MARCH

_March 1._--This has been a great winter for signs in the sky. We have

had halos around both sun and moon, and both parhelia and paraselenae.

(I looked those up in the dictionary. If I had not I would have called

them sun-dogs and moon-dogs, but there is nothing like being scientific

and correct.) I always understood that such things were signs of storms,

but this year they did not seem to work right. We would have these

exhibitions, and there would be no noticeable change in the weather.

In all the illustrations of these things that I have examined the

straight lines that combine with the circles always run parallel to the

horizon or at right angles to it. But one day a couple of weeks ago

there was a halo around the sun that had a bright tangent line that was

inclined towards the horizon at an angle of forty-five degrees. This

moves me to say to the scientists, as my boys say to me: "Now, why was

that?" Of ordinary sun-dogs at both sides of the sun and even above and

below it we had many, sometimes with halos and sometimes without. Though

I have often seen halos around the moon, this winter is the first time I

have seen moon-dogs. They are the same as those around the sun, only

fainter and without colour. Sometimes the sun would go down with a

straight line reaching up from it like the tail of a comet. I am told

that all these manifestations are due to ice crystals in the upper air,

and I have no doubt there were plenty of them this year. But I should

really like to know if that slanting line was good form. The books give

no pictures of such lines, and say nothing about them.

To-day the boys and I took a walk to see how the wild things are

wintering and were disappointed to find no trace of the quail. There is

one corner where there are weeds and briars that seemed to be their

favourite shelter and feeding ground, but there was not a track to be

seen. On making inquiries I find no one has seen them or any trace of

them since the blizzard a couple of weeks ago. Before that there were

two flocks on the farm, one of nine birds and one of sixteen. As they

had brush-heaps in which to find shelter I thought they would come

through the winter all right, but the deep drifts must have buried them

somewhere. We used to be able to find their tracks at any time we looked

for them and often we would flush the birds themselves. But though the

quail have disappeared the mice do not seem to have been affected. Their

tracks are everywhere, and in the edge of the woodlot we found a dead

mole that had evidently found its way to the surface, only to be

overcome by the cold. We saw one black squirrel that dodged around a big

maple until we divided into two parties and went yelling around the tree

in opposite ways. Then it jumped into a hole. While crossing a field we

found an unaccountable track. It was merely a long straight line in the

snow such as a boy makes with the whip when driving in a cutter. But

there were no tracks beside it. We decided to investigate and after

following the line about fifty yards came to a spot where an owl or hawk

had stopped to tear up a rabbit. It had evidently been flying low with

it, so that it dragged in the snow. We then followed the line in the

opposite direction, where we found in the top of a corn-shock the form

in which the rabbit had been sitting when captured. It must have been

there for some time, for there were no rabbit tracks, though it was two

days since the snow had fallen. Its enemy had swooped down on it and

lifted it out of the form, but found it too heavy to carry to a tree, so

stopped and had its meal on the snow.

Although it is over two weeks since Mr. Clement was here to show me how

to prune the orchard, there have been only two days when it was

possible to work at the trees. Zero weather with high winds makes tree

climbing about the coldest job that a man can tackle. Still there are

twenty thoughtfully pruned and carefully scraped trees awaiting his

inspection. If the weather moderates a little we shall soon be able to

finish the job, for we seem to have got the hang of it. But though I

feel sure that I have followed his instructions as I understood them, I

am worrying about it just as a schoolboy does about his homework. I want

him to come and look them over and say whether they are right. It will

soon be time for him to come again and do the first spraying, but

everything depends on the weather. This winter seems to be in for making

records of all kinds and there is no telling when it will be through

with its tricks. But as soon as it gives me a chance I shall finish the

pruning and await my fate. If he says that I did not do the work right I

shall have to own up to it, and I hate to do that just as much as any

one else.

_March 4._--Having just read eighteen pioneer biographies and several

pioneer novels of the approved kind, in which everything ends happily,

and the hero goes into the ministry in the last chapter, I am tempted

to-day to invite everybody to go back over fifty years with me and see

what an old-fashioned spring in the woods was like. There is nothing to

keep us here, anyway. Outside there is an east wind blowing. The day

began with sleet and is ending with slush, and the drive to the post

office was anything but a "joy-ride."

The impression I have gathered from the stories I have been reading is

that a late spring in the old days was a real hardship. It meant more

than a delay in getting in crops and spoiling the chances for a

money-making harvest. The great question with the settlers during the

first few years was not money, but food. A late spring meant, time and

again, that they were forced to eat their seed grain and seed potatoes

in order to preserve life. I have just read about one pioneer, and not

one of the unthrifty kind either, who was forced to dig up the potatoes

after they were planted in order to feed his family. In spite of all

this, one of his sons is now an eminent doctor and another a banker.

When spring came to the woods there might be a few people who were glad

to see the flowers, but there were more whose first search was for

leeks, cow-cabbage, nettles, and other pot-herbs. Many had to live for

months during the winter on potatoes. Those who could afford pork and

oatmeal were already on the high-road to prosperity, and to many wheat

bread was a luxury. The more I read and learn about pioneer life the

more I am forced to the conclusion that much of the courage shown was

the courage of despair. Having moved into the wilderness and built their

log huts, there was absolutely nothing for them to do but to maintain

life by every possible means. Many of the settlers were scores of miles

from any place that could make a pretence to civilisation. Even if they

struggled out, what could they hope for without money? The hospitality

of civilisation soon wears thin to the penniless, and, even if they were

too proud to confess failure, they would soon find that it was better to

depend on the sometimes niggardly bounty of nature than on the bounty of

fellow-men whose condition was but little better than their own. When

men and women had to depend on the spring for food, as well as for

warmth and opportunity, they had some reason to be despondent if she

lingered a little longer than usual in the lap of winter.

