“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 per haps 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 toward 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 Leather-Stocking, 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 spouts, formed of the I bark of the alder, or of the sumach, were fastened; and a trough, roughly dug out of the linden, or basswood, was I 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 Caters of the Connecticut to the shores of Ontario.
The tune was, of course, a familiar air which, although it is said to have been first applied to this nation in derision, circumstances have since rendered so glorious that no American ever hears its jingling cadence without feeling a thrill at his heart:
“The Eastern States be full of men, The Western Full of woods, sir, The hill be like a cattle-pen, The roads be full of goods, sir!
Then flow away, my sweety sap, And I will make you boily; Nor catch a wood man’s hasty nap, For fear you should get roily.
The maple-tree’s a precious one,
‘Tis fuel, food, and timber; And when your stiff day’s work is done, Its juice will make you limber, Then flow away, etc.
“And what’s a man without his glass. His wife without her tea, sir?
But neither cup nor mug will pass, Without his honey-bee, sir!
Then flow away,” etc.
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.
Toward 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 brick-kiln, splitting out rails, making potash, and parling too, or hoeing corn; though I keep myself pretty much to the first business, seeing that the axe 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, mounsher, 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 cake 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 maybe 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 some thing in knowing when and how to stir the pot.
It’s a thing that must be larnt.