Sugaring
Spring was coming with swift and certain steps. A breath of life was
sweeping through the forest, and there was a stir and a movement which
quickened the pulses of the forest-dwellers. The snow lay deep on hill
and valley, and the cold was more intense than ever, but the days were
lengthening, and the sun had more heat in it when it shone at midday.
Pam was casting about for some way to earn money, or at least to save
money, for in that isolated region saving often stood for earning, and
to go without a thing, or without many things, was equal to a rise in
income. It was the store bill which was bothering her now. The deposit
at the store was nearly at an end, and in a few weeks she would have to
choose between paying ready money and submitting to being charged the
credit price for all goods, and that was so high that she hated the
thought of it.
It was true she was a Londoner by birth and upbringing, but she was
descended from generations of forest-dwellers, and the lore of the woods
was somehow bred in the bone. Other people could make a living in the
forest, and she would do it too, or perish in the attempt.
“Sophy, did you ever go sugaring?” she asked one evening when she had
come in rather late to supper, and was pulling off her heavy boots,
groaning a little because she was so stiff and sore from long hours of
splitting and sawing firewood.
Sophy was frying flapjacks for supper, and she had to turn one very
carefully before she answered.
“Yes,” she said, “I have been several times, but I always fail to see
where the fun comes in.”
“Mother used to love sugaring,” Pam remarked in a thoughtful tone as she
attacked her second boot.
“I dare say she did.” Sophy turned her flapjack out on to the dish,
where it fell with a sputtering hiss. She put another chunk of lard in
the pan, and set it on the stove to get hot. “There are sugaring parties
most years, and people seem to think it is great fun; but we are not all
made alike, and I never can see much pleasure in getting my clothes all
messed up, catching bad colds, and working until every bone in my body
aches, just for amusement.”
“My dear, to hear you talk anyone would think that you were qualifying
for speedy development into a suburban old maid of the most conventional
sort,” laughed Pam. “Instead of which, you are making your trousseau for
marriage with a man in the most adventurous profession that can be
found. Now, I would enjoy a sugaring party more than anything else;
really for the fun of it, I mean. But there is solid gain too, is there
not? It is the profit side of the question that appeals to me at the
present. Do you think I could get up a party?”
“I don’t doubt it,” Sophy gurgled with amused laughter. “Don would give
anything for a chance to come, and so, of course, would Nathan Gittins,
though I expect they would quarrel a bit over the best mode of
procedure. Don can never forget that he has been to college and has been
trained in the most expert and scientific fashion, while Nathan is quite
sure that weight of years and experience should take the first place.
The two Hubbards would like to come too, also young Will Palmer from
over the Ridge, and, oh—half a dozen more perhaps.”
“But they are all young men, or at least unmarried men; I could not go
sugaring with them. Sophy, I think you are horrid!” cried Pam, but the
laughter in her voice took the edge from her speech, and Sophy was
laughing also.
Over supper they sketched out a plan of campaign. The maples on the
Ripple land had not been tapped for several years, and should yield a
fine lot of syrup. It was the boiling that would be the trouble;
experience was necessary here, and although Pam would have preferred
what she called a hen-party for her sugaring, it was plain the business
could not be carried to a successful finish without masculine aid.
“I will go over to-morrow and ask Galena what she thinks about it,” said
Pam with decision; and when supper was done she went round the house,
and even hunted through the cellar, to see how many pans and buckets
were available for use in holding syrup. There was a tremendous lot of
rubbish of one sort and another stored in the cellar under the house at
Ripple. Pam had never seemed to have the time to turn the place out and
sort things up, but after she had been poking round that evening she
made up her mind she would have to do it before the sugaring took place,
so that she might get some clear idea as to her storage capacity.
Galena Gittins welcomed Pam’s great idea with acclamation.
“You are really wonderful for a city girl, and an English city girl
too!” she exclaimed. “You think and plan as if you had been reared in
the backwoods.”
“It is in my bones,” replied Pam. “Sometimes I feel as if all the other
part of my life had been a dream, and only this is real. Although I was
brought up in the city, I have never really belonged to it; consciously
or unconsciously, it is the country I have been pining for, and my
mother has always hated London so much that it is not wonderful we, her
children, have hated it too. Then you think we can go sugaring?”
“Why, yes, of course; it is a fine idea!” Galena’s tone was hearty, for
the work promised a frolic, which appealed to the frivolous part of her.
It would also be a paying piece of work, and that appealed to the
prudent side of her character, so no wonder she approved!
