The Pioneers (34 page)

“Sucre! Dey do make sucre in Martinique: mais—mais ce n'est pas one tree—ah—ah—vat you call—Je voudrois que ces chemins fussent au diable—vat you call—steeck pour le promenade.”

“Cane,” said Elizabeth, smiling at the imprecation which the wary Frenchman supposed was understood only by himself.

“Oui, mam'selle, cane.”

“Yes, yes,” cried Richard, “cane is the vulgar name for it, but the real term is
Saccharum officinarum
; and what we call the sugar, or hard maple, is
Acer saccharum.
These are the learned names, Monsieur, and are such as, doubtless, you well understand.”

“Is this Greek or Latin, Mr. Edwards?” whispered Elizabeth to the youth who was opening a passage for herself and her companions through the bushes—“or perhaps it is a still more learned language, for an interpretation of which we must look to you.”

The dark eye of the young man glanced towards the speaker, but its resentful expression changed in a moment.

“I shall remember your doubts, Miss Temple, when next I visit my old friend Mohegan, and either his skill, or that of Leatherstocking, shall solve them.”

“And are you, then, really ignorant of their language?”

“Not absolutely; but the deep learning of Mr. Jones is more familiar to me, or even the polite masquerade of Monsieur Le Quoi.”

“Do you speak French?” said the lady, with quickness.

“It is a common language with the Iroquois, and through the Canadas,” he answered, smiling.

“Ah! But they are Mingoes, and your enemies.”

“It will be well for me if I have no worse,” said the youth, dashing ahead with his horse, and putting an end to the evasive dialogue.

The discourse, however, was maintained with great vigor by Richard, until they reached an open wood on the summit of the mountain, where the hemlocks and pines totally disappeared, and a grove of the very trees that formed the subject of debate covered the earth with their tall, straight trunks and spreading branches, in stately pride. The underwood had been entirely removed from this grove, or bush, as in conjunction with the simple arrangements for boiling, it was called, and a wide space of many acres was cleared, which might be likened to the dome of a mighty temple, to which the maples formed the columns, their tops composing the capitals, and the heavens the arch. A deep and careless incision had been made into each tree, near its root, into which little sprouts, formed of the bark of the alder, or of the sumac, were fastened; and a trough, roughly dug out of the linden, or basswood, was lying at the root of each tree, to catch the sap that flowed from this extremely wasteful and inartificial arrangement.

The party paused a moment, on gaining the flat, to breathe their horses, and, as the scene was entirely new to several of their number, to view the manner of collecting the fluid. A fine powerful voice aroused them from their momentary silence, as it rang under the branches of the trees, singing the following words of that inimitable doggerel, whose verses, if extended, would reach from the waters of the Connecticut to the shores of Ontario. The tune was, of course, that familiar air, which, although it is said to have been first applied to his nation in derision, circumstances have since rendered so glorious, that no American ever hears its jingling cadence without feeling a thrill at his heart.

During the execution of this sonorous doggerel, Richard kept time with his whip on the mane of his charger, accompanying the gestures with a corresponding movement of his head and body. Towards the close of the song, he was overheard humming the chorus, and at its last repetition, to strike in at “sweety sap,” and carry a second through, with a prodigious addition to the “effect” of the noise, if not to that of the harmony.

“Well done us!” roared the Sheriff, on the same key with the tune; “a very good song, Billy Kirby, and very well sung. Where got you the words, lad? Is there more of it, and can you furnish me with a copy?”

The sugar boiler, who was busy in his “camp,” at a short distance from the equestrians, turned his head with great indifference and surveyed the party, as they approached, with admirable coolness. To each individual, as he or she rode close by him, he gave a nod that was extremely good-natured and affable, but which partook largely of the virtue of equality, for not even to the ladies did he in the least vary his mode of salutation, by touching the apology for a hat that he wore, or by any other motion than the one we have mentioned.

“How goes it, how goes it, Sheriff?” said the wood chopper. “What's the good word in the village?”