When the spring finally came the settler was in many cases a prisoner on

the patch of high ground which he had started to clear. It was not until

government drains had been put through that there was much thought of

clearing the low ground. If any of this low ground was cleared it was

left under grass, the native redtop. For at least a month every spring

it would be flooded most of the time, but I have been told that this

flooding fertilised the ground, and that the hay crops were more

wonderful than anything we see to-day. Even though the snow might melt

during winter thaws, the water remained in the swamps, and when the

spring "breaking-up" really began the country became a series of

islands. I know of one place not a mile from here where there is now a

good gravel road that is passable at any time of the year. Fifty years

ago people who had to pass that way were forced to use a raft for about

three-quarters of a mile during the spring floods. That was on a public

road, of course, and was a great improvement on the blazed trails

through the woods which most people had to use. A pretty custom of those

days was to have a pole wherever the trail crossed a creek or

water-hole. The foot passenger was supposed to take this and vault over

the water. No wonder vaulting with a pole used to be one of the popular

sports on the Queen's Birthday and at the Fall Fair. Though the girls

did not take part in the public exhibitions, I am assured that in the

depths of the forest they often showed themselves just as expert as

their brothers. Careful people when going on a journey of any length

through the woods in the springtime took with them a strong, slender

pole that they could use for balancing themselves when making their way

through the swamps on fallen logs or to vault with when necessary.

Another favourite way of crossing the old creeks was on logs, and as it

was seldom that any one took the trouble to flatten them, considerable

skill was needed by those who attempted a passage. And that reminds me

of a story. One spring many years ago two young men were paying court to

the same girl. Both had to cross the creek that wound before her home,

and one of them had a bright idea. As soon as it was dark he hurried to

the creek, carrying a pail of soft soap. Straddling the log, he worked

his way backwards across and spread the slippery soap lavishly on the

little bridge over which his rival was to follow. He then washed his

hands and went to the house to press his suit. About an hour later he

was quietly gratified to hear a loud splash in the swollen stream. This

put so much courage in him that he pleaded his cause with complete

success. Some time about midnight he tore himself away from his future

bride and was so exultingly happy that he forgot all about the soaped

log. There is no need telling you what happened.

Another thing that made the old-time late spring a disaster was the need

of clearing the land. It was during the winter that most of the chopping

was done, and in the spring the brush and log heaps had to be burned off

before any crop could be put in among the stumps. If the spring was late

it was often hard to get the seed in the ground early enough.

About the only relaxation of those spring days when settlers were

imprisoned on their islands was that of yelling. The young fellows, when

they started out to "browse" their cattle in the morning, would let out

a lusty whoop just to tell their neighbours that they were alive. Others

would answer them, and the "Good-morning" yell would pass through a

settlement in much the same way that cock-crowing does now. You know how

that goes if you ever happen to be awake early enough. First you hear a

faint crowing away to the east. A few seconds later you hear it a little

nearer, and almost before you realise what is going on your own pet

Leghorns are hard at it. Then the crowing comes from the nearest

barnyard to the west, and presently the noise dies away faintly in that

direction. Possibly the cocks are telling one another that all is well,

just as the settlers did.

What was perhaps the greatest hardship of all was mentioned in only

one of the pioneer stories I have been reading. Possibly the reason

why nothing was said about homesickness was that, while these stern

people felt it, they considered it a weakness to be ashamed of. Yet

homesickness is a very real sickness with a fine Latin

name--nostalgia--and only a short time ago I read about American

soldiers in the Philippines dying from it. The other day a young

English emigrant in Toronto was so homesick that he stole a bicycle so

that he might be deported. His case was one for a doctor rather than

for a magistrate, but in the old days there was no deportation. If

there had been some of those husky first settlers would have stolen

the governor's mansion if necessary so as to get home. When conditions

were at their worst in the old days in Ontario even a cave-dweller

would have got homesick, but we who were born here know nothing of

this, and it is just as well. Now let us get back to our own late

spring and be thankful. Still I don't want any more people telling me

that this is nothing to springs they have known, and that they

wouldn't be a bit surprised if we had another month of wintry weather.

As the old proverb puts it: "Beware the fury of a patient man."