Together they arranged details—the time, the company to be invited, and
the terms on which they should be asked to come. Sugaring was usually
paid for in kind, Galena told Pam—that is, every member of the sugaring
party had a percentage of the sugar that was obtained.
“The trees are all fairly near to your house, so we can go and come in a
day. One of the men had better camp at the ground, but there will be no
need for the women to do it, and that will save any amount of trouble.”
Galena’s tone was brisk and business-like. She and her brother were two
of the very few people who made farming in those parts downright
profitable, as Pam knew, and that was why, in all matters pertaining to
outdoors, she came to sit at the feet of Galena.
“Camping would be more fun,” said Pam, whose tone was actually wistful.
She would have dearly loved to camp out by the trees which were to be
forced to yield their sweetness. It would be an experience indeed to
have a tent on the snow, to sit at the tent door to warm by a fire of
logs, and then to dream through the solemn midnight hours, while the
wind moaned through the leafless branches of the trees and the stir of
the rising sap sent new life among the whispering twigs. But she had
plenty of common sense, and it was easy to see how dangerous it would be
for anyone who had been sleeping all the winter in a banked house, with
a fire in the bedroom, to go camping in the forest before the snow was
entirely gone. This was a case where sentiment had to be flung
overboard, and common sense had to dictate the mode of daily life. So
far, Pam had not ailed the whole winter through, she had not even had a
bad cold. But spring was the testing time, and it would never do, from
the point of view of economy, for her to be ill now that work was about
to increase on her hands.
Nathan Gittins readily promised to lend a hand with the boiling, but he
advised her to ask Don Grierson to take the management of the affair.
“The lad has got book-learning to help out experience, and it is when
the two go together that the best results are obtained,” said Nathan in
his deep voice. Then he went on to say: “If he is bossing the show I
shan’t feel so tied and responsible. I’m willing enough to give labour,
but I don’t want the burden of thinking and planning the whole
business.”
After this there was nothing for it but that Pam should ask Don if he
would take the lead in the sugaring, and in truth Don was very willing
to accept the responsibility. He had been busy enough all the winter
lumbering the black larch on his own land, for he had taken a farm near
to The Corner which had dropped out of cultivation for nearly ten years,
and it would require a tremendous lot of hard work and a considerable
amount of money to make it a paying venture. But just for a few weeks,
until the snows were melted, work was easy with him, and sugaring would
be something of a holiday.
He came over one damp afternoon to go the round of the trees with Pam.
The forest was full of the music of tinkling streams and falling water.
Pam had rubbers over her boots, or she would have been foot-wet before
she had gone ten steps, for it was like wading in a pond.
Taking the narrow trail, where now they had to walk high on the ridge of
the drifted snow, they came out on to the old tote road; and following
it for nearly half a mile, they descended a steep dip and plunged into a
forest of maples.
“Are all these sugar maples?” demanded Pam. There was an inflection of
awe in her voice, for it seemed to her that if all the trees she could
see yielded maple sugar she would be in process of becoming a
millionaire, or rather her grandfather would be, seeing that the
property belonged to him and not to her.
“No, there is a lot of red maple here,” replied Don, whose gaze was
searching the bare trunks with the eye of an expert.
“How can you tell them apart?” she asked, then sighed a little, because
the more she knew of forest lore the more she found there was to learn.
“By formation largely,” he said, pointing out to her this and that
difference in shape. “But if I were seriously at a loss there is one
infallible test. Just drop a little sulphate of iron on to the wood, and
if it is sugar maple it turns a greenish hue, but if it is red maple it
goes a deep blue colour. But that would be quite an extreme test; it is
easy enough to tell them apart as a rule.”
“They look dreadfully alike to me,” she said ruefully; then burst out,
“Oh, how I wish Jack were here! How he would enjoy all the fun of the
sugaring!”
“Can’t he get here in time?” Don was counting and measuring, and so he
asked his question in an abstracted fashion. Of course it would be to
Pam’s advantage to have her brother to help, for it would mean one share
of sugar saved, seeing that every worker from outside would take from
her profits.
“Mother said the end of the month, and I did not like to press her to
send him sooner, because he is earning a really good salary for a boy of
his age. Messrs. Gay & Grainger have been very good to him, and they do
not like losing him. Then, of course, Mother has got to find the money
for his fare. It has made me feel so bad that I could not help her with
that, but I dared not take Grandfather’s money in case it might be
wanted before I could make it up again.”
“Do you still think he will come back or be found by the police?” Don
looked at her in amazement. He knew nothing of that night’s experience
when Sophy and Pam had been lured from the house by that false cry for
help, for Sophy had kept the secret most loyally.
