Part 14

"An still the Divil raged, an' stamped, an' struggled with his foot up in the stirrup.

"'That'll do,' says McGonigle, polite but hasty, as he threw his leg free over the saddle, to jump. 'There's no room here for two. If _you're_ goin' to get _on_, _I'm_ goin' to get _off_!'"

The youngest of the McQuade boys came and laid a pan of clean packed snow on the table in front of his mother. This was part of the essential rites of the sugaring off. The boys had, of course, barometers and modern polarization tests which told them scientifically when the heavy syrup, the concentration of many boilings of sap, was sufficiently boiled down so that when allowed to cool rapidly it would solidify into a clear brittle cake with a polarization of over ninety-five. Fan McQuade believed in all these things as fully as did her sons. She lived with her boys and never allowed anything in their business, or in new ways of doing old work, to get beyond her. But she--and they too--still trusted her own test as to when a boiling of sugar was ready to set properly.

So, when their thermometer and barometer showed them that the proper point of condensation had been reached, the boys came with a dipper and poured the boiling sugar before her on the smooth surface of the pan of snow. Then they stood gravely around and watched while the long criss-crossed tendrills of sugar which had been made in the pouring hardened over the face of the snow.

Fan McQuade took a little white paddle of polished maple, as hard almost as a piece of steel, and began tapping gently at the hardening, waxy bars of sugar. As the thin tendrils of sugar stiffened into long crystals she struck harder, and they could hear a ringing from them like the twang of distant skates on ice. Then, as the sugar hardened to full brittleness the bars began to break stiffly under her sharp blows, and then to crack and snap and fly apart like live things.

Fan McQuade and her three sons nodded together in solemn appreciation. Science and tradition were for once agreed. They had caught the perfect boiling off point. And the boys rushed away to pour off the contents of the huge boiling pan into the cooling tins.

Now it was McQuade's time to bestir himself as host.

From the dark outside he brought in other pans of clean frozen snow, which he had carefully prepared against this moment. He laid the pans and paddles about the table and inviting everybody to choose a pan of snow he went to bring the wax syrup. To the unitiated it looked like a bare banquet, a pan of snow and a paddle. But the eating of "wax" is the one feast that requires neither condiment nor foil.

"This," said McQuade, settling himself behind a huge pan of wax, "is the one time when I can understand this making of sugar. All the rest of the year I think of these groves of idle trees,--there's nothing in the world so idle as a maple tree--and every one of them worth a pocketful of money, and I wonder at Fan's lack of business sense. Why doesn't she cut the timber down?"

He spoke of her impersonally, as though she might have been, perhaps, a neighbor at home in the next county.

"But," he concluded, "when I sit down with a pan of wax in me arms I can understand it all. She keeps the trees doing nothing the year 'round just to furnish her her pan of wax. And, like the good Yankee that she is, she has all the better of the bargain, at that."

"Hear him!" his wife retorted. "And if I dared to have as much as one live tree of these groves cut down he'd go crazy. I think he's a heathen pagan. I think he comes up in the summer to worship in the groves like the old people did in the Bible."

"They were high thinkin' people, I take it," said McQuade, ready for contention. "But the times were against them."

"I wonder," said Fan McQuade slyly. "Or were they leaving behind a good hard job of haying or something when they ran off up into the groves for their sacrifices?"

"That's right!" complained McQuade. "Go on and tell all the neighbors about me and disgrace me! These two young people don't think bad enough about me. The first time they laid eyes on me they thought I was a bank robber, at the very politest."

Augusta and Jimmie laughed happily over the memory of that amazing evening when they had first seen McQuade, and Augusta was starting to tell Mrs. McQuade about their awakening the morning after, while at the same time she was mechanically prodding about in the snow with her paddle to pick up more wax. She looked down, surprised and disbelieving. McQuade had given her a helping of wax so big that she had not believed that she could eat a quarter of it. And, without thinking or stopping, she had eaten up every bit of it. _And she was hungry for more._

She looked up in horror, and exclaimed confusedly:

"I beg everybody's pardon. I never piggied anything up so in my life!"

"Don't apologize, dear," said Fan McQuade, smiling down into Augusta's burning face. "We'd've been disappointed if you hadn't done just as you did. I always distrust people who don't forget themselves when they first eat sugar wax. I think there must be something wrong with them."

Wardwell, who had done exactly as his wife had done, had not even the grace to look guilty. With deliberate optimism, he was making a hopeful estimate on how many times he could repeat the performance.

