CHAPTER XII.
ON that same evening mentioned in our last chapter there was a social gathering at Farmer Porter’s, in Sprucemont. It was a festival known among the Green Mountain farmers as a “sugar-eat,� but it was held very much out of season. Maple sugar is usually made during the months of February or March. The sap drawn from the rock-maple, or sugar-maple trees is boiled until it reaches a consistency which is called wax. Tin pans are pressed full of snow, and the maple wax, dipped boiling from the kettles, is poured upon the snow. The wax hardens upon the snow, and is then esteemed the greatest delicacy of country epicures.
For many years Farmer Porter had treated his neighbors to an annual sugar-eat; not in winter or spring, but in midsummer, the snow being obtained from the cave on Twin Mountain, known as the “Bear’s Den.� On this occasion, besides his country neighbors, there were present some friends from Papyrus, Ford Hulbert and Lena Boardman, and John Wycliff’s wife and child. Uncle Jerry Barnaby was a neighbor, and was present with his wife and daughter.
The farmers, and their wives, daughters, mothers and sweethearts for miles around, thronged the hospitable home of Daniel Porter. In the old-fashioned fireplace in the kitchen, on a stout iron crane, hung the ancient copper kettle filled with maple syrup. A crackling wood fire kept the syrup leaping and dancing, until it was boiled down thick enough to “stand,� or harden, upon the snow. A number of experts decided this point, and when, according to their verdict, it was just brittle enough, the boys brought in the pans of snow which they had secured from the cave.
The guests were seated at long tables, each group of two or three having a pan of snow, on which the maple wax had been poured in fanciful figures, which were gathered off the snow and eaten with forks. There was a moment’s hush, as the preacher arose and invoked the Lord’s blessing upon the occasion. Then began a season of social intercourse and merry-making.
An outburst of laughter from all occasionally testified to a fresh triumph of Uncle Jerry’s wit and called attention anew to the pale young woman beside him. There was circulated among a few near friends a photograph of a young man, a Westerner apparently, and it was whispered about that he was a prosperous ranchman and lumberman, and that he would soon return to revisit the home of his youth. The picture, and the neighborly remarks called forth by it, brought a momentary color to the pale face by Uncle Jerry’s side.
Old neighbors and friends were no less interested in Miss Boardman, whose girlhood had been spent among them, and who was here to-night, accompanied by Ford Hulbert, the Papyrus real estate agent. If Lena Boardman were at all observant, she must have noticed the respect shown her companion by all present, and the slightest inquiry would have revealed the fact that he was universally respected in the little farming community.
It was a weird occasion, for the snows of winter and the sweets of spring contrasted strangely with the warmth of the midsummer evening, and it was soon over. The last sentiment expressed at the tables, as the party broke up, was this of Uncle Jerry: “Our Berkshire women,—God bless ’em,—the sweetest things of God’s creation.�
Lena Boardman and Ford Hulbert had come on horseback, a favorite method of travel with them, and as soon as the party began to break up they returned to Papyrus in the same way they had come. Down the long slopes the riders cantered, sometimes through deep woods, sometimes in the open. It was quite dark, but where the riders could not be sure of their way the horses could be trusted to find it.
An owl shouted his greeting from the tall spire of a spruce tree. The hurried whistle of a whippoorwill rang out from a thicket of wild cherry bushes. Up from the deep aisles of a hemlock woods came the snarl of a wildcat.