Pam winced. She always did wince at any mention of the police in
connection with her grandfather, for she was very proud, and the shame
of it all scorched her very soul. It was quite bad enough to be poor,
but happily there was no shame in that when the poverty could not be
helped.
“Of course I think he will come back when he feels inclined,” she
answered, and in spite of herself a note of offence, crept into her
tone. “Then when he does come back the police will have to do their
duty, and that is why the money must be kept for his defence.”
“It is hard on your mother, though.” Don was still keenly surveying the
trees, and so his eyes were away from the face of his companion, where
the red blood was mounting in a burning blush of shame, right to the
roots of her hair. “Mrs. Walsh has had no help from you all the winter,
and now she will have to lose your brother’s help, too.”
“It is not quite so bad as it might be.” Pam was smiling a little
ruefully at the remembrance of what she was and comparing it with what
she had been forced by circumstances to become. “I was out of a
situation when I came here, and as Grandfather sent the money for my
fare, I did not cost Mother anything, and she has not had to keep me all
the winter. Then I was not much good at home; I always seemed to do the
wrong things. I upset the boarders by laughing at them. I could not get
as much work out of the servants as Jack could, and I was always
breaking things, or tearing things, or doing things wrong.”
“Did you change your nature on the voyage?” asked Don, turning to look
at her in amazement, for she had struck him as about the most capable
and clever girl it had ever been his lot to meet, and he valued her
accordingly.
Pam laughed merrily; she was not even embarrassed by the very evident
admiration in her companion’s face. He was so plainly unconscious of it
that it would be in the worst possible taste to notice or appear to
resent it.
“I don’t think I changed my nature, only that my peculiar gifts have now
found a more suitable setting,” she answered indifferently, then asked a
question about the sugaring which diverted the talk from personalities
and kept it in a strictly business groove.
Don was great on sugaring, and after some deliberation he declared that
the boiling would be best done at the house. It would add to the labour
a good deal to have to carry the syrup so far, but there was so much
less risk of spoiling the colour by any over-boiling, the fire could be
kept steadier, and the work could be done in a more satisfactory manner.
Then came busy days of trough-making. This was all done at
Ripple—indeed, most of it was done by Pam after Don had made a few as
patterns; for Dr. Grierson was spilled from his sledge just at that
time, and was so much hurt that he could not go to his patients except
when Don went with him, to lift him in and out of the sledge and help
him to the bedsides of those who needed him badly. It was the
sickness-time; the fierce cold was relaxing its grip on the land, and
everyone was feeling the change. Nathan Gittins, who had said that he
would come and help to make the troughs, was ill in bed with influenza,
and Galena was tied hand and foot with the work of the house and the
farm, to say nothing of the nursing. Indeed, Nathan was so ill for three
days that Mrs. Buckle went over to the Gittins farm to help Galena, who
was nearly worn out. Then he began to improve, and got better almost as
fast as he had got ill.
Then the sugaring began. The trees selected were carefully numbered, an
incision was made in the bark, and the little troughs made by Pam were
fixed under the openings to catch the oozing syrup. When the troughs
were full they were emptied into a cooking pot, which two of the sugar
workers carried the round of the trees; then the pot was brought to the
house, and the work of boiling and skimming began. But the accidents,
the frights, and the surprises were so numerous that Pam began to wonder
whether after all her sugaring venture would pay its expenses. The snow
was melting fast, and the sun was so hot at midday that the bears, which
had been sleeping for most of the winter snugly tucked into some cranny
of the hillside, or in hollow trees, came out of their long slumber and
cast about for food to satisfy them after their long fast. As a matter
of course they found the troughs under the tapped trees, and equally as
a matter of course they helped themselves to the syrup, knocked the
troughs down, so that the escaping syrup was wasted, and generally upset
things. After this a very close watch had to be kept, and although it
was impossible to keep the bears from stealing the syrup, it was
possible to prevent the waste by fixing the troughs anew, or by
replacing them, when they were damaged, with fresh ones.
The boiling was an anxious business, too, but here Pam proved her
mettle. It took her some days to discover just how big to make her fire,
and just how fast it was safe to let the syrup boil without its boiling
over; but when once she had succeeded in mastering these details, she
was able to run the boiling business single-handed whilst the others of
the party were away collecting syrup. Sophy’s time was fairly well
filled in catering for such a big party, and the fun at meal-times was
fast and furious. Luckily the weather was fine, and so the work went on
with dispatch. The house was redolent of the smell of boiling syrup, and
when Sophy complained that it made her feel sick, Pam pointed out to her
how much worse it would be if the stuff were allowed to boil over on the
stove and the odour of burning were added to the smell of the syrup.