McQuade was in no wise perturbed.

"Take breath, and we'll begin again fair. It's the one thing," he explained, as he started away to bring more, "that you can take too much of to-night, and wake up wantin' more in the mornin'."

On his way to the fire he was stopped by the sound of singing from outside. A loud, defiant voice broke in above the panting of the furnace, inquiring lustily:

"_Where, Oh, where, are the vi-shuns of morning?_"

A determined knocking on the door punctuated the song. And then the voice answered its own question laconically:

"_Gone like the flow-ers that bloom in the Spring time._"

"Jethniah Gamblin's warble!" exclaimed McQuade gleefully, skipping to the door. The door had to be kept bolted on account of the heavy draught of the furnace, so, when McQuade opened it quickly, the stout figure of the postmaster was fairly propelled toward the middle of the floor, while his hat, blown from his head by the force of the draught, made a bee line for the bottom door of the furnace. Wardwell sprang to the rescue, but the old man, with a whoop and a most surprising show of agility, swooped down on the hat as it was about disappearing into the furnace and came up jamming it triumphantly upon his head.

"Just like a post in the mud!" he announced.

McQuade came back from his struggle with the door, and made him welcome.

"Sit in, Jethniah, sit in. Ye know the folks here, and yer as welcome as the flowers ye were sing-songin' about."

Jethniah said "How-dye-do" to everybody and found a place for himself beside Wardwell.

He said nothing, nor was anyone tactless enough to ask him, as to what desperate or devious means he had used in accomplishing his liberty for the evening. But, as he settled his short, fat arms around the pan of snow which McQuade had brought him, there was apparent around his mouth a fine cat-and-canary smile that had its own meaning for every one of his observers.

"I just smelt the sugaring, and invited myself," he explained officially to Fan McQuade.

"I'm sure we would have missed you sincerely," said the hostess earnestly. "But I think John trusted your instincts, for I'm pretty sure he was expecting you to-night."

McQuade came back and criss-crossed everybody's pan of snow with a generous helping of wax, providing a double portion for Jethniah that he might overtake the others.

In the midst of his busy eating, Jethniah was seen to stop and reach hastily into an inner pocket.

"Never tell us you've forgot it!" said McQuade in evident alarm.

"Safe as a hollow tooth!" proclaimed Jethniah, withdrawing his hand, reassured, and beginning afresh at his wax. "Just like a post in the mud!"

Augusta and Wardwell looked at each other, guessing what it might be that was as safe as if hidden in a hollow tooth. But they did not ask, knowing that, whatever it was, it would be better to wait and find out at the proper time.

The fact in the matter was not that Jethniah had feared that he had forgotten something. He was afraid that he had been robbed.

Jethniah Gamblin had a vice. It was not a secret vice. But it was the more persuasive, insidious and devastating in that it was encouraged and abetted by the entire community.

During official hours Jethniah was a faithful servant of the People of the United States, and during the same hours he was an honest weigher of sugar and sundries. But when, at eight o'clock in the evening, he had put out the lights and had, in the dark, taken the postage stamps from their place in the drawer and hidden them in an old rubber boot that stood in a corner, Jethniah reverted to the pursuit of his vice.

Jethniah, to say the worst at once, was a leader in song. Wherever there was a gathering of any sort, within possible walking distance, there was Mr. Gamblin to be found in the midst of it. It had to be within walking distance, for many ignominious failures had taught Jethniah that he could not hitch up a horse and drive out of the barn without arousing deadly and effective opposition to his going. So, Jethniah's goings were on foot, with celerity, and without announcement. But go he did, usually. And he was always welcome, because, at the very first hand, the event of his coming or not coming gave an immediate sporting interest to the party. Where people in other less favored communities had to get through the early, dragging moments of every social function talking about the weather and fussing awkardly until the crowd came, the gatherings within Jethniah's range were put at ease immediately by the common interest in the question of whether or not the Postmaster would be able to make his escape from home, and attend. Wagers on the matter were posted freely, with the prevailing odds in Jethniah's favor, this partly through sympathy but largely through faith based on Jethniah's past performances.

Then, when he did appear, he was questioned anxiously as to whether he had brought his tuning fork safe with him. For there had been occasions in local history when Jethniah had arrived at a party without this badge of his calling and authority. On these occasions Mr. Gamblin had explained that he had "somehow missed" the tuning fork. But everybody knew better. Mr. Gamblin had been robbed, temporarily.

