I think there is no part of farming the boy enjoys more than the making
of maple sugar; it is better than “blackberrying,” and nearly as good as
fishing. And one reason he likes this work is, that somebody else does
the most of it. It is a sort of work in which he can appear to be very
active, and yet not do much.
And it exactly suits the temperament of a real boy to be very busy about
nothing. If the power, for instance, that is expended in play by a
boy between the ages of eight and fourteen could be applied to some
industry, we should see wonderful results. But a boy is like a
galvanic battery that is not in connection with anything; he generates
electricity and plays it off into the air with the most reckless
prodigality. And I, for one, wouldn't have it otherwise. It is as much
a boy's business to play off his energies into space as it is for a
flower to blow, or a catbird to sing snatches of the tunes of all the
other birds.
In my day maple-sugar-making used to be something between picnicking and
being shipwrecked on a fertile island, where one should save from the
wreck tubs and augers, and great kettles and pork, and hen's eggs and
rye-and-indian bread, and begin at once to lead the sweetest life in the
world. I am told that it is something different nowadays, and that there
is more desire to save the sap, and make good, pure sugar, and sell
it for a large price, than there used to be, and that the old fun and
picturesqueness of the business are pretty much gone. I am told that it
is the custom to carefully collect the sap and bring it to the house,
where there are built brick arches, over which it is evaporated in
shallow pans, and that pains is taken to keep the leaves, sticks, and
ashes and coals out of it, and that the sugar is clarified; and that, in
short, it is a money-making business, in which there is very little fun,
and that the boy is not allowed to dip his paddle into the kettle of
boiling sugar and lick off the delicious sirup. The prohibition may
improve the sugar, but it is cruel to the boy.
As I remember the New England boy (and I am very intimate with one), he
used to be on the qui vive in the spring for the sap to begin running.
I think he discovered it as soon as anybody. Perhaps he knew it by a
feeling of something starting in his own veins,--a sort of spring stir
in his legs and arms, which tempted him to stand on his head, or throw
a handspring, if he could find a spot of ground from which the snow
had melted. The sap stirs early in the legs of a country-boy, and shows
itself in uneasiness in the toes, which get tired of boots, and want
to come out and touch the soil just as soon as the sun has warmed it
a little. The country-boy goes barefoot just as naturally as the trees
burst their buds, which were packed and varnished over in the fall to
keep the water and the frost out. Perhaps the boy has been out digging
into the maple-trees with his jack-knife; at any rate, he is pretty sure
to announce the discovery as he comes running into the house in a great
state of excitement--as if he had heard a hen cackle in the barn--with
“Sap's runnin'!”
And then, indeed, the stir and excitement begin. The sap-buckets, which
have been stored in the garret over the wood-house, and which the boy
has occasionally climbed up to look at with another boy, for they are
full of sweet suggestions of the annual spring frolic,--the sap-buckets
are brought down and set out on the south side of the house and scalded.
The snow is still a foot or two deep in the woods, and the ox-sled is
got out to make a road to the sugar camp, and the campaign begins. The
boy is everywhere present, superintending everything, asking questions,
and filled with a desire to help the excitement.
It is a great day when the cart is loaded with the buckets and the
procession starts into the woods. The sun shines almost unobstructedly
into the forest, for there are only naked branches to bar it; the snow
is soft and beginning to sink down, leaving the young bushes spindling
up everywhere; the snowbirds are twittering about, and the noise of
shouting and of the blows of the axe echoes far and wide. This is
spring, and the boy can scarcely contain his delight that his out-door
life is about to begin again.
In the first place, the men go about and tap the trees, drive in the
spouts, and hang the buckets under. The boy watches all these operations
with the greatest interest. He wishes that sometime, when a hole is
bored in a tree, the sap would spout out in a stream as it does when
a cider-barrel is tapped; but it never does, it only drops, sometimes
almost in a stream, but on the whole slowly, and the boy learns that the
sweet things of the world have to be patiently waited for, and do not
usually come otherwise than drop by drop.
Then the camp is to be cleared of snow. The shanty is re-covered with
boughs. In front of it two enormous logs are rolled nearly together, and
a fire is built between them. Forked sticks are set at each end, and
a long pole is laid on them, and on this are hung the great caldron
kettles. The huge hogsheads are turned right side up, and cleaned out to
receive the sap that is gathered. And now, if there is a good “sap run,”
the establishment is under full headway.