At last the long hours of bending over the boiling syrup began to affect
Pam; she had a fearful headache, then came nausea and sickness. Galena
was forced to take the place of boiler, while Pam went out to the woods
to help in the collecting. Don wanted her to come with him. It was
necessary for them to work in pairs, and Pam looked so shockingly bad
from her bilious fit that she was really an object of pity. But Pam had
a perverse fit and would not go. She told Don that he must go with
Nathan and work as fast as possible, while she strolled along behind
with little Amanda Higgins, whom Mrs. Buckle had generously spared for a
day’s outing in the forest. Don was reluctant to leave her; he said that
Amanda could go with Nathan, and they two would go together, when he
would see that she did not have to work hard, nor yet to walk farther
than she felt fit for. But Pam was bent on having her own way, and, like
most perverse people, she had to suffer in consequence.
Amanda was a feckless girl, whose idea of sugaring was to run here and
there looking in sheltered places, and on the sunny sides of the banks,
to see if the colt’s-foot was coming into blossom. She left Pam to do
the work of emptying the troughs and refixing them, and she was a proud
and happy girl when she announced with a shout of jubilation that she
had found the first flower. Pam dropped her trough in a hurry then, and
let the exuding sap drip to waste while she ran to look at the tiny
yellow blossom, which was indeed the harbinger of the hosts of flowers
that were waiting to carpet the waste places with beauty.
“It is too early for flower-hunting yet,” said Pam, mindful of her duty,
as she picked up the trough which she had flung down in such a hurry and
went off to fix it to the tree. “Come and help me, Amanda, and then next
week, when this sugar business is all out of the way, I will ask Mrs.
Buckle to spare you, and we will have a long afternoon in the forest
hunting for flowers. They will all be new to me, but I expect you know
all about them, and which come first?”
“I should just think I do!” cried Amanda, who was skipping and prancing
like a young lamb, and was almost as irresponsible. She started to run
down a little bank that was clear of snow, and to jump the hollow at the
bottom, where the drift still lay in unsullied whiteness on the top of
last year’s leaves; but she caught her foot in an upstanding root, tried
to save herself, failed, then went sprawling into the drift, clutching
wildly for something by which to save herself, and screaming at the top
of her voice.
Pam put the pot of syrup carefully on the ground and went to the help of
Amanda. Privately she was sharply regretting the fit of perversity which
had made her refuse to go with Don, for if Amanda had been with Nathan
Gittins, he would have taken good care that she did not get up to pranks
of this sort, which not merely wasted time, but endangered her limbs
likewise. There was so much sickness about at this time that it was of
all things foolish to run risks which might be avoided.
“Catch hold of my hand and I will pull you out!” cried Pam, and holding
to the stem of a slender young birch with one hand, she reached out the
other to assist Amanda from the hollow, which was a deep one.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Amanda’s voice rose in a crescendo of shrieks as she
squirmed round and round in an agitated endeavour to get on her feet,
and she was in such a hurry that it took about twice as long to scramble
up as it would have done if she had gone to work in a cooler fashion.
“Ah! Oh! Ah! There is a dead man here down under me, and I am frightened
out of my life!”
“Catch hold of me, I will pull you out; but do not trample about in that
fashion, it is horrible!” Pam’s voice was sharp with authority now. It
was dreadful that Amanda should be trampling on what had once been a
human being, and the child seemed too demoralized by her fear to do the
sensible thing, and get out of the hole as quickly as possible. She was
shrieking and crying, but Pam did not once check the noise, for it
seemed to her it was the best way of letting the others know that
something serious was the matter.
There was an answering shout from the distance, but the two men did not
arrive before Pam had managed to grip Amanda and land her on the bank.
She was shivering and crying at such a rate that she was wholly
incoherent, and it was Pam who had to tell the two men the cause of the
trouble. But she kept her back turned upon the hollow, so desperately
afraid was she of seeing something of what had scared Amanda so badly.
Nathan slid carefully into the hollow, and began scraping away the
melting snow with his hands. Then Don crept down also, and Pam hushed
Amanda with a gesture of authority, while she still kept her back turned
upon the scene.
“We found that, and that,” said the voice of Don at her elbow; “but
there is little else save a few bones. It looks as if the poor fellow,
whoever he was, had been set upon and eaten by wolves.”
Pam glanced at the objects he was holding out to her, and then gave a
startled cry, for the first, a little wallet with leather cover and
metal corners, was one of the things taken from her grandfather’s desk
that night when she and Sophy had been lured from the house; and the
other thing was a stout little canvas bag containing coin.