Harper's Young People, May 4, 1880 Part 3

But after the long, hard winter at Valley Forge, the spring of 1778 opened with new hopes. The French government had signed a treaty with the United States, agreeing to aid them with men and money, and a fleet of French s.h.i.+ps was sent to America. The British finding Philadelphia hardly worth the hard fighting it had cost, since they could not get far away from it, or hurt the American army very much while in the city, got ready to leave it and go back to New York. Was.h.i.+ngton followed hard after them, and a heavy battle was fought at Monmouth, in New Jersey, from which neither side gained a great deal. The British got back into New York, and Was.h.i.+ngton took his men up the Hudson, and kept them there, watching a chance to join in some attack with the French troops who came to Newport, in the State of Rhode Island.

For the next three years there was not any very hard fighting under Was.h.i.+ngton's own command, but his cares were scarcely less. He had to keep watch of all that was going on, and to have his army ready to strike at a moment's warning. Waiting and watching were tedious work.

They tried his patience and his firmness. A weaker man would have given up, but Was.h.i.+ngton was not any more easily tired than he was frightened.

He held steadily to his task, and tried hard to keep his countrymen, many of whom were weary of the war, up to their duty.

At one time the cause of liberty was nearly ruined by a traitor. General Benedict Arnold tried to sell to the British a fort at West Point, on the Hudson River. If the British could have got that, the States north and east of New York would have been cut off from the rest, and probably they would have all been conquered. Happily the plot failed. This was in 1780.

The next year Was.h.i.+ngton really closed the war by a splendid move. A large army of the British had been sent to Virginia, under Lord Cornwallis, in hopes to cut the troops who were farther south off from connection with the North.

Was.h.i.+ngton sent a gallant young French General, Lafayette, whom he loved and trusted greatly, to prevent this. Lafayette had a small force, but he was quick and brave and shrewd, and he managed to get the British shut up in Yorktown, near the Chesapeake Bay. There he learned that a French fleet, under Comte de Gra.s.se, would soon arrive. He sent urgent word to Was.h.i.+ngton to come South right away.

Was.h.i.+ngton straightway marched, with nearly all his army, and most of the French troops, for Virginia. They arrived on the 14th of September, 1781, just in time. The French fleet sailed up the bay, the American and French troops came down on the land side, and between them they shut the British General in the little village of Yorktown, and there they laid siege to his army.

When they had got pretty close to the town, they had to drive the British from some redoubts, or walls of earth and stone, behind which they had planted their cannon. This was done by a party of Americans under the gallant Lafayette, and a party of French soldiers. They marched steadily up to the redoubts, and springing over the walls, under heavy fire, drove the enemy out with their bayonets. It was a brave a.s.sault, and successful, and it was the last hard fighting of the war.

On the 19th of October, Lord Cornwallis, seeing that he could hold out no longer, surrendered his army prisoners of war. It was a great victory, and was won with less loss of life than there might have been if it had been less skillfully fought, for Was.h.i.+ngton had managed so quietly and so quickly that he had surrounded Lord Cornwallis with nearly twice as many troops as the British General had.

After the surrender at Yorktown, Was.h.i.+ngton returned North, and on his way stopped at his home at Mount Vernon. He had slept there on his journey southward, a few weeks before, for the first time in nearly seven years, and he had found it sadly injured in his absence. During his second visit, his wife's son, Mr. Custis, died, leaving a son and a daughter, whom Was.h.i.+ngton adopted as his own, and tenderly cared for as long as he lived.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

MAKING MAPLE SUGAR.

When in the early spring-time the snow and ice have been so softened by the ever-increasing warmth of the sun's rays as to put an end to coasting, skating, and other winter sports of the North, a new source of amus.e.m.e.nt, equally fascinating to the children, is provided. It is maple-sugar making, with all the delights of life in the camp, or "sugar bush," as it is more generally called.

When the heat of the sun is sufficient to melt the snow, it is also powerful enough to send the sweet sap of the rock and sugar maples rus.h.i.+ng through all the delicate bark veins up toward the branches and twigs. At night, when the sun has set, and the air is full of a nipping frost, the sap does not run; so, as it must be collected during the daytime, the boiling is very often done at night.

As the first sap of the season is the sweetest and most abundant, the sugar-makers are on the ground and making ready their camps upon the first indications of "sap weather," as they call it. The sap runs, according to locality, from the last of February until late in April, and the sugar season lasts about four weeks in each place.

When the farmer thinks that sap weather is about setting in, he calls his boys together; they load the big kettles and camp material on the ox sleds, and start for the "bush," or grove of maple-trees, which is often many miles from the house. When they reach the maple grove, all hands find plenty to do. If it is a warm day, the trees must be immediately tapped, and a couple of boys are started off with a sled-load of iron spiles, each about six inches long, and a quant.i.ty of sap buckets or short wooden troughs that have been cut out during the long winter evenings. A slight cut is made through the bark of each tree, or an auger hole is bored, a spile driven in directly beneath it, and at the foot of the tree is left a trough so arranged as to catch the sap as it drips from the end of the spile.

While the trees are being tapped, the men left in camp have been busy enough building the rude shanties of logs and spruce boughs that are to shelter them while they remain in the bush, cutting quant.i.ties of fire-wood, and swinging the great kettles into place on the iron bar that rests on two forked posts solidly fixed in the ground. Sometimes great shallow pans of iron, set upon rude foundations of stone, are used instead of the kettles, and the shanty in which the men live is often a very permanent structure of logs, that can be used for many years.

