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, would n'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 would n'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.