Chapter 28

A BUSY BEE.

'We'd ha' best sugar off the whole lot _al_together,' Zack had said, and being the only one of the makers who knew anything about the manufacture, he was permitted to prescribe the procedure. The dark amber-coloured molasses had stood and settled for some days in deep wooden troughs, before his other avocations, of farmer and general storekeeper at the 'Corner,' allowed him to come up to the Cedars and give the finishing touch.

A breathless young Bunting--familiarly known as Ged, and the veriest miniature of his father--burst into the shanty one day during dinner--a usual visiting hour for members of his family.

'Well, Ged, what do you want?'

'Uncle Zack'll be here first thing in the mornin' to sugar the syrup, and he says yo're to have a powerful lot o' logs ready chopped for the fires,' was the message. 'I guess I thought I'd be late for dinner,' the boy added, with a sort of chuckle, 'but I ain't;' and he winked knowingly.

'Well,' observed Arthur, laughing, 'you Yankees beat all the world for cool impudence.'

'I rayther guess we do, an' fur most things else teu,' was the lad's reply, with his eyes fixed on the trencher of bear's meat which Andy was serving up for him. 'Don't you be sparing of the pritters--I'm rael hungry:' and with his national celerity, the viands disappeared.

When the meal was ended, Robert, as always, returned thanks to God for His mercies, in a few reverent words. The boy stared.

'I guess I hain't never heerd the like of that 'afore,' he remarked. 'Sure, God ain't nowhar hereabouts?'

Robert was surprised to find how totally ignorant he was of the very rudiments of the Christian faith. The name of God had reached his ear chiefly in oaths; heaven and hell were words with little meaning to his darkened mind.

'I thought a Methodist minister preached in your father's big room once or twice a year,' observed Robert, after some conversation.

'So he do; but I guess we boys makes tracks for the woods; an' besides, there ain't no room for us nowhar,' said Ged.

Here I may just be permitted to indicate the wide and promising field for missionary labour that lies open in Canada West. No fetters of a foreign tongue need cramp the ardent thought of the evangelist, but in his native English he may tell the story of salvation through a land large as half a dozen European kingdoms, where thousands of his brethren according to the flesh are perishing for want of knowledge. A few stray Methodists alone have pushed into the moral wilderness of the backwoods; and what are they among so many? Look at the masses of lumberers: it is computed that on the Ottawa and its tributaries alone they number thirty thousand men; spending their Sabbaths, as a late observer has told us, in mending their clothes and tools, smoking and sleeping, and utterly without religion. Why should not the gospel be preached to these our brothers, and souls won for Christ from among them?

And in outlying germs of settlements like the 'Corner,' which are the centre of districts of sparse population, such ignorance as this of young Bunting's, though rare elsewhere in Canada or the States, is far from uncommon among the rising generation.

Zack arrived with the ox-sled at the time appointed, and Ged perched on it.

'Just look at the pile of vessels the fellow has brought to carry away his share of the molasses and sugar,' said Arthur, as the clumsy vehicle came lumbering up. ''Twas a great stroke of business to give us all the trouble, and take all the advantage to himself--our trees, our fires, nothing but the use of his oxen as a set-off.'

The advantage was less than Arthur supposed; for maples are not impoverished by drainage of sap, and firewood is so abundant as to be a nuisance. But for Zack's innate love of even the semblance of overreaching, he might have discerned that his gain in this transaction was hardly worth the pains.

'Wal, Robert, you ha' poured off the molasses into the kettles; an' now fur the clarifyin'. I knowed as how ye had nothen' fit--milk, nor calf's blood, nor eggs, nor nothen'--so I brought up the eggs, an' when we're settlin' shares they kin be considered.'

'The old sharper!' muttered Arthur.

'I'm afeerd like they're beat up already,' said Mr. Bunting, picking them gingerly out of his pockets, 'though I made Ged drive a purpose. But that near ox has a trick of stickin' over stumps, an' I had obliged to cut a handspike to him. I declar' if they ain't all whole arter all, 'cept one.' He smashed them into a wooden bowl half full of molasses, and beat them up with a chip, then emptied the contents into the kettles, stirring well. Hung over a slow fire, from a pole resting on two notched posts, the slight simmering sound soon began; and on the top of the heated fluid gathered a scum, which Zack removed. After some repetitions of this skimming, and when the molasses looked bright and clear, Mr. Bunting asked for a bit of fat bacon.

'Which can be considered when we're dividing shares,' said Arthur, handing it to him a few minutes afterwards. A glance was Zack's reply, as he strung the bacon on a cord, and hung it below the rim, within two inches of the boiling surface.

'Indeed,' quoth Robert, looking on at the operation of this expedient for preventing the spilling over of the molasses, 'I wonder some cleaner mode of keeping the boiling within bounds has not been invented.'

'The Scotchman Davidson cools with a run of cold sap, out of a little spout an' a keg; but them notions don't suit me nohow; the bit o' bacon fixes it jest as right. By the way, did you hear that his farm is took? By a Britisher gentleman--I'm told an officer, too; I guess he'll want to back out o' the bush faster than he got in, ef he's like the most of 'em. I know'd some o' the sort, an' they never did a cent's worth o' good, hardly, though they was above bein' spoke to. 'Tain't a location for soft hands an' handsome clothes, I guess; an' I declar ef I don't think I ever saw gentlemen Britishers git along so remarkably smart as yerselves: but ye hain't been above work, that's a fact.'

