Free The Great Brain by John D. Fitzgerald Page A

off of both cakes of ice with our garden hose. Papa carried one cake into the kitchen and put it in the icebox. Tom and Sweyn put the other cake into a wooden tub and began chopping it up with ice picks.
    Mamma had the ingredients for making chocolate ice cream poured into the freezer bucket by this time. Sweyn carried the freezer from the kitchen to the back porch. He and Tom packed the freezer with ice and salt. I folded two gunnysacks and placed them on top of the freezer. It was my job to sit on the freezer and hold it steady while Tom and Sweyn took turns turning the handle which made the freezer bucket go around and around in the ice. When the handle got a little hard to turn, Tom called Mamma and told her he thought the ice cream was done. Nobody knew better than Mamma that the ice cream wasn’t hard enough, but she never let on. Sweyn uncovered the top of the freezer bucket and wiped the lid off with a towel. Mamma dipped a spoon into the ice cream and tasted it.
    “It isn’t done, boys,” she said.
    “Looks done to me,” Tom said.
    There was nothing Mamma could do but let Tom and then Sweyn and me taste a spoonful of the ice cream.
    “You are right, Mamma,” Tom said. “It isn’t done.”
    Sweyn put the lid back on the freezer bucket and repacked the top with ice and salt. I took up my position. We all knew Mamma wouldn’t stand for any more nonsense. My brothers kept turning the handle until they knew the ice cream was frozen just right.
    “It is ready for sure now, Mamma,” Tom sang out.
    Mamma came out to the porch carrying a big bread pan and three spoons. Sweyn uncovered the freezer bucket. Just as Mamma started to remove the dasher from the bucket, Tom began to whistle.
    “What are you whistling about?” Sweyn asked.
    “Just thinking about cleaning off the dasher makes me so happy I feel like whistling,” Tom answered.
    This was one time, I thought to myself, that Seth Smith and Pete Hanson were going to be left out. Every Sunday since school let out both of them had shown up just as Mamma was about to take the dasher out.
    “Hello, boys” — Mamma’s voice dashed my hopes — “you are just in time.”
    I turned around. Standing on the porch steps were Seth and Pete with their mouths watering.
    Mamma pulled the dasher from the bucket, scraping some ice cream of the blades but still leaving a generous amount. She put the dasher in the bread pan. We had to wait until she went into the kitchen to get spoons for Seth and Pete.
    “All right, boys,” Mamma said as we crowded around the porch table with the bread pan and dasher in the center of it. “One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and away you go!”
    Tom with his great brain knew the parts of the dasher to scrape to get the biggest spoonfuls of ice cream. But I managed to give a fair account of myself until the dasher was clean. Then we tipped the bread pan to scoop up the ice cream that had fallen or melted off the dasher.
    I got suspicious as I watched Tom walk arm in arm down our porch steps with Seth and Pete as Sweyn repacked the top of the freezer with ice and salt. It just wasn’t like my brother to be so bighearted about sharing the dasher with his two friends every Sunday. I followed them until they went around the corner of our woodshed and stopped. I craned my neck and listened.
    “Here’s my penny,” I heard Pete say.
    “And mine,” Seth said.
    “What about next Sunday?” Tom asked.
    “What kind you going to have?” Pete asked.
    “Pineapple,” Tom said. “And you both know Mamma makes the best pineapple ice cream in town.”
    “We’ll be here,” Pete said. “Same time. Same signal.”
    “Right,” Tom said. “When you hear me whistling, come to the back porch.”
    I wanted to run around the corner of the woodshed and denounce my brother for being a crook. I restrained myself until Seth and Pete had left.
    “I heard everything,” I said to Tom as he came around the corner of the