CHAPTER XII
Sugaring
Spring was coming with swift and certain steps. A breath of life was sweeping through the forest, and there was a stir and a movement which quickened the pulses of the forest-dwellers. The snow lay deep on hill and valley, and the cold was more intense than ever, but the days were lengthening, and the sun had more heat in it when it shone at midday.
Pam was casting about for some way to earn money, or at least to save money, for in that isolated region saving often stood for earning, and to go without a thing, or without many things, was equal to a rise in income. It was the store bill which was bothering her now. The deposit at the store was nearly at an end, and in a few weeks she would have to choose between paying ready money and submitting to being charged the credit price for all goods, and that was so high that she hated the thought of it.
It was true she was a Londoner by birth and upbringing, but she was descended from generations of forest-dwellers, and the lore of the woods was somehow bred in the bone. Other people could make a living in the forest, and she would do it too, or perish in the attempt.
“Sophy, did you ever go sugaring?” she asked one evening when she had come in rather late to supper, and was pulling off her heavy boots, groaning a little because she was so stiff and sore from long hours of splitting and sawing firewood.
Sophy was frying flapjacks for supper, and she had to turn one very carefully before she answered.
“Yes,” she said, “I have been several times, but I always fail to see where the fun comes in.”
“Mother used to love sugaring,” Pam remarked in a thoughtful tone as she attacked her second boot.
“I dare say she did.” Sophy turned her flapjack out on to the dish, where it fell with a sputtering hiss. She put another chunk of lard in the pan, and set it on the stove to get hot. “There are sugaring parties most years, and people seem to think it is great fun; but we are not all made alike, and I never can see much pleasure in getting my clothes all messed up, catching bad colds, and working until every bone in my body aches, just for amusement.”
“My dear, to hear you talk anyone would think that you were qualifying for speedy development into a suburban old maid of the most conventional sort,” laughed Pam. “Instead of which, you are making your trousseau for marriage with a man in the most adventurous profession that can be found. Now, I would enjoy a sugaring party more than anything else; really for the fun of it, I mean. But there is solid gain too, is there not? It is the profit side of the question that appeals to me at the present. Do you think I could get up a party?”
“I don’t doubt it,” Sophy gurgled with amused laughter. “Don would give anything for a chance to come, and so, of course, would Nathan Gittins, though I expect they would quarrel a bit over the best mode of procedure. Don can never forget that he has been to college and has been trained in the most expert and scientific fashion, while Nathan is quite sure that weight of years and experience should take the first place. The two Hubbards would like to come too, also young Will Palmer from over the Ridge, and, oh—half a dozen more perhaps.”
“But they are all young men, or at least unmarried men; I could not go sugaring with them. Sophy, I think you are horrid!” cried Pam, but the laughter in her voice took the edge from her speech, and Sophy was laughing also.
Over supper they sketched out a plan of campaign. The maples on the Ripple land had not been tapped for several years, and should yield a fine lot of syrup. It was the boiling that would be the trouble; experience was necessary here, and although Pam would have preferred what she called a hen-party for her sugaring, it was plain the business could not be carried to a successful finish without masculine aid.
“I will go over to-morrow and ask Galena what she thinks about it,” said Pam with decision; and when supper was done she went round the house, and even hunted through the cellar, to see how many pans and buckets were available for use in holding syrup. There was a tremendous lot of rubbish of one sort and another stored in the cellar under the house at Ripple. Pam had never seemed to have the time to turn the place out and sort things up, but after she had been poking round that evening she made up her mind she would have to do it before the sugaring took place, so that she might get some clear idea as to her storage capacity.
Galena Gittins welcomed Pam’s great idea with acclamation.
“You are really wonderful for a city girl, and an English city girl too!” she exclaimed. “You think and plan as if you had been reared in the backwoods.”
“It is in my bones,” replied Pam. “Sometimes I feel as if all the other part of my life had been a dream, and only this is real. Although I was brought up in the city, I have never really belonged to it; consciously or unconsciously, it is the country I have been pining for, and my mother has always hated London so much that it is not wonderful we, her children, have hated it too. Then you think we can go sugaring?”
“Why, yes, of course; it is a fine idea!” Galena’s tone was hearty, for the work promised a frolic, which appealed to the frivolous part of her. It would also be a paying piece of work, and that appealed to the prudent side of her character, so no wonder she approved!
