“He’s a good chopper, is Billy,” observed Benjamin, who held the bridle of the horse while the Sheriff mounted; “and he handles an ax much the same as a forecastleman does his marlinespike, or a tailor his goose. They say he’ll lift a potash kettle off the arch alone, tho’ I can’t say that I’ve ever seen him do it with my eyes; but that is the say. And I’ve seen sugar of his making, which, maybe, wasn’t as white as an old topgallant sail, but which my friend Mistress Prettybones, within there, said had the true molasses smack to it; and you are not the one, Squire Dickens, to be told that Mistress Remarkable has a remarkable tooth for sweet things, in her nut grinder.”
The loud laugh that succeeded the wit of Benjamin, and in which he participated, with no very harmonious sounds, himself very fully illustrated the congenial temper which existed between the pair. Most of its point was, however, lost on the rest of the party, who were either mounting their horses or assisting the ladies at the moment. When all were safely in their saddles, they moved through the village in great order. They paused for a moment before the door of Monsieur Le Quoi, until he could bestride his steed, and then issuing from the little cluster of houses, they took one of the principal of those highways that centered in the village.
As each night brought with it a severe frost, which the heat of the succeeding day served to dissipate the equestrians were compelled to proceed singly along the margin of the road, where the turf, and firmness of the ground, gave the horses a secure footing. Very trifling indications of vegetation were to be seen, the surface of the earth presenting a cold, wet, and cheerless aspect that chilled the blood. The snow yet lay scattered over most of those distant clearings that were visible in different parts of the mountains; though here and there an opening might be seen, where, as the white covering yielded to the season, the bright and lively green of the wheat served to enkindle the hopes of the husbandman. Nothing could be more marked than the contrast between the earth and the heavens; for, while the former presented the dreary view that we have described, a warm and invigorating sun was dispensing his heats from a sky that contained but a solitary cloud, and through an atmosphere that softened the colors of the sensible horizon until it shone like a sea of blue.
Richard led the way, on this, as on all other occasions that did not require the exercise of unusual abilities; and as he moved along, he essayed to enliven the party with the sounds of his experienced voice.
“This is your true sugar weather, ’duke,” he cried; “a frosty night and a sunshiny day. I warrant me that the sap runs like a milltail up the maples this warm morning. It is a pity, Judge, that you do not introduce a little more science into the manufactory of sugar among your tenants. It might be done, sir, without knowing as much as Doctor Franklin—it might be done, Judge Temple.”
“The first object of my solicitude, friend Jones,” returned Marmaduke, “is to protect the sources of this great mine of comfort and wealth from the extravagance of the people themselves. When this important point shall be achieved, it will be in season to turn our attention to an improvement in the manufacture of the article. But thou knowest, Richard, that I have already subjected our sugar to the process of the refiner, and that the result has produced loaves as white as the snow on yon fields, and possessing the saccharine quality in its utmost purity.”
“Saccharine, or turpentine, or any other ’ine, Judge Temple, you have never made a loaf larger than a good sized sugarplum,” returned the Sheriff. “Now, sir, I assert that no experiment is fairly tried until it be reduced to practical purposes. If, sir, I owned a hundred, or, for that matter, two hundred thousand acres of land, as you do, I would build a sugarhouse in the village; I would invite learned men to an investigation of the subject—and such are easily to be found, sir; yes, sir, they are not difficult to find—men who unite theory with practice; and I would select a wood of young and thrifty trees; and instead of making loaves of the size of a lump of candy, dam’me, ’duke, but I’d have them as big as a haycock.”
“And purchase the cargo of one of those ships that they say are going to China,” cried Elizabeth; “turn your potash kettles into teacups, the scows on the lake into saucers; bake your cake in yonder limekiln, and invite the county to a tea party. How wonderful are the projects of genius! Really, sir, the world is of opinion that Judge Temple has tried the experiment fairly, though he did not cause his loaves to be cast in molds of the magnitude that would suit your magnificent conceptions.”