_March 5._--More than once when coming in with an armful of wood that

was cut and split just to keep the fire going, I have heard the remark:

"If we ever get a year's wood cut, split, and piled, I shall have a

photographer come and make a picture of it." So when word came that the

buzz-saw men would be in the neighbourhood in a few days I felt a

longing to see one of these pictures myself. I felt that it would be a

great joy to take the bucksaw and axe and put them away in some safe

place and then forget where I had put them. For almost a year we had

been preparing spasmodically for a day with the buzz-saw. All the tops

and little trees that we bought last winter had been cut and most of

them had been hauled to a knoll in the woods and piled. But there was

still a full day's work to do at hauling up the larger logs and skidding

them in a heap. Having in my mind's eye a picture of that year's wood

neatly piled and of an axe and bucksaw losing the brightness that comes

from constant use, I agreed cheerfully to help at the skidding. Although

the snow was a trifle deep, it was an ideal day for such work. The logs

slipped over the ground as if they were greased and the air was too

frosty for the snow to melt on your clothes. The woods protected us from

the wind that whirled the snow in ghostly drifts across the fields and

the work was hard enough to keep us comfortably warm. But before

"snaking" up the logs we had to provide ourselves with handspikes, and

that showed me how thoroughly the cattle have been destroying the

forests. There was not a sapling to be found that was small enough to

make a handspike. Every seedling that had sprouted in the past forty

years had been nibbled down by the cows and sheep that had been allowed

to run in the woods. We had to make handspikes from the straightest

limbs we could find. They were not like the blue beeches and ironwoods

of earlier days, but they served our needs. The logs were not very big,

anyway, and a two-inch handspike made from a maple limb can stand all

the muscle I have to spare for heavy work.

Skidding up logs is not what you would call steady work. It is

spasmodic, and it is the spasms that catch a fellow. While we were

laying the first tier it was comparatively easy. It was no particular

trick to pry loose the logs so that we could get chainhold, and most of

my time was spent in walking from the pile to the scattered logs, with

the handspike over my shoulder. I felt quite primitive, and thought I

was getting a better appreciation of what it meant to be a pioneer. But

the second tier made a difference. The logs had to be rolled up on

skids, and that meant some moments of heavy lifting, pushing, and

heaving with the handspikes. No matter how skilful a man may be at

"soldiering" and at taking the little end of the log and doing the

grunting while the other man takes the big end and does the lifting,

there are bound to be times when he will have to put out every ounce of

his strength to keep about a ton of maple from falling back on top of

him. After one of those strenuous moments I suddenly remembered a

triumphant phrase of cunningly wrought coarseness that described the

effort I had put forth with a vigour and accuracy far beyond the

possibilities of the vocabulary I am now using. I had heard it long ago

from a moss-backed ruffian who had been lifting one of the old

horsepowers they once used with thrashing machines. It was a phrase of

more than Elizabethan frankness, but somehow it did not seem so bad out

in the woods in connection with fierce physical action. Its robust

humour could have been conceived only by an imaginative pioneer who knew

hard work in all its phases, but, though everything connected with the

pioneers is of interest to me, I am afraid I must allow that phrase to

pass into oblivion. Still it had its value, for it reminded me of the

fact that there were men among the makers of Canada whose mental

attitude would be more thoroughly appreciated by Burns than by

Longfellow. Clearing the land was not a pink tea affair, and it is not

surprising that some of the rough diamonds who did the work described it

with brutal frankness.

The supreme moment of the day came after we had heaved a big, cranky,

bowed log into its place at the top of the pile. A couple of times it

almost slipped back, but by heaving and straining we made it go up. When

it was in its place and we stopped, panting and breathless, I could see

stars in every direction. My brain was absolutely vacant--every thought

and idea crushed out of it, just as you might squeeze water out of a

sponge. While the other man drove away to get another log I sat down to

recover myself. Then came the flush of exaltation that always comes to

every one when something has been accomplished. I was strangely in

accord with the world of effort in which we are living. Not thinking,

but accepting all things, for one great moment I was exalted above the

struggle. Somehow the things that I often rage against seemed

intelligible and part of one great plan that is working out for the good

of all. It was

"A momentary taste

Of being from the well within the waste."

Thinking it over afterwards, I understood what Thoreau meant when he

wrote:

"I moments live who lived but years."

But it was some time before definite thoughts came back to me. Almost

unconsciously I began noting my surroundings as part of a great picture

or mood that I would wish to remember. I saw the grey sky and the

snowflakes sifting down between me and the trees. I noticed a woodpecker

busy on a lichened trunk and heard the distant clamour of cattle.

But when I thought from all things

A perfect charm was caught.

The little winds came begging

Lest they should be forgot.

In spite of the momentary physical exhaustion the feeling experienced

was one of joyousness--a joyousness that comes to all men who accomplish

a task, however humble. It was probably such moments that Bergson had in

mind when he wrote:

"We seek efficiency, or, perhaps, it would be truer to say that we seek

the immediate product of efficiency, which is joy. Joy is not pleasure,

but the satisfaction of creation. Making money gives pleasure, no doubt,

to the artist; his joy, however, comes only from seeing the picture grow

under his brush, from feeling that he is bringing something new into the

world. It is this joy which, in some form or other, man always seeks."

Man always seeks joy, and he can find it when skidding logs as easily as

when painting a picture, and the effort in one case is as noble as in

the other. Joy is always evanescent, but I clung to my moment as long as

I could.

The poise of my soul is starry high,

And wild words rush to my lips

As the thought of the world goes racing by

Like sunshine after eclipse.

And then, and then I had to come back to the earth and tackle another

log. But what does it matter? All things are in the day's work just the

same, whether it be heaving on a handspike or doing paragraphs that are

wickedly designed--to parody Shelley:

"To pump up oaths from financiers, and grind

The gentle spirits of our meek reviews."

