Part 4 (1/2)

Plugs?

Yes. After tapping. Uncle Ben used to tap these trees, I believe.

You mean for sap? Maple syrup?

Yes.

Jonathan! I didnt know these were sugar maples.

Oh, yes. These on the road.

The whole row? Why, there are ten or fifteen of them! And you never told me!

I thought you knew.

Knew! I dont know anythingI should think youd know that, by this time.

Do you suppose, if I had known, I should have let all these years go byoh, dearthink of all the fun weve missed! And syrup!

Youd have to come up in February.

Well, then, Ill _come_ in February. Whos afraid of February?

All right. Try it next year.

I did. But not in February. Things happened, as things do, and it was early April before I got to the farm. But it had been a wintry March, and the farmers told me that the sap had not been running except for a few days in a February thaw. Anyway, it was worth trying.

Jonathan could not come with me. He was to join me later. But Hiram found a bundle of elder spouts in the attic, and with these and an auger we went out along the snowy, muddy road. The hole was boreda pair of themin the first tree, and the spouts driven in. I knelt, watchingin fact, peering up the spout-hole to see what might happen. Suddenly a drop, dim with sawdust, appearedgathered, hesitated, then ran down gayly and leapt off the end.

Look! Hiram! Its running! I called.

Hiram, boring the next tree, made no response. He evidently expected it to run. Jonathan would have acted just like that, too, I felt sure. Is it a masculine quality, I wonder, to be unmoved when the theoretically expected becomes actual? Or is it that some temperaments have naturally a certain large confidence in the sway of law, and refuse to wonder at its individual workings? To me the individual workings give an ever fresh thrill because they bring a new realization of the mighty powers behind them. It seems to depend on which end you begin at.

But though the little drops thrilled me, I was not beyond setting a pail underneath to catch them. And as Hiram went on boring, I followed with my pails. Pails, did I say? Pails by courtesy. There were, indeed, a few real pailsberry-pails, lard-pails, and water-pailsbut for the most part the sap fell into pitchers, or tin saucepans, stew-kettles of aluminum or agate ware, blue and gray and white and mottled, or big yellow earthenware bowls. It was a strange collection of receptacles that lined the roadside when we had finished our progress. As I looked along the row, I laughed, and even Hiram smiled.

But what next? Every utensil in the house was out there, sitting in the road. There was nothing left but the wash-boiler. Now, I had heard tales of amateur syrup-boilings, and I felt that the wash-boiler would not do.

Besides, I meant to work outdoorsno kitchen stove for me! I must have a pan, a big, flat pan. I flew to the telephone, and called up the village plumber, three miles away. Could he build me a pan? Oh, say, two feet by three feet, and five inches highyes, right away. Yes, Hiram would call for it in the afternoon.

I felt better. And now for a fireplace! Oh, Jonathan! Why did you have to be away! For Jonathan loves a stone and knows how to put stones together, as witness the stone Eyrie and the stile in the lane. However, there Jonathan wasnt. So I went out into the swampy orchard behind the house and looked aboutno lack of stones, at any rate. I began to collect material, and Hiram, seeing my purpose, helped with the big stones.

Somehow my fireplace got madetwo side walls, one end wall, the other end left open for stoking. It was not as pretty as if Jonathan had done it, but t was enough, t would serve. I collected fire-wood, and there I was, ready for my pan, and the afternoon was yet young, and the sap was drip-drip-dripping from all the spouts. I could begin to boil next day. I felt that I was being borne along on the providential wave that so often floats the inexperienced to success.

That night I emptied all my vessels into the boiler and set them out once more. A neighbor drove by and pulled up to comment benevolently on my work.

Will it run to-night? I asked him.

Nonot wont run to-night. Too cold. T wont run any to-night. You can sleep all right.

This was pleasant to hear. There was a moon, to be sure, but it was growing colder, and at the idea of crawling along that road in the middle of the night even my enthusiasm s.h.i.+vered a little.

So I made my rounds at nine, in the white moonlight, and went to sleep.