“You may laugh, cousin Elizabeth—you may laugh, madam,” retorted Richard, turning himself so much in his saddle as to face the party, and making dignified gestures with his whip; “but I appeal to common sense, good sense, or, what is of more importance than either, to the sense of taste, which is one of the five natural senses, whether a big loaf of sugar is not likely to contain a better illustration of a proposition than such a lump as one of your Dutch women puts under her tongue when she drinks her tea. There are two ways of doing everything; the right way, and the wrong way. You make sugar now, I will admit, and you may, possibly, make loaf sugar; but I take the question to be, whether you make the best possible sugar, and in the best possible loaves.”
“Thou art very right, Richard,” observed Marmaduke, with a gravity in his air that proved how much he was interested in the subject. “It is very true that we manufacture sugar, and the inquiry is quite useful, how much? and in what manner? I hope to live to see the day when farms and plantations shall be devoted to this branch of business. Little is known concerning the properties of the tree itself, the source of all this wealth; how much it may be improved by cultivation, by the use of the hoe and plow.”
“Hoe and plow!” roared the Sheriff. “Would you set a man hoeing round the root of a maple like this?”—pointing to one of the noble trees that occur so frequently in that part of the country. “Hoeing trees! Are you mad, ’duke? This is next to hunting for coal! Poh! My dear cousin, hear reason, and leave the management of the sugarbush to me. Here is Mr. Le Quoi, he has been in the West Indies and has seen sugar made. Let him give an account of how it is made there, and you will hear the philosophy of the thing.—Well, Monsieur, how is it that you make sugar in the West Indies; anything in Judge Temple’s fashion?”
The gentleman to whom this query was put was mounted on a small horse, of no very fiery temperament, and was riding with his stirrups so short, as to bring his knees, while the animal rose a small ascent in the wood path they were now traveling, into a somewhat hazardous vicinity to his chin. There was no room for gesticulation or grace in the delivery of his reply, for the mountain was steep and slippery; and although the Frenchman had an eye of uncommon magnitude on either side of his face, they did not seem to be half competent to forewarn him of the impediments of bushes, twigs, and fallen trees that were momentarily crossing his path. With one hand employed in averting these dangers, and the other grasping his bridle, to check an untoward speed that his horse was assuming, the native of France responded as follows—
“Sucre! Dey do make sucre in Martinique: mais—mais ce n’est pas one tree—ah—ah—vat you call—Je voudrois que ces chemins fussent au diable—vat you call—steeck pour le promenade.”
“Cane,” said Elizabeth, smiling at the imprecation which the wary Frenchman supposed was understood only by himself.
“Oui, mam’selle, cane.”
“Yes, yes,” cried Richard, “cane is the vulgar name for it, but the real term is Saccharum officinarum; and what we call the sugar, or hard maple, is Acer saccharum. These are the learned names, Monsieur, and are such as, doubtless, you well understand.”
“Is this Greek or Latin, Mr. Edwards?” whispered Elizabeth to the youth who was opening a passage for herself and her companions through the bushes—“or perhaps it is a still more learned language, for an interpretation of which we must look to you.”
The dark eye of the young man glanced towards the speaker, but its resentful expression changed in a moment.
“I shall remembe
r your doubts, Miss Temple, when next I visit my old friend Mohegan, and either his skill, or that of Leatherstocking, shall solve them.”
“And are you, then, really ignorant of their language?”
“Not absolutely; but the deep learning of Mr. Jones is more familiar to me, or even the polite masquerade of Monsieur Le Quoi.”
“Do you speak French?” said the lady, with quickness.
“It is a common language with the Iroquois, and through the Canadas,” he answered, smiling.
“Ah! But they are Mingoes, and your enemies.”
“It will be well for me if I have no worse,” said the youth, dashing ahead with his horse, and putting an end to the evasive dialogue.