In the everyday world where we drudge joylessly most of the time

everything seems to be at sixes and sevens, and we could hardly endure

it were it not for the moments when something jars us out of ourselves

into accord with the great purpose of all things. And I firmly believe

that every being that draws the breath of life has such moments, though

he may not know how to give them expression. It is in such moments that

we feel that all men are free and equal. The joy of the ditcher who

accomplishes his task supremely well is the same as that of the

millionaire who puts through a successful deal, or of the artist or

poet. It is nonsense to say that all the poetry of the world has been

written. Every moment of joy is a living poem, and such moments come to

all of us somehow, some time.

_March 7._--When the quail came right up to the door I might have known

that something good was going to happen. It was during the cold

spell--the lion spell--in the beginning of March. Everything was buried

under snow and at seven o'clock in the morning the thermometer had

touched ten degrees below zero. I was doing the chores at the stable

when I heard the quail whistling in the orchard and fully intended going

to have a look at them, to see how they were wintering. I had not set

out feed for them for, alas, there are enough weeds on the place and in

the neighbourhood to feed them fat. But to resume. When I had finished

the chores and was starting towards the house I struck the tracks of the

quail, looking like a picture of loosely strung barbed wire on the snow.

To my surprise I found that they were headed straight for the house. In

growing amazement I followed them until they passed around the corner of

the house and then I saw the marks of their wings on the snow where they

had taken flight, within ten feet of the front door. I felt really

disappointed when I found that they had paid me a visit and I had not

been at home. I do not know of many from whom I would have so thoroughly

enjoyed a little call. No one in the house had noticed them, but judging

from the excitement of Sheppy, the dog, he must have seen them and

perhaps had something to do with their flight. He kept running about

nosing their tracks and barking. It made me feel that I am being

accepted in the country, now that the quail are so friendly. They are

very careful about their neighbours and it is not every one they are

willing to chum with.

On the very next morning after the visit of the quail spring came. The

temperature rose fifty degrees in a few hours, a warm wind drove from

the south, and almost before we could realise what was happening the

snow was a memory. The crows had taken possession of the woods and the

sky and were talking crow politics till you couldn't hear yourself

think. A couple of song sparrows fluttered around the orchard, but it

was too early for them to begin singing. The first thing we knew winter

was under foot, beaten to earth by the wind and the sun. Only in the

frost under the soft mud was there any trace of it. Then some one said:

"I'll bet the sap is running to-day." After a conference in which the

prospects of this kind of weather lasting were fully discussed we got

the brace and bit and the spiles and began to rinse the sap-buckets.

Then we went to the woods and started to tap in earnest. Before the bit

could be withdrawn from the first hole the sap was already trickling

down the bark. There was no doubt of it! Sap was running! With the help

of a little boy who was just tall enough to reach up and hang the

buckets on the spiles we went at the work with a will and soon the

"tink-tunk" of the falling drops could be heard in every direction. The

grave little helper picked what he called "a big fat tree" for his very

own so that he can have plenty of hot syrup and taffy. As we are making

maple syrup strictly for our own use we tapped only fifty trees. Wood is

so scarce that it makes maple syrup an expensive luxury and the current

price would not pay for the fuel used, not to mention the labour and the

investment in buckets and the boiling kettle. But, at the present

writing, as they say on the editorial page, we have twenty pails of sap

gathered, and bright and early to-morrow we are going to boil in. The

sap was gathered in the twilight with a new moon, a little moon,

shedding its blessing on us, and to-night it is freezing a little. It is

perfect sugar-weather!

I simply will not write spring poetry! Nature may tempt me as much as

she likes, but I will not yield! Never before did I have so much trouble

keeping from this world-worn form of folly. It is simply hissing at the

safety valve, but I am keeping a firm grip on myself. The flicker of the

sunshine on the roofs and fences, the far blue of the sky, the

twittering of the birds, the cackling of the hens, the bawling of the

cattle, the barking of the dogs, and the echoes that make the woods

alive, all conspire to start my thoughts jigging and my words tinkling

in rhyme. But I will not give in! I know, I feel that the world is

flooded with the life impulse, with the "elan vital" of Bergson, but I

have set my teeth and refuse to give in. The big, wise, absurd world

laughs at spring poets and what I am enjoying these days is too good to

be laughed at. I know that the life stirring in the innumerable roots of

the grass and the myriad seeds and the swelling buds is the same life

that is flushing me with joy, but I shall be silent at any cost. These

favourites of Nature will expand in beauty and be living poems and no

one will laugh at them. As I reach out and touch them with my finger

tips I seem to feel the fire of life in them and my pulses beat to a new

rhyme. And oh, it would be so easy to relieve my soul with a little

lyric. A catchy refrain begins to beat in my head:

Sing! you freak of misery!--

If you can't sing, crow!!

No, I will not crow either! The world is full of people who are enjoying

this spring glamour as much as I am and they are keeping quiet about it.

I wonder if poetry should be written at all. Perhaps it should be lived

and enjoyed. Who knows but the poet is simply a leaky vessel spilling

out in words the lyrical fire that was meant to warm his heart and keep

his pulses attune for the struggle of life. I seem to remember that Walt

Whitman asserted somewhere that he had in himself all poems and all

books. Who knows but that is true of all of us? And the wise people keep

the poetry of life for their own use, knowing that all men have the same

poetry in their souls if they will only relax themselves enough to enjoy

it. In those beautiful spring days I feel sure that all my fellows of

the world are moved with the same poetic urge that is thrilling me with

its beauty. Why should I bother them with attempts to put in words what

they already have in their hearts?

