Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor for that matter Templeton either, though it may be said to be a quick-growing place.
I never put my axe into a stunty tree, or one that hasn’t a good, fresh-looking bark: for trees have disorders, like creatur’s; 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 over heated ox to do your logging?”
“All that 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 ain’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; bitt it isn’t always practised; some doos and some doosn’t. Well, mounsher, be we likely to make a trade?”
“I will give you, Mister Etel, for von pound, dix sous.”
“No, I expect cash for it; 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’ll 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 sugar-bush.”
“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.
Jevausraner cie, 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 on 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 howl of the ladle, got a good swallow of the scalding liquid.
He clapped his hands on his breast, and looked most piteously at the ladies, for a single instant; and then, to use the language of Billy, when he afterward 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 kettles would have completely deceived the spectators as to his agency in the temporary sufferings 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; and 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 ad dressed; “it seems to me, if there’s 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 axe.
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 source 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 Worm 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 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 humsteds 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, you dig them—they make a fence that will turn anything bigger than a hog, being grand for breachy cattle.”
“Opinions on such subjects vary much in different countries,” said Marmaduke; “but it is not as ornaments that I value the noble trees of this country; it is for their usefulness We are stripping the forests, as if a single year would replace what we destroy.
But the hour approaches when the laws will take notice of not only the woods, but the game they contain also.”
With this consoling reflection, Marmaduke remounted, and the equestrians passed the sugar-camp, on their way to the promised landscape of Richard.
The wood-chop-per was left alone, in the bosom of the forest, to pursue his labors.