“Why, much as usual, Billy,” returned Richard. “But how is this? Where are your four kettles, and your troughs, and your iron coolers? Do you make sugar in this slovenly way? I thought you were one of the best sugar boilers in the county.”

“I'm all that, Squire Jones,” said Kirby, who continued his occupation; “I'll turn my back to no man in the Otsego hills, for chopping and logging, for boiling down the maple sap, for tending brickkiln, splitting out rails, making potash, and parling too, or hoeing corn; though I keep myself pretty much to the first business, seeing that the ax comes most natural to me.”

“You be von Jack All-trade, Mister Beel,” said Monsieur Le Quoi.

“How?” said Kirby, looking up, with a simplicity which, coupled with his gigantic frame and manly face, was a little ridiculous. “If you be for trade, Mounshere, here is some as good sugar as you'll find the season through. It's as clear from dirt as the Jarman Flats is free from stumps, and it has the raal maple flavor. Such stuff would sell in York for candy.”

The Frenchman approached the place where Kirby had deposited his cakes of sugar, under the cover of a bark roof, and commenced the examination of the article, with the eye of one who well understood its value. Marmaduke had dismounted, and was viewing the works and the trees very closely, and not without frequent expressions of dissatisfaction at the careless manner in which the manufacture was conducted.

“You have much experience in these things, Kirby,” he said; “what course do you pursue in making your sugar? I see you have but two kettles.”

“Two is as good as two thousand, Judge. I'm none of your polite sugar makers, that boils for the great folks; but if the raal sweet maple is wanted, I can answer your turn. First, I choose, and then I tap my trees; say along about the last of February, or in these mountains may be not afore the middle of March; but anyway, just as the sap begins to cleverly run——”

“Well, in this choice,” interrupted Marmaduke, “are you governed by any outward signs that prove the quality of the tree?”

“Why, there's judgment in all things,” said Kirby, stirring the liquor in his kettles briskly. “There's something in knowing when and how much to stir the pot. It's a thing that must be larnt. Rome wasn't built in a day, nor for that matter Templetown either, though it may be said to be a quick-growing place. I never put my ax into a stunty tree, or one that hasn't a good, fresh-looking bark; for trees have disorders, like creaters; and where's the policy of taking a tree that's sickly, any more than you'd choose a foundered horse to ride post, or an overheated ox to do your logging.”

“All this is true. But what are the signs of illness? How do you distinguish a tree that is well from one that is diseased?”

“How does the doctor tell who has fever, and who colds?” interrupted Richard. “By examining the skin, and feeling the pulse, to be sure.”

“Sartain,” continued Billy; “the Squire an't far out of the way. It's by the look of the thing, sure enough. Well, when the sap begins to get a free run, I hang over the kettles, and set up the bush. My first boiling I push pretty smartly, till I get the virtue of the sap; but when it begins to grow of a molasses nater, like this in the kettle, one mustn't drive the fires too hard, or you'll burn the sugar; and burny sugar is bad to the taste, let it be never so sweet. So you ladle out from one kettle into the other till it gets so, when you put the stirring stick into it, that it will draw into a thread—when it takes a kerful hand to manage it. There is a way to drain it off, after it has grained, by putting clay into the pans; but it isn't always practiced: some doos, and some doosn't. Well, Mounsher, be we likely to make a trade?”

“I will give you, Mister Beel, for von pound, dix sous.”

“No, I expect cash for't: I never dicker my sugar. But, seeing that it's you, Mounsher,” said Billy, with a coaxing smile, “I'll agree to receive a gallon of rum, and cloth enough for two shirts, if you will take the molasses in the bargain. It's raal good. I wouldn't deceive you or any man; and to my drinking it's about the best molasses that come out of a sugarbush.”

“Mr. Le Quoi has offered you ten pence,” said young Edwards.

The manufacturer stared at the speaker with an air of great freedom, but made no reply.

