More Jonathan Papers | Page 7

have to be away! For Jonathan loves a stone and knows how to put stones together, as witness the stone "Eyrie" and the stile in the lane. However, there Jonathan wasn't. So I went out into the swampy orchard behind the house and looked about--no lack of stones, at any rate. I began to collect material, and Hiram, seeing my purpose, helped with the big stones. Somehow my fireplace got made--two side walls, one end wall, the other end left open for stoking. It was not as pretty as if Jonathan had done it, but "'t was enough, 't would serve." I collected fire-wood, and there I was, ready for my pan, and the afternoon was yet young, and the sap was drip-drip-dripping from all the spouts. I could begin to boil next day. I felt that I was being borne along on the providential wave that so often floats the inexperienced to success.
That night I emptied all my vessels into the boiler and set them out once more. A neighbor drove by and pulled up to comment benevolently on my work.
"Will it run to-night?" I asked him.
"No--no--'t won't run to-night. Too cold. 'T won't run any to-night. You can sleep all right."
This was pleasant to hear. There was a moon, to be sure, but it was growing colder, and at the idea of crawling along that road in the middle of the night even my enthusiasm shivered a little.
So I made my rounds at nine, in the white moonlight, and went to sleep.
I was awakened the next morning to a consciousness of flooding sunshine and Hiram's voice outside my window.
"Got anything I can empty sap into? I've got everything all filled up."
"Sap! Why, it isn't running yet, is it?"
"Pails were flowin' over when I came out."
"Flowing over! They said the sap wouldn't run last night."
"I guest there don't nobody know when sap'll run and when it won't," said Hiram peacefully, as he tramped off to the barn.
In a few minutes I was outdoors. Sure enough, Hiram had everything full--old boilers, feed-pails, water-pails. But we found some three-gallon milk-cans and used them. A farm is like a city. There are always things enough in it for all purposes. It is only a question of using its resources.
Then, in the clear April sunshine, I went out and surveyed the row of maples. How they did drip! Some of them almost ran. I felt as if I had turned on the faucets of the universe and didn't know how to turn them off again.
However, there was my new pan. I set it over my oven walls and began to pour in sap. Hiram helped me. He seemed to think he needed his feed-pails. We poured in sap and we poured in sap. Never did I see anything hold so much as that pan. Even Hiram was stirred out of his usual calm to remark, "It beats all, how much that holds." Of course Jonathan would have had its capacity all calculated the day before, but my methods are empirical, and so I was surprised as well as pleased when all my receptacles emptied themselves into its shallow breadths and still there was a good inch to allow for boiling up. Yes, Providence--my exclusive little fool's Providence--was with me. The pan, and the oven, were a success, and when Jonathan came that night I led him out with unconcealed pride and showed him the pan--now a heaving, frothing mass of sap-about-to-be-syrup, sending clouds of white steam down the wind. As he looked at the oven walls, I fancied his fingers ached to get at them, but he offered no criticism, seeing that they worked.
The next day began overcast, but Providence was merely preparing for me a special little gift in the form of a miniature snowstorm. It was quite real while it lasted. It whitened the grass and the road, it piled itself softly among the clusters of swelling buds on the apple trees, and made the orchard look as though it had burst into bloom in an hour. Then the sun came out, there were a few dazzling moments when the world was all blue and silver, and then the whiteness faded.
And the sap! How it dripped! Once an hour I had to make the rounds, bringing back gallons each time, and the fire under my pan was kept up so that the boiling down might keep pace with the new supply.
"They do say snow makes it run," shouted a passer-by, and another called, "You want to keep skimmin'!" Whereupon I seized my long-handled skimmer and fell to work. Southern Connecticut does not know much about syrup, but by the avenue of the road I was gradually accumulating such wisdom as it possessed.
The syrup was made. No worse accident befell than the