_March 8._--With fuel so dear and maple syrup so cheap sugar-making is

about the most peculiar job a man can get at. The harder you work the

more money you lose. It involves the whole problem of the producer and

consumer, and if you try to think it out you are likely to get as

fatally twisted as the man who was kicked down a spiral staircase. I

didn't try to think it out, but as I have a sweet tooth and all the

members of the family have sweet teeth I decided to make sugar--in

moderation. Fifty trees are not likely to give enough sap to make more

syrup than one family will need in a year and the work of boiling in

will not be too hard for one leisurely man. Besides, the dead limbs that

have fallen from the trees in the past year will furnish enough fuel.

Taking sugar-making in this way it resolves itself into a kind of

holiday in the woods and I am strong on holidays. My favourite saint is

St. Kavin for

"His calendar unrolled

With new feast days every year."

When a barrelful of sap had been gathered I took the new boiling pan to

the woods and prepared to enjoy myself. Now, don't interrupt to tell me

that I should have an up-to-date evaporator and all that sort of thing.

I know it would make the work easier and more scientific, but the

initial cost would be too great. A sheet-iron pan made by the tinsmith

is more within my range, and if it leaks at every rivet-hole to begin

with, that is my affair. I can cure that by using furnace cement and by

boiling some oatmeal in the pan before beginning with the sap. I also

know that I should have an arch instead of a trench cut through a

cradle-knoll for the fire, for I have read all the advertisements of the

best appliances for making maple sugar, but a man must cut his coat

according to his cloth, and even if my temper had "Fourteen rattles and

a button on it" before I got that sieve of a pan working right I am not

going to tell about it. No one heard the remarks I made except the birds

and I shall take a chance on a bird of the air reporting the matter.

When I finally got the pan caulked and the sap boiling briskly the world

began to look brighter. Practically all the birds had come back over

night. Killdeers and meadow-larks were calling, song-sparrows and horned

larks were singing, bluebirds were flashing past and shedding music, and

the crows, blackbirds, jays, and robins were gossiping everywhere. A

south wind was blowing just enough to make a good draught under the pan

and the sun was looking down on everything "Fur's I cud look or listen"

and finding it good. Now, most people, when their work is going right

and they are feeling happy, begin to whistle. I do not. Trained

musicians have told me in confidence that my whistling sounds "like a

hog in a high wind" and I have long since given up the practice--by

request. My favourite relaxation is to let a few lines of poetry begin

drumming in my head. I let that inward voice which puts all our thoughts

in shape for us sing or chant the poetry for me over and over until I

have tasted all its sweetness. On the particular day I have in mind the

poem that thrust itself on me was one of Poe's:

"In the fairest of our valleys,

By good angels tenanted--"

But try as I would I could not recall the next two lines of the stanza.

After repeating these two lines indefinitely, while my eyes and ears

were taking in all that was going on about me in nature, I skipped to

the next stanza which I could remember:

"Banners yellow, glorious, golden,

From its roof did float and flow--

But this, all this, was in the olden

Time long ago."

But Poe is not the poet for the open air and the woods. His gloomy

imaginings began to overshadow the day:

"Dropping from out their condor wings

Invisible woe."

As quickly as possible I shook off the spell of his haunting word

magic. There have been times when I have given myself up to his morbid

brooding, for like Vance Thompson I have

"Walked in Broadway, to and fro,

With the sombre ghost of Edgar Poe."

But he did not belong in the open sunshine. I had to seek another

companion.

In the intervals of gathering brush for the fire and pouring sap into

the steaming pan--which still leaked here and there, drat it!--I began

to hunt for a poet companion to help me pass the time--not to improve

the time, mark you, but to make it pass pleasantly. Naturally I thought

of Shakespeare for he is supposed to fit everywhere, but I guess the

wrong quotations came to me. Every quotation had a moral tagged to

it--sermons in stones, books in the running brooks, etc. Under a roof

Shakespeare can be uproariously humorous, wise, witty, sublime, but in

the open air he seems to moralise everything "into a thousand similes,"

to be constantly gathering "honey from the weed" and making "a moral of

the devil himself." I would have none of him. Whitman proved equally

difficult. I could not attend to my work and at the same time "loaf and

invite my soul." Neither could I chum with him in his more cosmical

moods. To do that I would have to spurn the earth away with my toe and

look at things from "the outer dark."

"I see a great round wonder rolling through space,

I see the shaded part on one side where the sleepers are sleeping,

and the sunlit part on the other side."

But what would happen to the boiling syrup while I was taking such

flights? It would be scorched and burned beyond a doubt. Moreover, I

like to keep my feet on the earth--in good Canadian mud--even when

indulging the wildest flights of imagination. I would have none of

Whitman, even if he is the poet of outdoors. So one by one I tested many

poets and rejected them all. They demanded too much.

After all, do the poets amount to so very much? Out in the woods I do

not feel that they do. At their best they merely give us a point of

view and a mood so that we can see and feel things as they did. But we

all have moods and points of view of our own. Why shouldn't we use our

own? You will soon find that every point of view overlooks as wonderful

a world as any other. And you will find that your own moods attract the

thoughts that belong to them as a magnet attracts steel filings. What if

they are not the thoughts that you have seen in books? They are better,

for they are your own. And that reminds me that we are inclined to make

too much of books and even of thoughts. Books are all right to hold

facts until we need them, just as a tool-chest holds tools. And thoughts

are dangerous, whether they be our own or the thoughts of others, unless

we keep them under control. Do you not remember Shelley's picture of one

who

"Fled astray

With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness,

And his own thoughts, along that rugged way,

Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey."

