The little girl looked blank. “Why, a fire, I suppose,” she faltered, searching her memory desperately and finding there only a dim recollection of a red glow somewhere connected with the familiar scene at which she had so often looked with unseeing eyes. “Of course a fire,” agreed Uncle Henry. “But what do they burn in it, coke or coal or wood or charcoal? And how do they get any draft to keep it going?” Elizabeth Ann shook her head. “I never noticed,” she said. Aunt Abigail asked her now, “What do they do to the road before they pour it on?” “Do?” said Elizabeth Ann. “I didn’t know they did anything.” “Well, they can’t pour it right on a dirt road, can they?” asked Aunt Abigail. “Don’t they put down cracked stone or something?” Elizabeth Ann looked down at her toes. “I never noticed,” she said. “I wonder how long it takes for it to harden?” said Uncle Henry. “I never noticed,” said Elizabeth Ann, in a small voice. Uncle Henry said, “Oh!” and stopped asking questions. Aunt Abigail turned away and put a stick of wood in the stove. Elizabeth Ann did not feel very superior now, and when Aunt Abigail said, “Now the butter’s beginning to come. Don’t you want to watch and see everything I do, so’s you can answer if anybody asks you how butter is made?” Elizabeth Ann understood perfectly what was in Aunt’s Abigail’s mind, and gave to the process of butter-making a more alert and aroused attention than she had ever before given to anything. It was so interesting, too, that in no time she forgot why she was watching, and was absorbed in the fascinations of the dairy for their own sake. She looked in the churn as Aunt Abigail unscrewed the top, and saw the thick, sour cream separating into buttermilk and tiny golden particles. “It’s gathering,” said Aunt Abigail, screwing the lid back on. “Father’ll churn it a little more till it really comes. And you and I will scald the wooden butter things and get everything ready. You’d better take that apron there to keep your dress clean.”