More Jonathan Papers Part 4

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.

I was awakened the next morning to a consciousness of flooding suns.h.i.+ne and Hirams voice outside my window.

Got anything I can empty sap into? Ive got everything all filled up.

Sap! Why, it isnt running yet, is it?

Pails were flowin over when I came out.

Flowing over! They said the sap wouldnt run last night.

I guest there dont n.o.body know when sapll run and when it wont, said Hiram peacefully, as he tramped off to the barn.

In a few minutes I was outdoors. Sure enough, Hiram had everything fullold boilers, feed-pails, water-pails. But we found some three-gallon milk-cans and used them. A farm is like a city. There are always things enough in it for all purposes. It is only a question of using its resources.

Then, in the clear April suns.h.i.+ne, I went out and surveyed the row of maples. How they did drip! Some of them almost ran. I felt as if I had turned on the faucets of the universe and didnt know how to turn them off again.

However, there was my new pan. I set it over my oven walls and began to pour in sap. Hiram helped me. He seemed to think he needed his feed-pails.

We poured in sap and we poured in sap. Never did I see anything hold so much as that pan. Even Hiram was stirred out of his usual calm to remark, It beats all, how much that holds. Of course Jonathan would have had its capacity all calculated the day before, but my methods are empirical, and so I was surprised as well as pleased when all my receptacles emptied themselves into its shallow breadths and still there was a good inch to allow for boiling up. Yes, Providencemy exclusive little fools Providencewas with me. The pan, and the oven, were a success, and when Jonathan came that night I led him out with unconcealed pride and showed him the pannow a heaving, frothing ma.s.s of sap-about-to-be-syrup, sending clouds of white steam down the wind. As he looked at the oven walls, I fancied his fingers ached to get at them, but he offered no criticism, seeing that they worked.

The next day began overcast, but Providence was merely preparing for me a special little gift in the form of a miniature snowstorm. It was quite real while it lasted. It whitened the gra.s.s and the road, it piled itself softly among the cl.u.s.ters of swelling buds on the apple trees, and made the orchard look as though it had burst into bloom in an hour. Then the sun came out, there were a few dazzling moments when the world was all blue and silver, and then the whiteness faded.

And the sap! How it dripped! Once an hour I had to make the rounds, bringing back gallons each time, and the fire under my pan was kept up so that the boiling down might keep pace with the new supply.

They do say snow makes it run, shouted a pa.s.ser-by, and another called, You want to keep skimmin! Whereupon I seized my long-handled skimmer and fell to work. Southern Connecticut does not know much about syrup, but by the avenue of the road I was gradually acc.u.mulating such wisdom as it possessed.

The syrup was made. No worse accident befell than the occasional overflowing of a pail too long neglected. The syrup was made, and bottled, and distributed to friends, and was the pride of the household through the year.

This time I will go early, I said to Jonathan; they say the late running is never quite so good.

It was early March when I got up there this timeearly March after a winter whose rigor had known practically no break. Again Jonathan could not come, but Cousin Janet could, and we met at the little station, where Hiram was waiting with Kit and the surrey. The sun was warm, but the air was keen and the woods hardly showed spring at all yet, even in that first token of it, the slight thickening of their millions of little tips, through the swelling of the buds. The city trees already showed this, but the country ones still kept their wintry penciling of vanis.h.i.+ng lines.

Spring was in the road, however. There aint no bottom to this road now, its just dropped clean out, remarked a fellow teamster as we wallowed along companionably through the woods. But, somehow, we reached the farm.

Again we bored our holes, and again I was thrilled as the first bright drops slipped out and jeweled the ends of the spouts. I watched Janet. She was interested but calm, cla.s.sing herself at once with Hiram and Jonathan.

We unearthed last years oven and dug out its inner depthsleaves and dirt and apples and ashesit was like excavating through the seven Troys to get to bottom. We brought down the big pan, now clothed in the honors of a seasons use, and cleaned off the cobwebs incident to a years sojourn in the attic. By sunset we had a panful of sap boiling merrily and already taking on a distinctly golden tinge. We tasted it. It was very syrupy.

Letting the fire die down, we went in to get supper in the utmost content of spirit.

Its so much simpler than last year, I said, as we sat over our cozy tea,having the pan and the oven ready-made, and all

You dont suppose anything could happen to it while were in here?

suggested Janet. Shant I just run out and see?

No, sit still. What could happen? The fires going out.

Yes, I know. But her voice was uncertain.

You see, Ive been all through it once, I rea.s.sured her.