Vermont: A Study of Independence

by Rowland Evans Robinson

When the corn was ripe came the husking-bee, in which old and young of both sexes took part, their jolly labor lighted in the open field by the hunter's moon or a great bonfire, around which the shocks were ranged like a circle of wigwams; or, if in the barn, by the rays sprinkled from lanterns of punched tin. When the work was done, the company feasted on pumpkin pie, doughnuts, and cider. Then the barn floor was cleared of the litter of husks, the fiddler mounted the scaffold, and made the gloom of the roof-peak ring with merry strains, to which twoscore solidly clad feet threshed out time in "country dance" and "French four."

The quilting party, in its first laborious stage, was participated in only by the womenkind; but, when that was passed, the menfolk were called in to assist in the ceremony of "shaking the quilt," and in the performance of this the fiddler was as necessary as in the closing rites of the husking-bee.

When the first touch of spring stirred the sap of the maples, sugar-making began, a labor spiced with a woodsy flavor of camp life and small adventure. The tapping was done with a gouge; the sap dripped from spouts of sumach stems into rough-hewn troughs, from which it was gathered in buckets borne on a neck-yoke, the bearer making the rounds on snowshoes, and depositing the gathered sap in a big "store trough" set close to the boiling-place. This was an open fire, generously fed with four-foot wood, and facing an open-fronted shanty that sheltered the sugar-maker from rain and "sugar snow," while he plied his daily and nightly labor, now with the returning crow and the snickering squirrel for companions, now the unseen owl and fox, making known their presence with storm-boding hoot and husky bark. The sap-boiling was done in the great potash kettle that in other seasons seethed with pungent lye, but now, swung on a huge log crane, sweetened the odors of the woods with sugar-scented vapor. Many families saw no sweetening, from one end of the year to the other, but maple sugar and syrup, the honey from their few hives, or the uncertain spoil of the bee-hunter. All the young folks of a neighborhood were invited to the "sugaring off," and camp after camp in turn, during the season of melting snow and the return of bluebird and robin, rung with the chatter and laughter of a merry party that was as boisterous over the sugar feast as the blackbirds that swung on the maple-tops above them rejoicing over the return of spring.

In the long evenings of late autumn and early winter, there were apple or paring bees, to which young folk and frolicsome elder folk came and lent a hand in paring, coring, and stringing to dry, for next summer's use, the sour fruit of the ungrafted orchards, and, when the work was done, to lend more nimble feet to romping games and dances, that were kept up till the tallow dips paled with the stars in the dawn, and daylight surprised the coatless beaux and buxom belles, all clad in honest homespun.

Very naturally, weddings often came of these merry-makings, and were celebrated with as little ostentation and as much hearty good fellowship. The welcome guests brought no costly and useless presents for display; there were no gifts but the bride's outfit of home-made beds, homespun and hand-woven sheets, table-cloths, and towels given by parents and nearest relations. The young couple did not parade the awkwardness of their newly assumed relations in a wedding journey, but began the honeymoon in their new home, and spent it much as their lives were to be spent, taking up at once the burden that was not likely to grow lighter with the happiness that might increase. But if the burden became heavy, and the light of love faded, there was seldom separation or divorce. If there were more sons and daughters than could be employed at home, they hired out in families not so favored without loss of caste or sense of degradation in such honest service. They often married into the family of the employer, and their position was little changed by the new relation.

For many years the wheat crop in Vermont continued certain and abundant, and formed a part of almost every farmer's income, as well as the principal part of his breadstuff, for the pioneer's Johnny-cake had fallen into disrepute among his thrifty descendants, who held it more honorable to eat poor wheat-bread than good Johnny-cake, and despised the poor wretch who ate buckwheat. It is quite possible that the first demarcation between the aristocrats and the plebeians of Vermont was drawn along this food line.

Wool-growing was fostered in the infancy of the State by public acts, and almost every farmer was more or less a shepherd. A marked improvement in the fineness and weight of the fleeces began with the introduction of the Spanish merinos in 1809.[98] By the judicious breeding by a few intelligent Vermont farmers, the Spanish sheep were brought to a degree of perfection which they had never attained in their European home, and Vermont merinos gained a world-wide reputation that still endures; while the wool product of the State, once so famous for it that Sheffield cutlers stamped their best shears "The True Vermonter," has become almost insignificant, compared with that of states and countries whose flocks yearly renew their impoverished blood with fresh draughts from Vermont stock. Shearing-time was the great festival of the year. The shearers, many of whom were often the flock-owner's well-to-do neighbors, were treated more as guests than as laborers, and the best the house afforded was set before them. The great barn's empty bays and scaffolds resounded with the busy click of incessant shears, the jokes, songs, and laughter of the merry shearers, the bleating of the ewes and lambs, and the twitter of disturbed swallows, while the sunlight, shot through crack and knot-hole, swung slowly around the dusty interior in sheets and bars of gold that dialed the hours from morning till evening.

A distinctive breed of horses originated in Vermont, and the State became almost as famous for its Morgan horses as for its sheep. But, though Vermont horses are still of good repute, this noted strain, the result of a chance admixture of the blood of the English thoroughbred and the tough little Canadian horse, has been improved into extinction of its most valued traits.

The laborious life of the farmer had an occasional break in days of fishing in lulls of the spring's work, and between that and haymaking; of hunting when the crops were housed, and the splendor of the autumnal woods was fading to sombre monotony of gray, or when woods and fields were white with the snows of early winter.

The clear mountain ponds and streams were populous with trout, the lakes and rivers with pike, pickerel, and the varieties of perch and bass; and in May and June the salmon, fresh run from the sea and lusty with its bounteous fare, swarmed up the Connecticut and the tributaries of Lake Champlain.