On this perfect afternoon I did not want to be harried by thoughts, by

my own or those of other men. I wanted to let the great sunshine and the

earth smells, the sounds of wind and wing, and the homely farm and

woodland sights--spreading about me as far as the horizon--seep into my

soul through my senses, so that on some future day of storms and sorrow

I could recall it entire and regain something of its peace. Is it not

wonderful how in this way the things of the material world are

constantly entering our minds through our senses, while the things of

the inner and immaterial world are constantly passing out into the

material world through our words and actions? Our observations and our

thoughts are forever being woven into a wonderful tapestry of life and

we are a part of the pattern. As I realise that I seem to see the spirit

that answered:

"Beside the roaring loom of Time I ply

And weave for God the garment that thou seest him by."

And so the afternoon passed, with the poets and without them, with

thoughts and without them, until the sun went down in gold and amber and

my work was done. With the urge of spring in my heart and a strange

music in my brain I bore home my spoils, feeling that the day had not

been wasted.

Poets, O Poets! You have had your will!

My soul is ever vibrant to your song,

And in the glamour of your dreams I live.

Sages, O Sages! I have drunk my fill

At all the fountains that to Truth belong,

Thirsting for all you give--and cannot give.

Idly, slow-wafted by a magic sail,

I drift away in tranced ecstasy,

Sole to myself, to Life no more a thrall!

But in those hours supreme you ever fail!

You have no music for a soul made free,

No words for one who is at one with all!

Only a child, unconscious of all art,

Could show, unknowing, what is in my heart.

_March 11._--"Now what on earth kind of mess are you making?"

Wasn't that a cheering remark to fling at a man who was having his

crowded hour! When it startled and irritated me, I was busy being a

pioneer of science, a prose poet, and the patient head of a family, all

at the same time. Some people have their crowded hour of glorious life.

That is the kind that poets sing about. Mine, as you will notice, was a

crowded hour of simple life, and what it was worth will be set down

hereinafter with humble truthfulness.

"Do you think that other people have nothing to do but wash saucepans

for you to muss up? What do you think you are doing, anyway?"

The phrases of prose-poetry evaporated. The importance of the scientific

discovery dwindled, and the dignified attitude necessary to the head of

a family was seriously threatened.

"I'm just trying an experiment," I replied in guarded tones that covered

a volcano of peevishness. My crowded hour had come during the sugar

weather. There had been a cold snap that froze the sap in the buckets

and hung icicles from the spiles. I had wandered disconsolately through

the bush to investigate the frosty situation, when suddenly I remembered

a treat that had been the delight of my youth. Unhooking a bucket, I

tilted it over, until the ice-cake loosened, and then a spoonful of

clear, thick syrup slipped over the rim into my waiting lips. M-m-mmm,

but it did taste good, and right there the idea occurred to me that

caused all the trouble.

It was evident that the real sweetness of maple sap did not freeze at

the same temperature as water. Now, the whole process of sugar-making

consists of removing the water from the sap. This is done by ordinary,

prosaic people by boiling it down until all the water has evaporated.

Not good enough for me. I would do something unique, characteristic of

the north, Canadian, wonderful! (You will notice that the prose-poetry

began with the inception of the idea.) If the first freezing removed so

much of the water, why couldn't it all be removed by successive

freezings--purified in the alembics of frost--perfected in Nature's

wind-swept laboratory. Sounds good to me. Here goes:

With me, like Richard, to think is to act. Taking a pail, I went from

tree to tree, unhooked bucket after bucket, and secured a grudging

spoonful from each. The temperature was ten degrees below freezing, a

north wind was blowing as if it had a search warrant, snow was drifting,

and long before I had visited all of the hundred trees we had tapped, my

fingers were numb. But what of that? Would it not be something to make

the Canadian climate perfect the most delicious of all Canadian

products? Not even the realms of poetry could furnish anything to equal

it. Keats' "Syrops tinct with cinnamon" would be insipid by comparison,

and Shakespeare's "Poppies and mandragora, and all the drowsy syrops of

the world" but a high-sounding phrase. Cheered by such thoughts as

these I kept on, in the words of Katherine Hale:

"With snow upon my shoulders,

And courage almost run"

--and also with chattering teeth. An hour of frostbitten industry

yielded about a quart of crude syrup, and without waiting to remove my

ear-muffs, I raided the kitchen for saucepans. I was simply bubbling

over with quotations of poetry, scientific enthusiasm, and phrases in

the process of coining. And it was while in this tumultuous mood I was

interrupted with the question recorded above. Was ever a man so

interrupted?

"What kind of an experiment are you trying?" persisted the unsympathetic

inquisitor.

"I am going to make maple syrup by a new process. I shall refine it by

cold, instead of heat."

"What good will that do?"

"What good, woman? What good did it do Peary to go to the North Pole?