In the winter evenings of his young manhood Jethniah had taught singing school in school-houses among the hills. But he had long since given up the professional side of his art, and now devoted himself whole-heartedly to the cultivation and encouragement of song, for song's pure sake.

So, whether it was a wedding anniversary or the aftermath of a quilting or a husking bee or an honest country dance with no excuse whatever, Jethniah and his tuning fork were in demand. For when the riotous edge of the merry-making was dulled people wanted to sing. The songs were mostly sad ones, for people generally get more enjoyment out of sad songs, and there are more of them; but when Jethniah stood up and drew forth his tuning fork, carefully and critically testing it by snapping it with his finger nail, his face grave as that of a very priest of music, his stout old body swaying to the tune that was already humming in his head, he was in those moments a great man.

That men and women loved Jethniah and encouraged him heartily in his weakness is not to be wondered at. For it is a singular fact that, whereas few persons can persuade themselves that they are beautiful, or profoundly wise, or inordinately brave, and only a very few extremely happy folks can delude themselves into believing that they are all three, yet practically all people in their secret hearts believe that they can sing, or, what is the same thing, that they _could_ sing if they were encouraged.

Thus Jethniah, who in the long years had given up the exacting and critical attitude of the teacher and had developed a broad charity in art which looked only to the spirit and good will of the performance, encouraged and gave license to the craving that lies deep in all men's souls, to lift up their heads and howl. Men and women, who, left to themselves, would no more have dared try to sing than they would have attempted to walk a tight rope, shouted themselves hoarse and happy under Jethniah's all-condoning tuning fork.

When McQuade had hoped devoutly that Mr. Gamblin had not forgotten it, he referred, of course, to the justly celebrated tuning fork. Now when Jethniah had eaten all the wax that McQuade could press upon him, and when everyone else had stopped from sheer inability to proceed, McQuade was anxious for further festivities.

But Jethniah was unwontedly reluctant about starting a singing match. He felt half afraid to get upon his feet for he was aware that the centre of gravity in his short, round body had been shifted by the quantities of sugar which he had eaten so that, standing, he would have been in the state which Physics calls _unstable equilibrium_, and his stomach was so full that, for certain physiological reasons, he was afraid to strain his diaphragm with the effort of singing. He had had a brisk walk against a stiff, cold wind, and the warm, full condition of his stomach and the heated air of the cabin combined to throw a heavy lethargy over him. Jethniah at that point would have given a great deal to be allowed to take a short nap. But McQuade was for immediate action.

"Never tell us ye left your music at home on the piano rack! Ye did not, for ye couldn't, unless ye were to leave your head there too. For it's in that round head o' yours that ye carry the finest ripertor of good tunes and words with them of any man in the country. There's not a postmaster in all these great United States that has the songs an' the music in him that ye have," McQuade cajoled.

"It's right hard on the voice," complained Jethniah, standing on professional grounds, "to sing after heavy eatin'."

"Eatin'?" said McQuade contemptuously. "I don't call that eatin' at all. We'll _eat_ after we've had a song or two. You'll sing, an' I'll sing, an' we'll all sing. Out with the tunin' fork!"

"Can't you tell a few lies, till we get our breath?" Jethniah suggested weakly.

"No. We'll have all the night to tell stories in after the girls are in bed. Now we'll sing," McQuade announced mercilessly.

Jethniah brought out the tuning fork reluctantly, snapping it critically and holding it up to his ear and listening doubtfully to the tone. He seemed to be artistically dissatisfied with the instrument and to be very hopeless as to the success of the whole project of singing. The truth was that he knew he was not in good fettle for singing and he was nervous about Wardwell and Augusta because they were, after all, strangers, and they might laugh.

But when McQuade had cleared away the pans of snow, Jethniah stretched himself as far as he dared and began to take an interest. He struck the tuning fork on the table several times, and as he listened his face became each time a little more hopeful.

Finally he caught the tone satisfactorily and announced, with a rising sweep of his free hand:

"_Oh He Hum Ha-a-a-ah_," crescendo, and holding the last note while he beamed and nodded hopefully around his audience.

"We will sing 'John Brown's Body' first," Jethniah announced. He arose manfully and smote the tuning fork sharply on the table. And again he gave the key note, this time with authority and confidence.

"All sing!"

It was rather a straggling performance, for the boys and men working around the fires came along two or three notes behind the leaders, and McQuade and Wardwell were so full of sugar that they could hardly do more than grunt. But when Jethniah heard Augusta's voice with him he took mighty heart and together they carried it through to a triumph.