“Oui,” said the Frenchman, “ten penny. Je vous remercie, Monsieur: ah! mon Anglois! je l'oublie toujours.”

The wood chopper looked from one to the other with some displeasure; and evidently imbibed the opinion that they were amusing themselves at his expense. He seized the enormous ladle, which was lying in one of his kettles, and began to stir the boiling liquid with great diligence. After a moment passed in dipping the ladle full, and then raising it on high, as the thick rich fluid fell back into the kettle, he suddenly gave it a whirl, as if to cool what yet remained, and offered the bowl to Mr. Le Quoi, saying:

“Taste that, Mounsher, and you will say it is worth more than you offer. The molasses itself would fetch the money.”

The complaisant Frenchman, after several timid efforts to trust his lips in contact with the bowl of the ladle, got a good swallow of the scalding liquid. He clapped his hand on his breast, and looked most piteously at the ladies, for a single instant; and then, to use the language of Billy, when he afterwards recounted the tale, “no drumsticks ever went faster on the skin of a sheep, than the Frenchman's legs, for a round or two: and then such swearing and spitting in French you never saw. But it's a knowing one, from the old countries, that thinks to get his jokes smoothly over a wood chopper.”

The air of innocence with which Kirby resumed the occupation of stirring the contents of his kettle would have completely deceived the spectators as to his agency in the temporary suffering of Mr. Le Quoi, had not the reckless fellow thrust his tongue into his cheek, and cast his eyes over the party, with a simplicity of expression that was too exquisite to be natural. Mr. Le Quoi soon recovered his presence of mind, and his decorum; he briefly apologized to the ladies for one or two very intemperate expressions that had escaped him in a moment of extraordinary excitement, and remounting his horse, he continued in the background during the remainder of the visit, the wit of Kirby putting a violent termination, at once, to all negotiations on the subject of trade. During all this time, Marmaduke had been wandering about the grove, making observations on his favorite trees, and the wasteful manner in which the wood chopper conducted his manufacture.

“It grieves me to witness the extravagance that pervades this country,” said the Judge, “where the settlers trifle with the blessings they might enjoy, with the prodigality of successful adventurers. You are not exempt from the censure yourself, Kirby, for you make dreadful wounds in these trees where a small incision would effect the same object. I earnestly beg you will remember, that they are the growth of centuries, and when once gone, none living will see their loss remedied.”

“Why, I don't know, Judge,” returned the man he addressed: “it seems to me, if there's a plenty of anything in this mountaynious country, it's the trees. If there's any sin in chopping them, I've a pretty heavy account to settle; for I've chopped over the best half of a thousand acres, with my own hands, counting both Varmount and York states; and I hope to live to finish the whull, before I lay up my ax. Chopping comes quite natural to me, and I wish no other employment; but Jared Ransom said that he thought the sugar was likely to be scurce this season, seeing that so many folks was coming into the settlement, and so I concluded to take the ‘bush' on sheares, for this one spring. What's the best news, Judge, consarning ashes? Do pots hold so that a man can live by them still? I s'pose they will, if they keep on fighting across the water.”

“Thou reasonest with judgment, William,” returned Marmaduke. “So long as the old world is to be convulsed with wars, so long will the harvest of America continue.”

“Well, it's an ill wind, Judge, that blows nobody any good. I'm sure the country is in a thriving way; and, though I know you calkilate greatly on the trees, setting as much store by them as some men would by their children, yet to my eyes they are a sore sight at any time, unless I'm privileged to work my will on them; in which case I can't say but they are more to my liking. I have heard the settlers from the old countries say that their rich men keep great oaks and elms, that would make a barrel of pots to the tree, standing round their doors and humsteads, and scattered over their farms, just to look at. Now, I call no country much improved, that is pretty well covered with trees. Stumps are a different thing, for they don't shade the land; and besides, if you dig them, they make a fence that will turn anything bigger than a hog, being grand for breachy cattle.”