Together they arranged details—the time, the company to be invited, and the terms on which they should be asked to come. Sugaring was usually paid for in kind, Galena told Pam—that is, every member of the sugaring party had a percentage of the sugar that was obtained.
“The trees are all fairly near to your house, so we can go and come in a day. One of the men had better camp at the ground, but there will be no need for the women to do it, and that will save any amount of trouble.” Galena’s tone was brisk and business-like. She and her brother were two of the very few people who made farming in those parts downright profitable, as Pam knew, and that was why, in all matters pertaining to outdoors, she came to sit at the feet of Galena.
“Camping would be more fun,” said Pam, whose tone was actually wistful. She would have dearly loved to camp out by the trees which were to be forced to yield their sweetness. It would be an experience indeed to have a tent on the snow, to sit at the tent door to warm by a fire of logs, and then to dream through the solemn midnight hours, while the wind moaned through the leafless branches of the trees and the stir of the rising sap sent new life among the whispering twigs. But she had plenty of common sense, and it was easy to see how dangerous it would be for anyone who had been sleeping all the winter in a banked house, with a fire in the bedroom, to go camping in the forest before the snow was entirely gone. This was a case where sentiment had to be flung overboard, and common sense had to dictate the mode of daily life. So far, Pam had not ailed the whole winter through, she had not even had a bad cold. But spring was the testing time, and it would never do, from the point of view of economy, for her to be ill now that work was about to increase on her hands.
Nathan Gittins readily promised to lend a hand with the boiling, but he advised her to ask Don Grierson to take the management of the affair.
“The lad has got book-learning to help out experience, and it is when the two go together that the best results are obtained,” said Nathan in his deep voice. Then he went on to say: “If he is bossing the show I shan’t feel so tied and responsible. I’m willing enough to give labour, but I don’t want the burden of thinking and planning the whole business.”
After this there was nothing for it but that Pam should ask Don if he would take the lead in the sugaring, and in truth Don was very willing to accept the responsibility. He had been busy enough all the winter lumbering the black larch on his own land, for he had taken a farm near to The Corner which had dropped out of cultivation for nearly ten years, and it would require a tremendous lot of hard work and a considerable amount of money to make it a paying venture. But just for a few weeks, until the snows were melted, work was easy with him, and sugaring would be something of a holiday.
He came over one damp afternoon to go the round of the trees with Pam. The forest was full of the music of tinkling streams and falling water. Pam had rubbers over her boots, or she would have been foot-wet before she had gone ten steps, for it was like wading in a pond.
Taking the narrow trail, where now they had to walk high on the ridge of the drifted snow, they came out on to the old tote road; and following it for nearly half a mile, they descended a steep dip and plunged into a forest of maples.
“Are all these sugar maples?” demanded Pam. There was an inflection of awe in her voice, for it seemed to her that if all the trees she could see yielded maple sugar she would be in process of becoming a millionaire, or rather her grandfather would be, seeing that the property belonged to him and not to her.
“No, there is a lot of red maple here,” replied Don, whose gaze was searching the bare trunks with the eye of an expert.
“How can you tell them apart?” she asked, then sighed a little, because the more she knew of forest lore the more she found there was to learn.
“By formation largely,” he said, pointing out to her this and that difference in shape. “But if I were seriously at a loss there is one infallible test. Just drop a little sulphate of iron on to the wood, and if it is sugar maple it turns a greenish hue, but if it is red maple it goes a deep blue colour. But that would be quite an extreme test; it is easy enough to tell them apart as a rule.”
“They look dreadfully alike to me,” she said ruefully; then burst out, “Oh, how I wish Jack were here! How he would enjoy all the fun of the sugaring!”
“Can’t he get here in time?” Don was counting and measuring, and so he asked his question in an abstracted fashion. Of course it would be to Pam’s advantage to have her brother to help, for it would mean one share of sugar saved, seeing that every worker from outside would take from her profits.
“Mother said the end of the month, and I did not like to press her to send him sooner, because he is earning a really good salary for a boy of his age. Messrs. Gay & Grainger have been very good to him, and they do not like losing him. Then, of course, Mother has got to find the money for his fare. It has made me feel so bad that I could not help her with that, but I dared not take Grandfather’s money in case it might be wanted before I could make it up again.”
“Do you still think he will come back or be found by the police?” Don looked at her in amazement. He knew nothing of that night’s experience when Sophy and Pam had been lured from the house by that false cry for help, for Sophy had kept the secret most loyally.
