“I don’t know anything about it,” said Elizabeth Ann.  “I don’t know what you make butter out of.  We always bought ours.”

“Well, for goodness’ sakes!” said Aunt Abigail.  She turned and called across the room, “Henry, did you ever!  Here’s Betsy saying she don’t know what we make butter out of!  She actually never saw anybody making butter!”

Uncle Henry was sitting down, near the window, turning the handle to a small barrel swung between two uprights.  He stopped for a moment and considered Aunt Abigail’s remark with the same serious attention he had given to Elizabeth Ann’s discovery about left and right.  Then he began to turn the churn over and over again and said, peaceably:  “Well, Mother, you never saw anybody laying asphalt pavement, I’ll warrant you!  And I suppose Betsy knows all about that.”

Elizabeth Ann’s spirits rose.  She felt very superior indeed.  “Oh, yes,” she assured them, “I know all about that!  Didn’t you ever see anybody doing that?  Why, I’ve seen them hundreds of times!  Every day as we went to school they were doing over the whole pavement for blocks along there.”

Aunt Abigail and Uncle Henry looked at her with interest, and Aunt Abigail said:  “Well, now, think of that!  Tell us all about it!”

“Why, there’s a big black sort of wagon,” began Elizabeth Ann, “and they run it up and down and pour out the black stuff on the road.  And that’s all there is to it.”  She stopped, rather abruptly, looking uneasy.  Uncle Henry inquired:  “Now there’s one thing I’ve always wanted to know.  How do they keep that stuff from hardening on them?  How do they keep it hot?”

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.