Story 3—Chapter 9.
The winter was drawing to an end. It had not appeared very long, after all—everybody had been so busy. Michael and his sons were now at work cutting-out troughs for sugar making. In Canada the maple yields a sap which, when boiled, turns into sugar. A number of maple-trees together is called a sugar-bush. The troughs are made of pine, black ash, or butter-nut, and each holds three to four gallons of sap.
The snow was still on the ground, when early in March, Michael and his sons, and Susan and Fanny and Tommy set off with their sugar kettles, pails, ladles, big store troughs, small troughs, and moulds, to the sugar-bush two miles from the house. They first built huts for the kettles and for themselves; fixed the store trough and cut a supply of fuel for the fires. They next tapped the maple-trees on the south side, with an auger of an inch and a half. Into this hole a hollow spile was driven. Under each spile a trough was placed. As soon as the sun grew warm the sap began to flow and drop into the troughs. The girls and boys had soon work enough to empty the troughs into a large cask on the sleigh. This, when full, was carried to the boiling-sheds and emptied into the store trough. From this the kettles are filled and kept boiling night and day, till the sap becomes a thin molasses. It is then poured into pails or casks, and made clear with eggs or milk stirred well into it. The molasses are now poured again into the boilers over a slow fire, when the dirt rises to the top, and is skimmed off. To know when it has boiled enough, a small quantity is dropped on the snow. If it hardens when cool it has been boiled enough. It is then poured into the moulds, when it quickly hardens and is ready for use. Very good vinegar can be made by boiling three pails of sap into one, and then adding some yeast, still better is made from the sap of the birch; beer is made both from maple and birch sap, and a flavour given by adding essence of spruce or ginger. Boiling the sap and molasses requires constant attention, as there is a danger of their boiling over.
While Michael and Rob attended to the boiling, David and Tommy drove the sleigh, and the rest took care of the troughs. They had a large number of troughs, and some were a long way from the boiling-sheds.
Michael and his son had filled the kettles, which they did not expect would boil for some little time, when Tommy came running up to say that the sleigh had stuck fast between two stumps, and that he and David could not clear it, while one of the oxen had fallen down and hurt itself against a log. On bearing this, Michael and Rob, thinking that there would be plenty of time to help David, and to get back before the sugar boiled, ran to assist him. They found the sleigh firmly fixed, and it took them longer to clear it than they had expected it would. They had just got it clear, when a loud bellow reached their ears from the direction of the boiling-sheds. Leaving David and Tommy to manage the oxen, Michael and Rob ran back to their charge. They arrived in time to see one of their cows, with her muzzle well covered with molasses, galloping off through the bush, followed by her companions, while the kettle lay upset, the contents streaming out on the fire, and burning away, and threatening to set all the sheds in a blaze. The cows had found their way into the bush, and being fond of sugar, one of them had put her muzzle into the boiling liquid, little expecting to have so warm a greeting.
“I hope it will teach her not to steal sugar for the future,” observed Michael, as he and his son righted the kettle. They had to pull down some of the shed before they could put the fire out; but such trifling events were too common in the bush to disturb their tempers, and they were thankful that matters were no worse.
Just before this, a neighbour’s cow had got into his sugar-bush and drank so much cold molasses that she burst and died. Michael determined another year to enclose his sugar-bush to prevent any such accidents.
In two weeks enough sugar was made to last the family all the year, to make all sorts of preserves, besides a good supply of beer and vinegar. With the vinegar they could pickle onions, and all sorts of vegetables, for winter use. Vegetables are also preserved during the winter in cellars, dug generally under the fire-place, in a log hut. A trap-door leads to the cellar. Here potatoes, carrots, turnips, and other roots are stored, and kept free from frost.
The snow at length melted, and spring came on as it were in a day. From sunrise to sunset every man and boy was now hard at work, chopping, burning, and clearing the ground to put in the spring crops. Not an hour was to be lost, for the sun shone bright and warm, the grass sprang up, the leaves came out, and flowers burst forth, and it seemed as if the summer had begun as soon as the winter had ended. The summer was hot, and soon ripened the crops, and the harvest was good and plentiful.