Pam winced. She always did wince at any mention of the police in connection with her grandfather, for she was very proud, and the shame of it all scorched her very soul. It was quite bad enough to be poor, but happily there was no shame in that when the poverty could not be helped.
“Of course I think he will come back when he feels inclined,” she answered, and in spite of herself a note of offence, crept into her tone. “Then when he does come back the police will have to do their duty, and that is why the money must be kept for his defence.”
“It is hard on your mother, though.” Don was still keenly surveying the trees, and so his eyes were away from the face of his companion, where the red blood was mounting in a burning blush of shame, right to the roots of her hair. “Mrs. Walsh has had no help from you all the winter, and now she will have to lose your brother’s help, too.”
“It is not quite so bad as it might be.” Pam was smiling a little ruefully at the remembrance of what she was and comparing it with what she had been forced by circumstances to become. “I was out of a situation when I came here, and as Grandfather sent the money for my fare, I did not cost Mother anything, and she has not had to keep me all the winter. Then I was not much good at home; I always seemed to do the wrong things. I upset the boarders by laughing at them. I could not get as much work out of the servants as Jack could, and I was always breaking things, or tearing things, or doing things wrong.”
“Did you change your nature on the voyage?” asked Don, turning to look at her in amazement, for she had struck him as about the most capable and clever girl it had ever been his lot to meet, and he valued her accordingly.
Pam laughed merrily; she was not even embarrassed by the very evident admiration in her companion’s face. He was so plainly unconscious of it that it would be in the worst possible taste to notice or appear to resent it.
“I don’t think I changed my nature, only that my peculiar gifts have now found a more suitable setting,” she answered indifferently, then asked a question about the sugaring which diverted the talk from personalities and kept it in a strictly business groove.
Don was great on sugaring, and after some deliberation he declared that the boiling would be best done at the house. It would add to the labour a good deal to have to carry the syrup so far, but there was so much less risk of spoiling the colour by any over-boiling, the fire could be kept steadier, and the work could be done in a more satisfactory manner.
Then came busy days of trough-making. This was all done at Ripple—indeed, most of it was done by Pam after Don had made a few as patterns; for Dr. Grierson was spilled from his sledge just at that time, and was so much hurt that he could not go to his patients except when Don went with him, to lift him in and out of the sledge and help him to the bedsides of those who needed him badly. It was the sickness-time; the fierce cold was relaxing its grip on the land, and everyone was feeling the change. Nathan Gittins, who had said that he would come and help to make the troughs, was ill in bed with influenza, and Galena was tied hand and foot with the work of the house and the farm, to say nothing of the nursing. Indeed, Nathan was so ill for three days that Mrs. Buckle went over to the Gittins farm to help Galena, who was nearly worn out. Then he began to improve, and got better almost as fast as he had got ill.
Then the sugaring began. The trees selected were carefully numbered, an incision was made in the bark, and the little troughs made by Pam were fixed under the openings to catch the oozing syrup. When the troughs were full they were emptied into a cooking pot, which two of the sugar workers carried the round of the trees; then the pot was brought to the house, and the work of boiling and skimming began. But the accidents, the frights, and the surprises were so numerous that Pam began to wonder whether after all her sugaring venture would pay its expenses. The snow was melting fast, and the sun was so hot at midday that the bears, which had been sleeping for most of the winter snugly tucked into some cranny of the hillside, or in hollow trees, came out of their long slumber and cast about for food to satisfy them after their long fast. As a matter of course they found the troughs under the tapped trees, and equally as a matter of course they helped themselves to the syrup, knocked the troughs down, so that the escaping syrup was wasted, and generally upset things. After this a very close watch had to be kept, and although it was impossible to keep the bears from stealing the syrup, it was possible to prevent the waste by fixing the troughs anew, or by replacing them, when they were damaged, with fresh ones.
The boiling was an anxious business, too, but here Pam proved her mettle. It took her some days to discover just how big to make her fire, and just how fast it was safe to let the syrup boil without its boiling over; but when once she had succeeded in mastering these details, she was able to run the boiling business single-handed whilst the others of the party were away collecting syrup. Sophy’s time was fairly well filled in catering for such a big party, and the fun at meal-times was fast and furious. Luckily the weather was fine, and so the work went on with dispatch. The house was redolent of the smell of boiling syrup, and when Sophy complained that it made her feel sick, Pam pointed out to her how much worse it would be if the stuff were allowed to boil over on the stove and the odour of burning were added to the smell of the syrup.
