A BUSY BEE.
'We'd ha' best sugar off the whole lot _al_together,' Zack had said,
and being the only one of the makers who knew anything about the
manufacture, he was permitted to prescribe the procedure. The dark
amber-coloured molasses had stood and settled for some days in deep
wooden troughs, before his other avocations, of farmer and general
storekeeper at the 'Corner,' allowed him to come up to the Cedars and
give the finishing touch.
A breathless young Bunting--familiarly known as Ged, and the veriest
miniature of his father--burst into the shanty one day during dinner--a
usual visiting hour for members of his family.
'Well, Ged, what do you want?'
'Uncle Zack'll be here first thing in the mornin' to sugar the syrup,
and he says yo're to have a powerful lot o' logs ready chopped for the
fires,' was the message. 'I guess I thought I'd be late for dinner,'
the boy added, with a sort of chuckle, 'but I ain't;' and he winked
knowingly.
'Well,' observed Arthur, laughing, 'you Yankees beat all the world for
cool impudence.'
'I rayther guess we do, an' fur most things else teu,' was the lad's
reply, with his eyes fixed on the trencher of bear's meat which Andy
was serving up for him. 'Don't you be sparing of the pritters--I'm
rael hungry:' and with his national celerity, the viands disappeared.
When the meal was ended, Robert, as always, returned thanks to God for
His mercies, in a few reverent words. The boy stared.
'I guess I hain't never heerd the like of that 'afore,' he remarked.
'Sure, God ain't nowhar hereabouts?'
Robert was surprised to find how totally ignorant he was of the very
rudiments of the Christian faith. The name of God had reached his ear
chiefly in oaths; heaven and hell were words with little meaning to his
darkened mind.
'I thought a Methodist minister preached in your father's big room once
or twice a year,' observed Robert, after some conversation.
'So he do; but I guess we boys makes tracks for the woods; an' besides,
there ain't no room for us nowhar,' said Ged.
Here I may just be permitted to indicate the wide and promising field
for missionary labour that lies open in Canada West. No fetters of a
foreign tongue need cramp the ardent thought of the evangelist, but in
his native English he may tell the story of salvation through a land
large as half a dozen European kingdoms, where thousands of his brethren
according to the flesh are perishing for want of knowledge. A few stray
Methodists alone have pushed into the moral wilderness of the backwoods;
and what are they among so many? Look at the masses of lumberers: it is
computed that on the Ottawa and its tributaries alone they number thirty
thousand men; spending their Sabbaths, as a late observer has told us,
in mending their clothes and tools, smoking and sleeping, and utterly
without religion. Why should not the gospel be preached to these our
brothers, and souls won for Christ from among them?
And in outlying germs of settlements like the 'Corner,' which are the
centre of districts of sparse population, such ignorance as this of
young Bunting's, though rare elsewhere in Canada or the States, is far
from uncommon among the rising generation.
Zack arrived with the ox-sled at the time appointed, and Ged perched on
it.
'Just look at the pile of vessels the fellow has brought to carry away
his share of the molasses and sugar,' said Arthur, as the clumsy vehicle
came lumbering up. ''Twas a great stroke of business to give us all the
trouble, and take all the advantage to himself--our trees, our fires,
nothing but the use of his oxen as a set-off.'
The advantage was less than Arthur supposed; for maples are not
impoverished by drainage of sap, and firewood is so abundant as to
be a nuisance. But for Zack's innate love of even the semblance of
overreaching, he might have discerned that his gain in this transaction
was hardly worth the pains.
'Wal, Robert, you ha' poured off the molasses into the kettles; an' now
fur the clarifyin'. I knowed as how ye had nothen' fit--milk, nor calf's
blood, nor eggs, nor nothen'--so I brought up the eggs, an' when we're
settlin' shares they kin be considered.'
'The old sharper!' muttered Arthur.
'I'm afeerd like they're beat up already,' said Mr. Bunting, picking
them gingerly out of his pockets, 'though I made Ged drive a purpose.
But that near ox has a trick of stickin' over stumps, an' I had obliged
to cut a handspike to him. I declar' if they ain't all whole arter all,
'cept one.' He smashed them into a wooden bowl half full of molasses,
and beat them up with a chip, then emptied the contents into the kettles,
stirring well. Hung over a slow fire, from a pole resting on two notched
posts, the slight simmering sound soon began; and on the top of the
heated fluid gathered a scum, which Zack removed. After some repetitions
of this skimming, and when the molasses looked bright and clear, Mr.
Bunting asked for a bit of fat bacon.
'Which can be considered when we're dividing shares,' said Arthur,
handing it to him a few minutes afterwards. A glance was Zack's reply,
as he strung the bacon on a cord, and hung it below the rim, within two
inches of the boiling surface.
'Indeed,' quoth Robert, looking on at the operation of this expedient
for preventing the spilling over of the molasses, 'I wonder some cleaner
mode of keeping the boiling within bounds has not been invented.'
'The Scotchman Davidson cools with a run of cold sap, out of a little
spout an' a keg; but them notions don't suit me nohow; the bit o' bacon
fixes it jest as right. By the way, did you hear that his farm is took?
By a Britisher gentleman--I'm told an officer, too; I guess he'll want
to back out o' the bush faster than he got in, ef he's like the most
of 'em. I know'd some o' the sort, an' they never did a cent's worth o'
good, hardly, though they was above bein' spoke to. 'Tain't a location
for soft hands an' handsome clothes, I guess; an' I declar ef I don't
think I ever saw gentlemen Britishers git along so remarkably smart as
yerselves: but ye hain't been above work, that's a fact.'
