"How do you get the ice out of this big house when you want it in the summer time?" asked Hal, as the foreman led them along the wooden platforms out of the big, cold storehouse. And how much warmer it was outside; even if the sun did not shine, than it was in the ice house. The children were glad to come out.
"We load the ice from here into freight cars," the man explained. "See, the ice house is built in two parts, with a passage-way between. And is this passage is a railroad track. The engine backs a freight car in here, the big doors of the car are opened, and the ice is slid in on wooden chutes, something like the iron chutes the coal man uses. Then, when the car is full, it is pulled down to the city in a long train, with other cars."
"And then the icemen come with their wagons1, get the ice and bring it to us," finished Mab. "I've seen them."
"That's right, little lady!" said the foreman with a laugh. And sometimes ice comes to the city by a boat, instead of in freight cars, and the men with wagons go down to the boat-dock to get the cold, frozen cakes. And now you have seen how ice is cut in winter, and stored away until we need it in the summer."
"My!" exclaimed Hal, as he looked up at the big ice store-house.
"There must be enough ice in there for the whole world!"
"Oh, no indeed!" cried Daddy Blake. "No enough for one city. And besides this ice, which is called natural, because Jack2 Frost and Mother Nature make it, there is other ice, called artificial. That is what is made by machinery3."
"Why, can anybody make ice by machinery?" asked Mab in surprise.
"Oh, yes, even on the hottest day in summer," her papa told her. "But it takes a lot of machinery. It is done by putting water into small metal tanks, and then by taking all the warmth out of the water by dipping the tanks into a big vat4 of salt and water which is made very cold by something called ammonia. It is too hard for you to understand now, but when you get older I will explain. Now I think we had better be skating home," said Daddy Blake.
As they walked down to the frozen lake, there was a barking sound from a small shed under which was an engine, that hauled up the ice cakes. Out from the shed rushed a little dog, spotted5 black and white, and straight for the Blake children he rushed, barking and wagging his tail so that it almost wagged off.
"Look out!" cried Daddy Blake.
"Don't be afraid!" called the engineer, laughing. "He's so gentle he wouldn't hurt a baby!"
And how strangely the dog was acting6! He would jump up first on Hal, and then on Mab, trying to lick their faces and hands with his red tongue.
"Oh dear!" cried Mab, who was a little bit frightened.
"He won't hurt you!" exclaimed the engineer. "Here, Spot!" he called.
"Leave the children alone. Be good, Spot!"
But the dog would not mind. He jumped up on Hal, barking as loudly as he could, and wagging his tail so hard that it is a wonder it did not drop off. The animal seemed wild with delight.
"Why! Why!" cried Mab, as she looked carefully at the dog when he stood still a moment to rest after all the excitement. "That dog looks just like our Roly-Poly, only Roly was white and not spotted black and white," said Mab.
"Well, when I got this dog he was all white," explained the engineer.
"He got spotted black by accident."
"I wonder if that could be Roly?" spoke7 Daddy Blake thoughtfully.
"Here, Roly-Poly!" he called. "Come here, sir!"
In an instant the dog made a jump for Daddy Blake, barking joyfully8, and almost turning a somersault.
"I believe it is Roly!" shouted Hal. "It's our dog!"
"But how could it be?" asked Mab. "Roly was lost under the ice."
"And that's just where I got this dog," the engineer explained. "Out from under the ice. One day, after the first freeze this winter, I was Balking9 along a little pond. I came to a thin place in the ice, and looking through, from the shore where I stood, I saw a little white dog down below, just as if he we............