The Wynns were glad enough of the prospect of a new neighbour of the educated class; for, more than once or twice, the total absence of congenial society in any sense of the word had been felt as a minor privation. Robert foresaw that when with future years came improved means and enlarged leisure, this need would be greater. Zack thought the new settlers ought to try and arrive before spring thaw.

'Yer own logging-bee might be 'bout that time, Robert,' he observed, while he narrowly watched his kettles and their incipient sugar. 'The fallow looks ready for burnin', I guess.'

'Yes, 'tis nearly all chopped and piled; but I'm more anxious to have a raising-bee for my new house. The logging can wait for a couple of months, Davidson tells me.'

'Wal, you'll want considerable of whisky for the teu,' observed Zack briskly; 'all the "Corner" 'll be sure to come, an' raise yer house off the ground right slick at onst. A frame-house, I calc'late?'

'Clapboarded and painted, if I can, Mr. Bunting.'

'Now I don't want ever to hear of no better luck than I had in gittin' that consignment of ile an' white lead t'other day. Jest the very thing fur you, I guess!'

Robert did not seem similarly struck by the coincidence.

'Any one but Zack would have melted away long ago over that roaring fire,' said Arthur some time afterwards, withdrawing from his kettle to fan himself. 'Being a tall bag of bones, I suppose he can't dissolve readily. What's he going to do now, I wonder?'

Mr. Bunting had chipped a thin piece of wood from one of the fire logs, and wrought through it a narrow hole, inch long; this he dipped in the seething molasses, and drew it forth filled with a thin film, which he blew out with his breath into a long bubble of some tenacity.

'Thar! 'tis sugared at last,' said he, jerking aside the chip; 'an' now fur the pans.'

By a remarkable clairvoyance, just at this juncture various younger members of the Bunting family made their appearance in the sugar-bush; and as fast as Uncle Zack poured forth the sweet stuff into the tins and shallow wooden vessels placed to receive it, did half-a-dozen pilfering hands abstract portions to dip in the snow and devour. Zack's remonstrances and threats were of no avail, and whenever he made a dash towards them, they dispersed in all directions 'quick as wink.'

'Ef I ketch you, Ged, you'll know the defference of grabbin' a pound out of this 'ere tin, I guess, you young varmint!'

''Taint so kinder aisy to catch a 'coon, Uncle Zack,' was the lad's rejoinder from the fork of a birch where he had taken refuge, and sucked his stolen goods at ease. Similar raids harassed the long line of cooling tins, and not all the efforts of the sugar-makers at mounting guard could protect them, until the guerilla corps of youngsters became in some degree surfeited, and slid away through the woods as they had come. Meanwhile, the best part of a stone of the manufacture had vanished.

'Them are spry chaps, I reckon,' was the parent's reflection, with some pride in their successful free-booting, though he had opposed its details.

'I would teach them to be honest, Mr. Bunting;' which speech only evoked a laugh.

'Now I guess you're riled 'cos they ran away with yer sugar, jest as ef 'twarn't more mine than yourn.'

This was unpromising as portended the division into shares, wherein Robert was overreached, as he knew he should be; but he comforted himself by the reflection that next year he should be able to do without his odious assistant, and that for this summer he had housekeeping-sugar enough. He utterly refused to enter into any coalition for the making of vinegar or beer. Towards the close of the sap season he tapped a yellow birch, by his Scotch neighbour's advice, drew from it thirty gallons in three days, boiled down that quantity into ten gallons, and set it to ferment in a sunny place, with a little potato yeast as the exciting cause. Of course the result was immensely too much vinegar for any possible household needs, considering that not even a cucumber bed was as yet laid out in the embryo garden.

But now April, 'the moon for breaking the snow-shoes,' in Ojibbeway parlance, was advancing; patches of brown ground began to appear under the hot sunlight, oozy and sloppy until the two-feet depth of frost was gradually exhaled. The dwellers in the shanty had almost forgotten the look of the world in colours, for so many months had it slept in white array. Robert could have kissed the earliest knot of red and blue hepaticas which bloomed at the base of a log-heap. But he looked in vain for that eldest child of an English spring, 'the wee modest crimson-tipped' daisy, or for the meek nestling primrose among the moss. And from the heaven's blue lift no music of larks poured down; no twitter of the chaffinch or whistle of the thrush echoed from the greening woods. Robert thought the blue-bird's voice a poor apology for his native songsters.

He had, indeed, little time for any reflections unconnected with hard work. The cedar swamp was shrinking before his axe, and yielding its fragrant timbers for the future house. From early morning till late at night the three men never ceased labour except for short meals; having, as their object and reward, the comfort of those dear ones who would arrive in July or August at farthest.

The existing shanty was to be retained as kitchen, and a little room could be railed off the end as a place for stores. Four apartments would constitute the new house, one of them to be a sitting room for the mother and Linda. How easy to build and furnish in fancy; how difficult in fact! Yet the raising-bee accomplished a great deal, though the Yankee storekeeper was discomfited to find that Davidson of Daisy Burn had undertaken the guidance of the hive; he sulked somewhat in consequence, and also because the consumption of spirits was not, as he had contemplated, to intoxication. Robert was backed by his sturdy Scottish neighbour in that resolve; and the more sensible of the workers could not but approve.

Four walls and roof were put together by the joint-stock labour of the day. Standing in the vacant doorway, Robert looked over the moonlit view of woods and islanded lake well pleased.