At last the long hours of bending over the boiling syrup began to affect Pam; she had a fearful headache, then came nausea and sickness. Galena was forced to take the place of boiler, while Pam went out to the woods to help in the collecting. Don wanted her to come with him. It was necessary for them to work in pairs, and Pam looked so shockingly bad from her bilious fit that she was really an object of pity. But Pam had a perverse fit and would not go. She told Don that he must go with Nathan and work as fast as possible, while she strolled along behind with little Amanda Higgins, whom Mrs. Buckle had generously spared for a day’s outing in the forest. Don was reluctant to leave her; he said that Amanda could go with Nathan, and they two would go together, when he would see that she did not have to work hard, nor yet to walk farther than she felt fit for. But Pam was bent on having her own way, and, like most perverse people, she had to suffer in consequence.
Amanda was a feckless girl, whose idea of sugaring was to run here and there looking in sheltered places, and on the sunny sides of the banks, to see if the colt’s-foot was coming into blossom. She left Pam to do the work of emptying the troughs and refixing them, and she was a proud and happy girl when she announced with a shout of jubilation that she had found the first flower. Pam dropped her trough in a hurry then, and let the exuding sap drip to waste while she ran to look at the tiny yellow blossom, which was indeed the harbinger of the hosts of flowers that were waiting to carpet the waste places with beauty.
“It is too early for flower-hunting yet,” said Pam, mindful of her duty, as she picked up the trough which she had flung down in such a hurry and went off to fix it to the tree. “Come and help me, Amanda, and then next week, when this sugar business is all out of the way, I will ask Mrs. Buckle to spare you, and we will have a long afternoon in the forest hunting for flowers. They will all be new to me, but I expect you know all about them, and which come first?”
“I should just think I do!” cried Amanda, who was skipping and prancing like a young lamb, and was almost as irresponsible. She started to run down a little bank that was clear of snow, and to jump the hollow at the bottom, where the drift still lay in unsullied whiteness on the top of last year’s leaves; but she caught her foot in an upstanding root, tried to save herself, failed, then went sprawling into the drift, clutching wildly for something by which to save herself, and screaming at the top of her voice.
Pam put the pot of syrup carefully on the ground and went to the help of Amanda. Privately she was sharply regretting the fit of perversity which had made her refuse to go with Don, for if Amanda had been with Nathan Gittins, he would have taken good care that she did not get up to pranks of this sort, which not merely wasted time, but endangered her limbs likewise. There was so much sickness about at this time that it was of all things foolish to run risks which might be avoided.
“Catch hold of my hand and I will pull you out!” cried Pam, and holding to the stem of a slender young birch with one hand, she reached out the other to assist Amanda from the hollow, which was a deep one.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Amanda’s voice rose in a crescendo of shrieks as she squirmed round and round in an agitated endeavour to get on her feet, and she was in such a hurry that it took about twice as long to scramble up as it would have done if she had gone to work in a cooler fashion. “Ah! Oh! Ah! There is a dead man here down under me, and I am frightened out of my life!”
“Catch hold of me, I will pull you out; but do not trample about in that fashion, it is horrible!” Pam’s voice was sharp with authority now. It was dreadful that Amanda should be trampling on what had once been a human being, and the child seemed too demoralized by her fear to do the sensible thing, and get out of the hole as quickly as possible. She was shrieking and crying, but Pam did not once check the noise, for it seemed to her it was the best way of letting the others know that something serious was the matter.
There was an answering shout from the distance, but the two men did not arrive before Pam had managed to grip Amanda and land her on the bank. She was shivering and crying at such a rate that she was wholly incoherent, and it was Pam who had to tell the two men the cause of the trouble. But she kept her back turned upon the hollow, so desperately afraid was she of seeing something of what had scared Amanda so badly.
Nathan slid carefully into the hollow, and began scraping away the melting snow with his hands. Then Don crept down also, and Pam hushed Amanda with a gesture of authority, while she still kept her back turned upon the scene.
“We found that, and that,” said the voice of Don at her elbow; “but there is little else save a few bones. It looks as if the poor fellow, whoever he was, had been set upon and eaten by wolves.”
Pam glanced at the objects he was holding out to her, and then gave a startled cry, for the first, a little wallet with leather cover and metal corners, was one of the things taken from her grandfather’s desk that night when she and Sophy had been lured from the house; and the other thing was a stout little canvas bag containing coin.