The next day Rose saw Farmer Joel carrying what seemed to be a pail of thick, yellow sour cream out of the kitchen. “What are you going to do with that?” asked Rose. “Are you going to feed it to the pigs?” For she had often seen sour milk taken to the pen of the big and little squealers. “Give this to the pigs? I guess not!” laughed Farmer Joel. “This is rich, sour cream, and if my sister were here she would churn it into butter. But as she is gone I’m taking it to my neighbor, Mr. Ecker. His wife will churn it for me.” “Oh, couldn’t I churn?” asked Rose. “I’d love to!” Farmer Joel set the pail of cream down on a chair and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Churning is hard work,” he said. “Sometimes it’s a long while before the butter comes. Of course we have a churn, but——” “Oh, I’ll get Russ to help me and we’ll take turns churning!” cried Rose. “Please let me.” And Farmer Joel did. He brought up the dasher churn from the cellar. Norah scalded it out with hot water, and when it was cool the sour cream was put in it and the cover made fast. Then Rose took hold of the handle of the dasher, which was like the handle of a broom, and moved it up and down through a hole in the cover, as Farmer Joel told her to. Chug! Chug! Ker-chug! went the churn dasher, splashing up and down in the thick, yellow cream. Some of it, in little golden balls, came up on the handle of the dasher, above the cover. “That’s butter,” Rose told Mun Bun and Margy, who were watching her. Margy put out a chubby finger, got a yellow dab and tasted it. “’Tisn’t a bit like butter!” she said, disappointedly. “It will be when it is salted,” her mother told her. When Rose grew tired Russ took a turn, and so did Laddie and Violet, and soon the dasher was so heavy that none of the children could lift it. “I guess the butter has come,” said Farmer Joel. “Yes, there it is. Look!” he added as he took off the cover, and the children saw big golden yellow lumps floating about in what was now white buttermilk, for all the cream had been changed into butter. “How are you going to get it out?” asked Rose. “I’ll show you,” answered Farmer Joel, who had often watched his sister do this work. He moved the flat dasher up and down, slowly turning it the while, and in a minute or two there was gathered on the top of the dasher all the floating lumps of butter. These were lifted out and put in a wooden bowl and Norah “worked out” the buttermilk, leaving, finally, a firm, yellow lump of butter. “There you are!” cried Farmer Joel. “When it is salted you may eat some on your bread for supper.” And the six little Bunkers did, saying it was the best they had ever tasted. Daddy Bunker and his wife drank some of the buttermilk left in the churn after the butter was taken out. But when Russ tasted it he made a funny face and cried: “Sour! Ugh! Sour!” “Of course!” laughed his mother. “Buttermilk is always sour. But it is good for you, and I like the taste of it.”