I'll bet Mrs. Galvani stood around and asked just such fool questions

when Galvani was making frogs' legs twitch with electricity. What good

did that do! huh! It opened the way for all the modern developments of

electricity. If it hadn't been for Galvani making frogs' legs twitch, we

wouldn't have any Hydro-Electric Power scheme and you wouldn't be able

to gossip with your neighbours over the telephone. Just you wait till I

have pipe lines carrying the sap from every sugar bush to the Arctic

regions, and am refining maple syrup for the whole world by the zero

process. You won't ask me then, 'What's the use?' No, indeed! You will

just stand 'round wearing diamonds and remarking that you don't see

anything very wonderful about it all. Any one might have thought of it.

It only happened that I thought of it first."

It will be a draught for Juno when she banquets. It will be a liqueur to

be quaffed at the close of the feast from long-stemmed glasses of

Venetian artistry. In each there shall be a flake of gold-leaf, beaten

from the precious ores of Yukon or Larder Lake. This shall make it give

its colour aright, and those who quaff----

"Well, of all the fool notions----" commented another observer.

It was thus, no doubt, that the people of Syracuse joshed Archimedes

when he was fussing with the first lever, and making fool remarks about

how he could move the world. Yet see what the lever has done for

humanity. One after another the grown-ups about the place investigated

what was going on, sniffed superior, and went in to warm themselves by

the kitchen fire.

Surely this would be the opportunity of a lifetime. A description of

frost-refined syrup could be made as eloquent as Ingersoll on whiskey,

or Voorhees on the dog. Br-r-r--but it's cold! As the ice formed in the

saucepans the thickening syrup was drained off with tender care, but not

until the children came from school did I receive any sympathy. As they

had no preconceived notions, it seemed quite logical and wonderful to

them that syrup should be refined in this way. They forgot their cold

fingers and toes in the kindling of their imaginations.

"We'll get a refrigerator to make our syrup with, won't we, father?

That'll be better than an evaporator, won't it?"

"Certainly."

When in need of sympathy, go to the young! They are the only ones whose

eyes can see the promised land. Moses was right in his dealings with the

Israelites. He led them around through the wilderness until the older

generation had died off. The older generation has been made up of

doubters and knockers since the beginning of time. They all come from

Missouri.

By this time it was so cold that the muse went on strike. For the last

time the syrup was drained off from the ice, and with the children at my

heels, I went into the house to enjoy my triumph. Since the truth must

be told, this was a time when those who sat in the seats of the scornful

were right. My frost-refined syrup was a sickishly sweet, colourless

fluid of no distinction. In all probability it was not true maple syrup

at all, but what the scientists call maple honey, a substance derived

from maple sap, and which will not crystallise. Still, the Crowded Hour

was not in vain. It enabled me to learn at first hand just what the

pioneers of progress must have suffered when perfecting their

inventions. It was a mere detail that my invention was no good.

_March 15._--It is a great day, an expansive day, a large day. The first

thing that impressed me about it was its size. I know it is not

customary to describe a day in terms of space, but there seems to be no

way out of it. This is not a day of the kind that can be enjoyed in a

house, or a field, or even within the rim of the horizon. It reaches up

to the great neighbourly sun, and spreads as wide as the imagination. It

is a day that overwhelms me, but, on thinking it over, I have found the

key to its mystery. When I got up this morning it was the sun that first

fixed my attention. It came bustling over the horizon with the air of

one about to start spring house-cleaning. It awakened the south wind,

plucked the myriad icy fingers from the little rivulets and flooded the

world with light and warmth. But it is hardly exact to speak of the sun

as house-cleaning. It is really building a new home and using only the

foundations and framework of the old. It is upholstering the hills,

decorating the woods, and refurnishing the fields. In a few days it will

recarpet the earth and tack down the green breadths with brass-headed

dandelions. When that work is done we can get down to a consideration of

the buds and flowers and birds and the exquisite little things of

spring. To-day the invitation is to have an outing with the universe.

Only the sun and his work are worth considering.

On a day like this it is hard to believe that the sun is ninety million

miles away. Why, it is just up there in the sky, and is busy at our feet

and all around us. I do not thank the astronomers for teaching me that

it is so distant. I would much rather have the point of view of the

Prince of Morocco, who protested:

"Mislike me not for my complexion,

The shadow'd livery of the burnish'd sun,

To whom I am a neighbour and near bred."

All through the winter the sun may have been as far away as learned men

say, but to-day it is visiting with us. It is at work in the back yard

and in the front yard and in the fields and woods. It is making the warm

wind blow and the sweet sap flow, and making us all so happy that we

drop into rhyme without noticing. But one cannot do justice to such a

day as this even while sitting on a log in the sugar-bush and writing in

the intervals of firing-up under the pan. To enjoy and describe it

aright he should be able, in imagination, to sit on a mountain with his

feet in a pleasant valley and his head aureoled with smoky haze. He

should be conscious only of the kindly sun and of its footstool, the

earth. His singing robes should be woven of golden sunshine, and--and--I

guess I had better leave that sort of thing to the poets and put a few

more sticks under the pan.

_March 21._--Yesterday we began to cut the big maple into stove wood.

The work was undertaken in a leisurely and proper way, and not with a

view of piling up a record. This made it possible to take an interest in

the tree as well as in the work, and there was much to repay

observation. The tree stood over thirty inches on the stump, and,

according to the rings of growth, must have been over one hundred and

thirty years old; but the crosscut saw was in good condition, and as no

one was in a hurry the work was not killing enough to be amusing. The

butt of the tree was hollow and partly filled with the kind of rotten

wood or punk that, I am told, was once used for tinder in the days of

flint and steel.

