And now for the wax, which to many is the most toothsome part of the whole. Many prefer the wax to the warm sugar. Then dip out some of the hot sugar, still bubbling in the kettle, and pour it quickly upon the nearest snow. In a moment it cools, as it melts a shallow furrow in the snow. Now comes a sticky wax, which will effectually seal together the upper and lower jaws of the participant if he chews lustily. But it’s so sweet, so pure and pleasant, and it’s all so jolly, that such experiences are always red-letter days in one’s life calendar. Pour more syrup on the snow and more wax is the result, and the knowing ones break off the wax in small fragments and allow it to gradually dissolve upon the tongue. And the joke goes around about the green hand and the greedy one, who has his jaws transfixed with the wax, and is unable to speak for a few moments until the wax has partially dissolved.
If the warm sugar was good, yea, incomparably good, this wax is glorious. And you eat, and chat, and eat again, and there’s no rancidness about this maple product to cause your throat to become raw, as it were, as all other sweets do. And so you eat on with impunity, each one’s own individual stomach’s capacity being alone the measure as the amount of nectar one should consume. And this is a sugaring-off. Reader, if you have not already tried it, don’t fail to make an effort to get to a sugaring-off, and my word for it you will never regret it.
We all deplore the loss of our previously magnificent maple orchards. But let us guardedly preserve those now remaining to us. Without speaking of the beauty they give to our country, they give us yearly at this season of the year a pleasure which money cannot in any other way purchase. Indeed, the wealth of our millionaires cannot purchase the pleasures of a sugaring-off otherwise than by going to the maple orchard itself.
CHAPTER X.
Winter in Ontario—Flax-working in the old time—Social gatherings—The churches are centres of attraction—Winter marriages—Common schools—Wintry aspect of Lake Ontario.
Our fathers spent their winter evenings and days of winter storms in working at the flax. It was the universal custom for each householder in our fathers’ time to raise a piece of flax, and, during the enforced housing of the winter, it was broken, scutched and spun around the big cavernous open fire. The distaff in those days was ever upon the floor in the common dwelling room, and as much an article of furniture as the family table. Quite a few of these old distaffs are yet bundled away in garrets, dust and cobweb laden. My own people did not fail to bring the distaff along with them when they came from Massachusetts in 1792, and this one was in constant use until machinery got to be common and the necessity for home manipulation to supply the family clothing no longer existed. To-day all that is changed, and during these midwinter days our people of this part of Ontario have no such occupation to fill in their leisure hours.
The days of wood-getting, logging and timber-making, too, are past; and at this day this people have to develop a new order of civilization to meet the new condition of affairs. Our people read far more than formerly, and very many of their hours of winter leisure are spent over the printed page. In nearly every house one enters, too, in this part of our province to-day, one finds quite a number of volumes of books, as well as the general stock of newspapers. So the taste and knowledge of our people is steadily on the gain; and we are, as a people, taking the benefit of the respite from enforced hours of weary labor at the flax from which machinery has relieved us. Very serious accidents used to occur, too, in those days of hand labor at the flax, even simple as the work may seem. Very frequently the flax would be hung in bunches around the living room of the family, in which the great fireplace was. This flax, having been broken and scutched with the swingle, and ready for spinning, was perforce quite as ready to light as tinder. There were numerous instances of most dreadful fires occurring by this suspended flax igniting from some sparks dropping on it from the open fire. In one instance, not far from where my own house now is, a woman stepped to the road, only five or six rods away, leaving two small children in the room, and before she could get back to them the whole room was ablaze, and they perished, with the total destruction of the house.
Social gatherings largely make up to-day for the hours spent formerly in work at home. Among themselves the people of Ontario are eminently a social and hospitable lot. Almost nightly our folks gather among their fellows and spend their evenings in harmless chat.
But the great pivot upon which our social system revolves in Ontario is the church. At the church our amusements mostly cluster, too; for our ministers are shrewd enough to keep some meetings to come off in the future, which the people look forward to and talk about among themselves. Maybe it’s a lecture, or a musical treat, or some dissolving views, or what not; and these, added to the usual sermons from the pulpit, keep the people continually centred, as it were, about the church. Again, our churches are invariably well lighted and seated, and the air is pure; and, on the whole, they are attractive and pleasant. Hence our young folks even, as well as older ones, choose to be about our churches instead of finding amusement elsewhere. I am not speaking of the devotional part of the matter; our people continue to attend the churches, for that follows as a matter of course. Again, our ministers are shrewd enough to know that they could not hold the people at the churches two or three nights per week as well as Sundays for the devotional part alone; for, without detracting one jot from the purely religious aspect of the matter, our ministers know quite well that the devotional part alone would not hold our people without diversions. Indeed, our ministers are to be most highly commended for so cleverly managing our people as to keep them so at the church’s dangling apron-strings, as it were, to use a homely simile. Many, many times better at the church’s dangling apron-strings than spending the evening at the bars, in throwing dice, or at any such questionable gatherings. And I take it, too, as self-evident, that our people’s faithful following of the church has a quality of the intellect as well as of the heart. A remark of Castellar’s, the great Spanish statesman and orator, illustrates the difference of standpoint that prevails in various countries as to religious observances. He said, “The Protestant religion would freeze me with its iciness.” Compared with the sensuous and fascinating cathedral worship of Europe, our ceremonials, whether Protestant or Catholic, are indeed plain and unadorned. But they attract as intelligent, self-respecting, law-abiding and decent a lot of people as can be found anywhere.
Most marriages are celebrated during our winter months. It is quite manifest that social gatherings and meetings, brought about by the enforced hours of idleness, are very conducive to match-making; and this, perhaps, accounts for the matrimonial activity of the winter season. Not infrequently the expectant bride and groom, having procured a license of marriage, call upon the minister at his house for him to tie the knot. Ludicrous stories are told of the bashfulness of many persons who come on such errands. Some of our clergy yet require the responsive service, and the groom, when asked the question so necessary, “Wilt thou have this woman to be thy lawful wedded wife?” sometimes replies, “I came on purpose.” Well, that’s a good answer, and shows his honesty of purpose, even if it be a little comic. The fellow’s not to be laughed at, however, even if he does make this response, or even if he does pull off his gloves, in order to save them, the moment the ceremony is over and they are pronounced man and wife.