was nip and tuck for two minutes; some of the
time the churn would be ahead and then it
would be Juckins. Juckins was "blown" when
the Squire called time, and concluded he would
breathe few seconds before he took out his but
ter.


Well, after he had got his breath he opened
his churn and locked in. All the crowd looked
in


Juckins was a little dubious, the crowd were
little incredulous, and the 81 Slocum cuss
was just ready to bust but held in. There
wasn't any butter, but there ,oas some froth


Juckins had evidently miscalcu lated his
time, or the temperature, or something. He
tried his thermometer; that was all right. He
concluded he had not timed the thing right; SO
he grabbed that crank again desperately and
he put that churn through on the double quick
for about FIVE minutes, when he opened that
churn with an air of confident expectation
which charmed all beholders.


Alas for the vanity of human expectation,
there was no butter visible, but that churn was
full of the most beautiful froth the eye of man
ever beheld.


Juckins instinctively realized that he had
somehow been badly Sold So be put his best
face on the matter and said:


"Well, gentlemen, if this churn won't make
butter, it will make more froM than any other
churn in Herkmer county. Let us go and
drink"