More Jonathan Papers | Page 6

in the light of the violet hat-box?"
"I think that might do." Then he had an alarming afterthought. "But, see here--you won't expect me to do things like that often?"
"Dear me, no! People can't live always on their highest levels. Perhaps you'll never do it again." Jonathan looked distinctly relieved. "I'll accept it as a unique effort--like Dante's angel and Raphael's sonnet."
"Jonathan," I said that evening, "what do you know about St. Anthony of Padua?"
"Not much."
"Well, you ought to. He helped you to-day. He's the saint who helps people to find lost articles. Every man ought to take him as a patron saint."
"And do you know which saint it is who helps people to find lost virtues--like humility, for instance?"
"No. I don't, really."
"I didn't suppose you did," said Jonathan.

II
Sap-Time
It was a little tree-toad that began it. In a careless moment he had come down to the bench that connects the big maple tree with the old locust stump, and when I went out at dusk to wait for Jonathan, there he sat, in plain sight. A few experimental pokes sent him back to the tree, and I studied him there, marveling at the way he assimilated with its bark. As Jonathan came across the grass I called softly, and pointed to the tree.
"Well?" he said.
"Don't you see?"
"No. What?"
"Look--I thought you had eyes!"
"Oh, what a little beauty!"
"And isn't his back just like bark and lichens! And what are those things in the tree beside him?"
"Plugs, I suppose."
"Plugs?"
"Yes. After tapping. Uncle Ben used to tap these trees, I believe."
"You mean for sap? Maple syrup?"
"Yes."
"Jonathan! I didn't know these were sugar maples."
"Oh, yes. These on the road."
"The whole row? Why, there are ten or fifteen of them! And you never told me!"
"I thought you knew."
"Knew! I don't know anything--I should think you'd know that, by this time. Do you suppose, if I had known, I should have let all these years go by--oh, dear--think of all the fun we've missed! And syrup!"
"You'd have to come up in February."
"Well, then, I'll come in February. Who's afraid of February?"
"All right. Try it next year."
I did. But not in February. Things happened, as things do, and it was early April before I got to the farm. But it had been a wintry March, and the farmers told me that the sap had not been running except for a few days in a February thaw. Anyway, it was worth trying.
Jonathan could not come with me. He was to join me later. But Hiram found a bundle of elder spouts in the attic, and with these and an auger we went out along the snowy, muddy road. The hole was bored--a pair of them--in the first tree, and the spouts driven in. I knelt, watching--in fact, peering up the spout-hole to see what might happen. Suddenly a drop, dim with sawdust, appeared--gathered, hesitated, then ran down gayly and leapt off the end.
"Look! Hiram! It's running!" I called.
Hiram, boring the next tree, made no response. He evidently expected it to run. Jonathan would have acted just like that, too, I felt sure. Is it a masculine quality, I wonder, to be unmoved when the theoretically expected becomes actual? Or is it that some temperaments have naturally a certain large confidence in the sway of law, and refuse to wonder at its individual workings? To me the individual workings give an ever fresh thrill because they bring a new realization of the mighty powers behind them. It seems to depend on which end you begin at.
But though the little drops thrilled me, I was not beyond setting a pail underneath to catch them. And as Hiram went on boring, I followed with my pails. Pails, did I say? Pails by courtesy. There were, indeed, a few real pails--berry-pails, lard-pails, and water-pails--but for the most part the sap fell into pitchers, or tin saucepans, stew-kettles of aluminum or agate ware, blue and gray and white and mottled, or big yellow earthenware bowls. It was a strange collection of receptacles that lined the roadside when we had finished our progress. As I looked along the row, I laughed, and even Hiram smiled.
But what next? Every utensil in the house was out there, sitting in the road. There was nothing left but the wash-boiler. Now, I had heard tales of amateur syrup-boilings, and I felt that the wash-boiler would not do. Besides, I meant to work outdoors--no kitchen stove for me! I must have a pan, a big, flat pan. I flew to the telephone, and called up the village plumber, three miles away. Could he build me a pan? Oh, say, two feet by three feet, and five inches high--yes, right away. Yes, Hiram would call for it in the afternoon.
I felt better. And now for a fireplace! Oh, Jonathan! Why did you