The discourse, however, was maintained with great vigor by Richard, until they reached an open wood on the summit of the mountain, where the hemlocks and pines totally disappeared, and a grove of the very trees that formed the subject of debate covered the earth with their tall, straight trunks and spreading branches, in stately pride. The underwood had been entirely removed from this grove, or bush, as in conjunction with the simple arrangements for boiling, it was called, and a wide space of many acres was cleared, which might be likened to the dome of a mighty temple, to which the maples formed the columns, their tops composing the capitals, and the heavens the arch. A deep and careless incision had been made into each tree, near its root, into which little sprouts, formed of the bark of the alder, or of the sumac, were fastened; and a trough, roughly dug out of the linden, or basswood, was lying at the root of each tree, to catch the sap that flowed from this extremely wasteful and inartificial arrangement.
The party paused a moment, on gaining the flat, to breathe their horses, and, as the scene was entirely new to several of their number, to view the manner of collecting the fluid. A fine powerful voice aroused them from their momentary silence, as it rang under the branches of the trees, singing the following words of that inimitable doggerel, whose verses, if extended, would reach from the waters of the Connecticut to the shores of Ontario. The tune was, of course, that familiar air, which, although it is said to have been first applied to his nation in derision, circumstances have since rendered so glorious, that no American ever hears its jingling cadence without feeling a thrill at his heart.
“The Eastern States be full of men,
The Western full of woods, sir,
The hills be like a cattle pen,
The roads be full of goods, sir!
Then flow away, my sweety sap,
And I will make you boily;
Nor catch a woodman’s hasty nap,
For fear you should get roily.
“The maple tree’s a precious one,
’Tis fuel, food, and timber;
And when your stiff day’s work is done,
Its juice will make you limber,
Then flow away, etc.
“And what’s a man without his glass,
His wife without her tea, sir?
But neither cup nor mug will pass,
Without this honeybee, sir!
Then flow away,” etc.
During the execution of this sonorous doggerel, Richard kept time with his whip on the mane of his charger, accompanying the gestures with a corresponding movement of his head and body. Towards the close of the song, he was overheard humming the chorus, and at its last repetition, to strike in at “sweety sap,” and carry a second through, with a prodigious addition to the “effect” of the noise, if not to that of the harmony.
“Well done us!” roared the Sheriff, on the same key with the tune; “a very good song, Billy Kirby, and very well sung. Where got you the words, lad? Is there more of it, and can you furnish me with a copy?”
The sugar boiler, who was busy in his “camp,” at a short distance from the equestrians, turned his head with great indifference and surveyed the party, as they approached, with admirable coolness. To each individual, as he or she rode close by him, he gave a nod that was extremely good-natured and affable, but which partook largely of the virtue of equality, for not even to the ladies did he in the least vary his mode of salutation, by touching the apology for a hat that he wore, or by any other motion than the one we have mentioned.
“How goes it, how goes it, Sheriff?” said the wood chopper. “What’s the good word in the village?”
“Why, much as usual, Billy,” returned Richard. “But how is this? Where are your four kettles, and your troughs, and your iron coolers? Do you make sugar in this slovenly way? I thought you were one of the best sugar boilers in the county.”
“I’m all that, Squire Jones,” said Kirby, who continued his occupation; “I’ll turn my back to no man in the Otsego hills, for chopping and logging, for boiling down the maple sap, for tending brickkiln, splitting out rails, making potash, and parling too, or hoeing corn; though I keep myself pretty much to the first business, seeing that the ax comes most natural to me.”
“You be von Jack All-trade, Mister Beel,” said Monsieur Le Quoi.
“How?” said Kirby, looking up, with a simplicity which, coupled with his gigantic frame and manly face, was a little ridiculous. “If you be for trade, Mounshere, here is some as good sugar as you’ll find the season through. It’s as clear from dirt as the Jarman Flats is free from stumps, and it has the raal maple flavor. Such stuff would sell in York for candy.”
The Frenchman approached the place where Kirby had deposited his cakes of sugar, under the cover of a bark roof, and commenced the examination of the article, with the eye of one who well understood its value. Marmaduke had dismounted, and was viewing the works and the trees very closely, and not without frequent expressions of dissatisfaction at the careless manner in which the manufacture was conducted.