The great fire that is kindled up is never let out, night or day, as
long as the season lasts. Somebody is always cutting wood to feed it;
somebody is busy most of the time gathering in the sap; somebody is
required to watch the kettles that they do not boil over, and to fill
them. It is not the boy, however; he is too busy with things in general
to be of any use in details. He has his own little sap-yoke and
small pails, with which he gathers the sweet liquid. He has a little
boiling-place of his own, with small logs and a tiny kettle. In
the great kettles the boiling goes on slowly, and the liquid, as it
thickens, is dipped from one to another, until in the end kettle it is
reduced to sirup, and is taken out to cool and settle, until enough is
made to “sugar off.” To “sugar off” is to boil the sirup until it is
thick enough to crystallize into sugar. This is the grand event, and is
done only once in two or three days.
But the boy's desire is to “sugar off” perpetually. He boils his kettle
down as rapidly as possible; he is not particular about chips, scum, or
ashes; he is apt to burn his sugar; but if he can get enough to make a
little wax on the snow, or to scrape from the bottom of the kettle with
his wooden paddle, he is happy. A good deal is wasted on his hands, and
the outside of his face, and on his clothes, but he does not care; he is
not stingy.
To watch the operations of the big fire gives him constant pleasure.
Sometimes he is left to watch the boiling kettles, with a piece of pork
tied on the end of a stick, which he dips into the boiling mass when it
threatens to go over. He is constantly tasting of it, however, to see
if it is not almost sirup. He has a long round stick, whittled smooth at
one end, which he uses for this purpose, at the constant risk of burning
his tongue. The smoke blows in his face; he is grimy with ashes; he is
altogether such a mass of dirt, stickiness, and sweetness, that his own
mother wouldn't know him.
He likes to boil eggs in the hot sap with the hired man; he likes to
roast potatoes in the ashes, and he would live in the camp day and night
if he were permitted. Some of the hired men sleep in the bough shanty
and keep the fire blazing all night. To sleep there with them, and awake
in the night and hear the wind in the trees, and see the sparks fly up
to the sky, is a perfect realization of all the stories of adventures
he has ever read. He tells the other boys afterwards that he heard
something in the night that sounded very much like a bear. The hired man
says that he was very much scared by the hooting of an owl.
The great occasions for the boy, though, are the times of
“sugaring-off.” Sometimes this used to be done in the evening, and
it was made the excuse for a frolic in the camp. The neighbors were
invited; sometimes even the pretty girls from the village, who filled
all the woods with their sweet voices and merry laughter and little
affectations of fright. The white snow still lies on all the ground
except the warm spot about the camp. The tree branches all show
distinctly in the light of the fire, which sends its ruddy glare far
into the darkness, and lights up the bough shanty, the hogsheads, the
buckets on the trees, and the group about the boiling kettles, until the
scene is like something taken out of a fairy play. If Rembrandt could
have seen a sugar party in a New England wood, he would have made out
of its strong contrasts of light and shade one of the finest pictures
in the world. But Rembrandt was not born in Massachusetts; people hardly
ever do know where to be born until it is too late. Being born in the
right place is a thing that has been very much neglected.
At these sugar parties every one was expected to eat as much sugar as
possible; and those who are practiced in it can eat a great deal. It is
a peculiarity about eating warm maple sugar, that though you may eat so
much of it one day as to be sick and loathe the thought of it, you will
want it the next day more than ever. At the “sugaring-off” they used
to pour the hot sugar upon the snow, where it congealed, without
crystallizing, into a sort of wax, which I do suppose is the most
delicious substance that was ever invented. And it takes a great while
to eat it. If one should close his teeth firmly on a ball of it, he
would be unable to open his mouth until it dissolved. The sensation
while it is melting is very pleasant, but one cannot converse.
The boy used to make a big lump of it and give it to the dog, who
seized it with great avidity, and closed his jaws on it, as dogs will on
anything. It was funny the next moment to see the expression of perfect
surprise on the dog's face when he found that he could not open his
jaws. He shook his head; he sat down in despair; he ran round in a
circle; he dashed into the woods and back again. He did everything
except climb a tree, and howl. It would have been such a relief to him
if he could have howled. But that was the one thing he could not do.