The Wynns were glad enough of the prospect of a new neighbour of the
educated class; for, more than once or twice, the total absence of
congenial society in any sense of the word had been felt as a minor
privation. Robert foresaw that when with future years came improved
means and enlarged leisure, this need would be greater. Zack thought
the new settlers ought to try and arrive before spring thaw.
'Yer own logging-bee might be 'bout that time, Robert,' he observed,
while he narrowly watched his kettles and their incipient sugar. 'The
fallow looks ready for burnin', I guess.'
'Yes, 'tis nearly all chopped and piled; but I'm more anxious to have
a raising-bee for my new house. The logging can wait for a couple of
months, Davidson tells me.'
'Wal, you'll want considerable of whisky for the teu,' observed Zack
briskly; 'all the "Corner" 'll be sure to come, an' raise yer house off
the ground right slick at onst. A frame-house, I calc'late?'
'Clapboarded and painted, if I can, Mr. Bunting.'
'Now I don't want ever to hear of no better luck than I had in gittin'
that consignment of ile an' white lead t'other day. Jest the very thing
fur you, I guess!'
Robert did not seem similarly struck by the coincidence.
'Any one but Zack would have melted away long ago over that roaring
fire,' said Arthur some time afterwards, withdrawing from his kettle to
fan himself. 'Being a tall bag of bones, I suppose he can't dissolve
readily. What's he going to do now, I wonder?'
Mr. Bunting had chipped a thin piece of wood from one of the fire logs,
and wrought through it a narrow hole, inch long; this he dipped in the
seething molasses, and drew it forth filled with a thin film, which he
blew out with his breath into a long bubble of some tenacity.
'Thar! 'tis sugared at last,' said he, jerking aside the chip; 'an' now
fur the pans.'
By a remarkable clairvoyance, just at this juncture various younger
members of the Bunting family made their appearance in the sugar-bush;
and as fast as Uncle Zack poured forth the sweet stuff into the tins
and shallow wooden vessels placed to receive it, did half-a-dozen
pilfering hands abstract portions to dip in the snow and devour. Zack's
remonstrances and threats were of no avail, and whenever he made a dash
towards them, they dispersed in all directions 'quick as wink.'
'Ef I ketch you, Ged, you'll know the defference of grabbin' a pound out
of this 'ere tin, I guess, you young varmint!'
''Taint so kinder aisy to catch a 'coon, Uncle Zack,' was the lad's
rejoinder from the fork of a birch where he had taken refuge, and sucked
his stolen goods at ease. Similar raids harassed the long line of cooling
tins, and not all the efforts of the sugar-makers at mounting guard
could protect them, until the guerilla corps of youngsters became in
some degree surfeited, and slid away through the woods as they had come.
Meanwhile, the best part of a stone of the manufacture had vanished.
'Them are spry chaps, I reckon,' was the parent's reflection, with some
pride in their successful free-booting, though he had opposed its
details.
'I would teach them to be honest, Mr. Bunting;' which speech only evoked
a laugh.
'Now I guess you're riled 'cos they ran away with yer sugar, jest as ef
'twarn't more mine than yourn.'
This was unpromising as portended the division into shares, wherein
Robert was overreached, as he knew he should be; but he comforted
himself by the reflection that next year he should be able to do without
his odious assistant, and that for this summer he had housekeeping-sugar
enough. He utterly refused to enter into any coalition for the making of
vinegar or beer. Towards the close of the sap season he tapped a yellow
birch, by his Scotch neighbour's advice, drew from it thirty gallons in
three days, boiled down that quantity into ten gallons, and set it to
ferment in a sunny place, with a little potato yeast as the exciting
cause. Of course the result was immensely too much vinegar for any
possible household needs, considering that not even a cucumber bed
was as yet laid out in the embryo garden.
But now April, 'the moon for breaking the snow-shoes,' in Ojibbeway
parlance, was advancing; patches of brown ground began to appear under
the hot sunlight, oozy and sloppy until the two-feet depth of frost was
gradually exhaled. The dwellers in the shanty had almost forgotten the
look of the world in colours, for so many months had it slept in white
array. Robert could have kissed the earliest knot of red and blue
hepaticas which bloomed at the base of a log-heap. But he looked
in vain for that eldest child of an English spring, 'the wee modest
crimson-tipped' daisy, or for the meek nestling primrose among the
moss. And from the heaven's blue lift no music of larks poured down;
no twitter of the chaffinch or whistle of the thrush echoed from the
greening woods. Robert thought the blue-bird's voice a poor apology for
his native songsters.
He had, indeed, little time for any reflections unconnected with hard
work. The cedar swamp was shrinking before his axe, and yielding its
fragrant timbers for the future house. From early morning till late at
night the three men never ceased labour except for short meals; having,
as their object and reward, the comfort of those dear ones who would
arrive in July or August at farthest.
The existing shanty was to be retained as kitchen, and a little room
could be railed off the end as a place for stores. Four apartments
would constitute the new house, one of them to be a sitting room for
the mother and Linda. How easy to build and furnish in fancy; how
difficult in fact! Yet the raising-bee accomplished a great deal, though
the Yankee storekeeper was discomfited to find that Davidson of Daisy
Burn had undertaken the guidance of the hive; he sulked somewhat in
consequence, and also because the consumption of spirits was not, as he
had contemplated, to intoxication. Robert was backed by his sturdy
Scottish neighbour in that resolve; and the more sensible of the workers
could not but approve.
Four walls and roof were put together by the joint-stock labour of the
day. Standing in the vacant doorway, Robert looked over the moonlit view
of woods and islanded lake well pleased.