“You have much experience in these things, Kirby,” he said; “what course do you pursue in making your sugar? I see you have but two kettles.”
“Two is as good as two thousand, Judge. I’m none of your polite sugar makers, that boils for the great folks; but if the raal sweet maple is wanted, I can answer your turn. First, I choose, and then I tap my trees; say along about the last of February, or in these mountains may be not afore the middle of March; but anyway, just as the sap begins to cleverly run——”
“Well, in this choice,” interrupted Marmaduke, “are you governed by any outward signs that prove the quality of the tree?”
“Why, there’s judgment in all things,” said Kirby, stirring the liquor in his kettles briskly. “There’s something in knowing when and how much to stir the pot. It’s a thing that must be larnt. Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor for that matter Templetown either, though it may be said to be a quick-growing place. I never put my ax into a stunty tree, or one that hasn’t a good, fresh-looking bark; for trees have disorders, like creaters; and where’s the policy of taking a tree that’s sickly, any more than you’d choose a foundered horse to ride post, or an overheated ox to do your logging.”
“All this is true. But what are the signs of illness? How do you distinguish a tree that is well from one that is diseased?”
“How does the doctor tell who has fever, and who colds?” interrupted Richard. “By examining the skin, and feeling the pulse, to be sure.”
“Sartain,” continued Billy; “the Squire an’t far out of the way. It’s by the look of the thing, sure enough. Well, when the sap begins to get a free run, I hang over the kettles, and set up the bush. My first boiling I push pretty smartly, till I get the virtue of the sap; but when it begins to grow of a molasses nater, like this in the kettle, one mustn’t drive the fires too hard, or you’ll burn the sugar; and burny sugar is bad to the taste, let it be never so sweet. So you ladle out from one kettle into the other till it gets so, when you put the stirring stick into it, that it will draw into a thread—when it takes a kerful hand to manage it. There is a way to drain it off, after it has grained, by putting clay into the pans; but it isn’t always practiced: some doos, and some doosn’t. Well, Mounsher, be we likely to make a trade?”
“I will give you, Mister Beel, for von pound, dix sous.”
“No, I expect cash for’t: I never dicker my sugar. But, seeing that it’s you, Mounsher,” said Billy, with a coaxing smile, “I’ll agree to receive a gallon of rum, and cloth enough for two shirts, if you will take the molasses in the bargain. It’s raal good. I wouldn’t deceive you or any man; and to my drinking it’s about the best molasses that come out of a sugarbush.”
“Mr. Le Quoi has offered you ten pence,” said young Edwards.
The manufacturer stared at the speaker with an air of great freedom, but made no reply.
“Oui,” said the Frenchman, “ten penny. Je vous remercie, Monsieur: ah! mon Anglois! je l’oublie toujours.”
The wood chopper looked from one to the other with some displeasure; and evidently imbibed the opinion that they were amusing themselves at his expense. He seized the enormous ladle, which was lying in one of his kettles, and began to stir the boiling liquid with great diligence. After a moment passed in dipping the ladle full, and then raising it on high, as the thick rich fluid fell back into the kettle, he suddenly gave it a whirl, as if to cool what yet remained, and offered the bowl to Mr. Le Quoi, saying:
“Taste that, Mounsher, and you will say it is worth more than you offer. The molasses itself would fetch the money.”
The complaisant Frenchman, after several timid efforts to trust his lips in contact with the bowl of the ladle, got a good swallow of the scalding liquid. He clapped his hand on his breast, and looked most piteously at the ladies, for a single instant; and then, to use the language of Billy, when he afterwards recounted the tale, “no drumsticks ever went faster on the skin of a sheep, than the Frenchman’s legs, for a round or two: and then such swearing and spitting in French you never saw. But it’s a knowing one, from the old countries, that thinks to get his jokes smoothly over a wood chopper.”
The Pioneers Page 26