After a couple of cuts had been dropped off, the hollow gave place to

punk that was honeycombed with wormholes. The next cut brought to view a

colony of winged ants, and in my ignorance of entomology I supposed

that they were responsible for the catacombs in which they lived. They

were all torpid when brought to light by the splitting of the block, but

they soon came to life in the sunshine and began crawling about. The

next cut explained the mystery of the tunnels in which the ants lived,

for it revealed a colony of boring worms. They had evidently done the

carpentering for the ants, who had merely cleared up after them and

taken possession, from which it appears that "Old Grub, time out o' mind

the fairies' coachmaker," is also the house-builder for the winged ants.

The next cut carried us beyond the grubs into solid wood that was as

sound as a bone. As the trunk at this point was still two feet in

thickness, and was as straight as a lead pencil for over fifty feet, a

council was held, and it was decided that, with good maple flooring at

present prices, it would be a shame to devote such a tree to stove wood.

After arriving at this decision we went to the top and resumed work. We

started to saw just below the hole into which I had so often seen the

black squirrels disappear. The cut revealed a hollow of about a foot in

diameter and four feet in length that was worthy of a special study in

itself. In the bottom there was about two feet of rich brown mould that

had evidently been formed by the rotting of leaves that had been carried

in for squirrel nests for many years. There was a nest of dry leaves

that had evidently been in use during the past winter, and, as the

entrance was so small, all the leaves that had gone to making the

deposit of mould must have been carried in by the squirrels, who had

probably been occupying this retreat for fifty years or more. What

interested me most was the cleanness of the walls of the upper part of

the hollow. I was assured that this could only have been done by bees

that had occupied it at one time. The fact that there was no old comb or

any other trace of these inhabitants was explained by the fondness of

mice for wax. It is said that when a colony of bees dies out the mice

very quickly clear away every trace of honey and comb. It was certainly

an ideal hive for wild bees, and the only wonder is that some of the

swarms that escaped last summer did not make a home in it.

The breaking-up of the mould brought to light a number of unexpected

inhabitants in the shape of ordinary white grubs and wire-worms. They

were likewise torpid, and waiting in cold storage for the return of

spring. I also found some blue-bottle flies and a couple of very active

black spiders that had evidently been living over fifty feet above the

ground. Altogether, with its squirrels, ants, grubs, bugs, flies, and

spiders, the big maple had been something of a world in itself.

While I was looking at the splendid trunk and wondering mildly whether

it would be used to floor the chancel of a church or a profane

dancing-hall, I suddenly recalled a delightful fable in blank verse that

was written about fifteen years ago by Mr. John Lewis of _The Star_. It

was never published, and I have lost my copy, but, fortunately, I can

remember enough of it to show what a gem it was. He fabled, in good,

workman-like verse, of a reporter who had been assigned to report many

banquets until he loathed after-dinner speeches from the depth of his

soul. At last, in desperation, he prayed that the gods would change him

into a tree and place him in a forest, far from the haunts of men. The

gods were kind and changed him into "a tree--a large deciduous tree."

The transformed reporter, in his new-found happiness,

"Stretched his limbs

And yawned away the weariness of years--

And cast a generous shade."

But the period of contentment did not last long. A lumber-man who was at

work in the woods saw the big tree and, calling his workmen, they cut it

down, hauled it to a sawmill, and ripped it into planks. Then it was

seasoned and made into a great table that was placed in a banqueting

hall, and the poor reporter

"Knew the bitter of the answered prayer."

Speaking of banquets, I happened to look towards the butt of the tree

and found that two spotted woodpeckers and a couple of sapsuckers were

having the feast of their lives on the ants and grubs that had been

routed out of their homes by our work. They were so busy and hungry that

they let me approach to within a few yards of them without flying away.

As I remember it, the chickadees used to be the first to a feast of this

kind, but there was none in sight. As a matter of fact, I have not seen

a chickadee this year, though they are not migrating birds. I am afraid

that the woods are no longer dense enough for these busy, impudent

little fellows. Other birds are quite plentiful, however. Every dead

limb that can serve as a sounding-board now has its bachelor or widower

woodpecker or highholder rattling out his love call until you would

think that a sky-scraper was in course of erection in the woodlot, with

the pneumatic riveters hard at work. At least two flocks of quail have

wintered safely on this farm, and they must be mating now, for every

morning they can be heard whistling "Bob White" from every point of the

compass. Unless we have a wet summer, the place should be overrun with

them next fall. The blue jays are not squawking as much as they were

during the winter, so it is probable that they are also nesting, but the

blackbirds and crows are still in flocks. A couple of weeks ago the nest

of a horned lark with four eggs in it was found in the snow, but it was

apparently deserted owing to the unusually cold weather.

This morning the hawks were circling over the old nest, and I am afraid

that I shall once more have the unpleasant task of breaking up their

housekeeping. For three years I have shot up their nest during the

breeding season, but still they will not desert the old homestead. They

must have been there for years, for the nest is now a huge pile of

sticks about four feet in diameter, in the top of the tallest and most

slippery beech tree within miles. As the owner does not live on the farm

and has no young chickens to be destroyed, he does not want a valuable

tree cut down, and the nest is so high that no one thinks of climbing to

it and pulling it down.