-~19- 
     
     February until the ice began to show signs of crumbling, they dug their ow 
     
     supply and that of many other farmers on both sides of the river. I may be: 
     
     in error, but I seem to remember that their charge for a sleigh-load of 
     
     mud was twenty cents. 
     
    

    
     In Donald's wood lot, scattered clumps of second-growth served as 
     
     partial wind-breaks, but on West River, a little above the bridge where our 
     
     ‘digger was located, the northwest wind had an unbroken sweep for miles. In 
     
     present day weather reports, reference is frequently made to the "chill 
     
     factor" -- a figure that, added to the thermometer indication, includes the 
     
     drop due to wind velocity. I have seen days at West River bridge when the 
     
     effective temperature must have hovered in the vicinity of fifty below the 
     
     zero mark. During the intervening years, I have been in some notably cold 
     
     areas of the globe but, compared to West River as I remembered it, ona 
     
     blustery mid-February day, they seemed positively tropical. 
     
    

    
     The main features of a mud-digger were: a huge prong-ti pped scoop at the 
     
     end of a squared piece of timber, four or five inches on a side and thirty 
     
     or more feet in length; a supporting frame of heavy timber, and a capstan 
     
     that stood a few feet to the rear of the frame. A cable connected the 
     
     scoop to the drum of the capstan. Power to rotate the drum and thereby 
     
     raise the loaded scoop from the river bottom was supplied by a horse 
     
     hitched to the capstan shaft. The load was dumped into the waiting sleigh 
     
     by means of a trip rope. Guiding the horse was a job for a boy -~ a light 
     
     chore so far as exertion was eonoerned, but deadly monotonous and blood- 
     
     chillingly cold. Since I was the only boy in our family old enough to fill 
     
     the post, the honor fell to me on Saturdays and On weekdays after school. 
     
    

    
     When the scoop broke the surface on its upward journey, everyone within 
     
     a ten-foot radius was liberally sprayed with icy water; when it plunged 
     
     down again, the deluge was repeated. Within an hour after the start of the 
     
    
   
   
    
     day's operations, the horse was sheathed in a coat of glistening crystal;