Late in the afternoon the sleds, each carrying a large cask or hogshead, are sent around to the maple-trees, all the sap buckets are emptied, and finally the casks, full of what tastes like sweetened water, are drawn slowly back to camp. The sap is poured into the big kettles, the fires lighted, and the "syruping down" begins. The pans or kettles are kept constantly full from the barrels of sap standing near by, and sometimes the bubbling liquid boils over. When it does this, a bit of bacon is thrown in, and the troubled waters subside.

The boiling is continued until the watery sap has been changed into a rich syrup, when it is drawn off into casks for future use, or into other iron kettles to be boiled again until it becomes sugar. This second boiling must be done very carefully, or the syrup will become burned and spoiled. It is constantly stirred with a long-handled wooden paddle, and both eggs and milk are often thrown in to purify it. The sc.u.m that rises to the top is carefully removed, and thrown out on the snow, to the delight of the children, who watch for it to cool and partially harden. They call it "maple candy" or "taffy," and regard it as a treat.

When by testing on the snow, or in cold water, the syrup is found to have boiled long enough, it is run into moulds, where it cools into cakes of maple sugar, or the kettle is lifted from the fire, and its contents stirred and beaten as they cool, until they become coa.r.s.e brown sugar that can be used in cooking.

A VOYAGE ON AN ICE-BLOCK.

BY DAVID KER.

The breaking up of the ice in Russia is always a fine sight to look at, even upon a small stream like the Neva at St. Petersburg, which is a mere brook compared with the great rivers of the South. As soon as the spring thaw sets in, all the wooden bridges are removed, and nothing checks the descending ice but the stone piers of the Nikolaievski Bridge, named after its founder, the Czar Nicholas. Every morning, while the show lasts, the bal.u.s.trades of this bridge are lined with a crowd of eager spectators, looking as intently at the wonderful sight as if they had never seen it before.

And a wonderful sight it is indeed. Far as the eye can reach, the smooth, dark surface of the river is one great procession of floating ma.s.ses of ice, of all shapes and sizes, moving slowly and steadily downward.

But the place to see this famous sight at its best is the Volga, which, with its two thousand miles of length, brings down ice enough to overwhelm a whole city. At times the force of the current piles it up, sheet over sheet, into huge mounds, the cras.h.i.+ng and grinding of which, as they dash against each other, make the very air shake. When the river is "moving," as the Russians call it, he would be a bold man who should attempt to take a boat across it; for, once caught between two of these moving islands, the strongest boat on the Volga would be crushed like an egg-sh.e.l.l.

So, doubtless, think the group of peasants who are standing upon the river-bank, one bright March morning, a mile or two below the great manufacturing town of Saratov, watching the endless procession of ice-blocks sweep past. Strange-looking fellows they are, with their flat sallow faces and thick yellow beards, their high boots smeared with tar instead of blacking, their rough caps pulled down over their eyes, and their heavy sheep-skin frocks with the wool inside. But, queer as they look, they are a merry set, laughing and joking unceasingly, and enjoying the spectacle like a party of youths at a circus.

"Come, now, Meesha [Michael], here's an open course; let us have a race across!"

"All right, Stepka [Stephen]; and as you're a friend of mine, I'll give you a half-minute start."

And then follows a loud laugh, for a little fun goes a long way in Russia.

But a sudden shout from one of the men draws everybody's attention, and he is seen pointing to a huge sheet of ice some distance up the stream.

On its smooth white surface lies a dark, shapeless lump, perfectly still; and guesses begin to fly from mouth to mouth as to what this can be.

"A block of wood, I think."

"A dog, more likely."

"Too big--must be a bundle of hay."

A handsome young fellow, lately arrived in that district from the North, presses to the front, and fixing his keen eyes for a moment upon the mysterious object, says, emphatically, "Tchelovek!" (a man).

"A man?" echo two or three of his companions. "He must be frozen, then, for he don't seem to move a bit."

"Feodor [Theodore] has the best eyes among us, though," puts in another.

"If he says a man, why, a man it must be."

"And so it is," shouts one who has run a little way up the bank; "and he's alive, too, for I saw him move his head just now."

By this time the ice-block had come near enough to let the strange object upon it be plainly seen. It was the figure of a man in a sheep-skin frock, doubled up in a crouching posture.

"We must help him, lads," cries Feodor; "it won't do to let a man perish before our eyes."

"Ah, my boy," answers an old man beside him, shaking his gray head, "it's easy to say 'help him,' but how are we to do it? Crossing the Volga when it's moving is not like dipping a spoon in a bowl of milk."

"I'll try it, anyhow," says Feodor, resolutely. "G.o.d cares for those who care for each other. I'll just run and get out my boat."

But as he was starting off to do so, a shout from the rest made him turn his head, and he saw something that stopped him short.

Just abreast of the spot where they stood three or four small islets, or rather sand-banks, lay close together in the centre of the stream. The huge fragment of ice upon which the man was crouching, turned sideways by the current, had just run upon the end of one of these banks, where it stuck fast.

"Now's the time," shouted Feodor, springing forward; "not a moment to be lost. A rope and a pole--quick!"

He was obeyed at once; for these rough fellows seemed to feel instinctively that _he_ was the man for the occasion, and had a right to take the command. He twisted one end of the rope around his left arm, and running a little way up the bank, threw the other end to those who followed him, grasped the pole in his right hand, and bounded like a deer on to the nearest ice-block, the in-drawn breath of the excited lookers-on sounding like a hiss amid the dead silence.

Had any artist been there to paint the scene, it would have made a very striking picture. The sky had darkened suddenly, and a cheerless gloom brooded over the sullen river with its drifting ice, and the bare sandy ridges on either side, and the helpless figure stranded upon the islet, and the daring man winning his perilous way over the treacherous surface, and the group of anxious watchers on the sh.o.r.e, while the wind moaned drearily through the leafless trees, like a warning of coming evil.