21) Ice

We didn’t have a refrigerator in my early days at the Little house: we didn’t have electricity.  But we had an “icebox” that sat in the kitchen.  The “ice truck” came as far as Uncle Earls place about once a week.  It was loaded with ice.  The ice was protected by heavy, insulated tarpaulins, on the back of the truck.  The ice was in large blocks, maybe 50 or 100 pounds.  The ice man could skillfully use an ice pick (or perhaps other tools that I don’t remember) and divide the blocks into whatever size was needed.

“Ice tongs” was a special, scissors-like caste iron tool, with points on the “business end” that could clamp down on a block of ice, so someone could “tote” it, just holding on to the handle.  You didn’t even have to hold both handles—gravity would clamp the ice block in place.  In due course, the ice block made it from the ice truck to the icebox.  The icebox was well insulated, and the ice would keep, without melting, for several days.  Other compartments in the icebox were good places to store, milk and other stuff that needed to be refrigerated. 

One of the most exciting things about ice was the ability to make ice cream.  Uncle Earl had a hand cranked ice cream freezer.  They mixed up the ice cream, put it in the central, metal part of the ice cream freezer.  Then chipped up ice, and it went into the wooden bucket-like container, between the outer walls and the metal freezer.  Salt made the ice get colder than 32 degrees F.  A handle on the side was turned, and gears meshed to rotate the metal container. 

When it got too hard to turn, the ice cream was ready.  OH MY!  If you ate too fast, it would make your head hurt!

About the time that Chan came along in 1946, electricity arrived at the Little House, and with it a refrigerator, that stored milk for bottles.  The refrigerator replaced the icebox, and the icebox moved to the little storage room at the end of the chicken house, where it stayed, and finally, years later deteriorated beyond restoration.  The refrigerator froze ice in trays, and we were never without ice.  But for a long time after the refrigerator came along, the icebox terminology remained.  The refrigerator was the new “icebox.”