Jethniah now awoke to the possibilities of the occasion. He had come here primarily to eat sugar. But in the prospect of a brilliant singing affair he was willing to forget even the first sugar eating of the season. If only he had not eaten quite so much already!

He next called for "Annie Laurie," and when that went through to a decided success, Jethniah was so carried that he insisted on rendering the "Kerry Dancers," which he had learned on Sundays spent fishing with McQuade.

And McQuade returned the compliment in a way that went to Mr. Gamblin's heart.

"Jethniah," he reminisced, in the pause that followed their latest effort, "d' ye mind the day we were fishin' the Racquette away below Forked Lake, and ye made a little song all out of your own head and sang it for me?"

"Does seem to me now," said Jethniah hesitating. McQuade was the best of friends, but he was an inveterate joker and Jethniah was always a little afraid of his humor when there was company. "But I can't just think right now. What about it?" he inquired cautiously. He remembered the little song very well. He had been humming it to himself ever since that day last summer when he had sung it for McQuade, but he had never had the hardihood to bring it out and teach it to people as his own composition. Jethniah was a kindly man, and easily hurt; and in this matter he had all of the fledgling author's fear of ridicule.

"Then it's me that remembers," said McQuade, triumphantly pulling a wallet from his hip pocket. From the wallet he drew out a little account book and found in it the page for which he looked. He handed it, open, to Jethniah, saying:

"There it's for you now. I copied it fair that day an' told you it ought to be in print. Let's hear it now, Jethniah, and we'll all learn it and give it a rousin' send off. Sing up, man! Sing up!"

Mr. Gamblin took the little book and began adjusting his spectacles to his kindling eyes. He was so proud and so pleased with McQuade's graceful thought that his hand shook as he held the little book up to the light of a lantern. Of course he knew the words by heart, but not for worlds would he have foregone the heady delight of reading his own work as it had been copied by some one who had thought well of it. It was almost as good as if he had actually seen it in print.

Finally he turned to McQuade and looked up at him over the rims of the spectacles. There was a misty dimness in the kindly, honest old eyes as he silently thanked his friend.

"Sing up, man. Sing up--Or I'll howl it meself!" blustered McQuade.

Jethniah began to hum, and then to sing tentatively. But his enthusiasm quickly mounted above his shyness, and grasping the tuning fork in a stout hand he brought it down sharply on the table. Then taking the fresh tone boldly and beating time with McQuade's little book in one hand and the tuning fork in the other, he struck bravely into his little song.

Sang Jethniah:

"Get up with the sun in the _morn_-ing, Now _that's_ a beautiful thing. Lie low in your bed till the _noon_-time, Now _that's_ a beautiful thing.

"Work hard till the end like a _good_ man, Now _that's_ a beautiful thing. Come fishing and sing till the _sun_-down, Now _that's_ a beautiful thing.

"Who picks out my work for the _Long_ Day, Tell Him I want to do _both_ things. Tell Him I want to do _both_ things."

Never did poet and songster have a happier audience for his maiden effort, for before he had gotten to the second verse they were joining him in the refrain and assuring him _that_ that was a beautiful thing. And when it was finished McQuade led round after round of applause, while the boys roared and cheered around the fires.

"Again!" shouted McQuade. "Let us hear it again, till we learn it, an' we'll sing the roof off with it."

Again Jethniah smote the table with the tuning fork and sang now as though he would burst his stout old heart. And then they all stood about him, the boys towering and blackened like young Vulcans from their work among the fires, and Jethniah led a triumph that roared above the panting of the fires and shook the rafters of the solid old cabin. It was the supreme moment of Jethniah's life. And McQuade, whose heart was big for his friend's glory--and who dearly loved a racket anyway--wanted to fill that moment to the very brim. Again and again they had to sing through the song, until, in very pity for Jethniah, Fan McQuade put a partial stop upon the performance.

"Are you trying to save sugar by making your guests sing all night," she said pointedly to her husband.

McQuade apologized loudly and ran for the snow pans. They sat down again, and, to Wardwell's astonished delight and to Augusta's dismay, they found that their appetite for wax was practically undulled.

But Augusta soon saw that Fan McQuade was very tired--she and McQuade, since sun-rise, had driven fifty miles over the most frightful of roads--and Augusta herself was glad to have this as an excuse for pleading that she and Mrs. McQuade be allowed to retire to their beds in the little camp house, for she knew that as long as she stayed she would inevitably eat more sugar, and, in spite of McQuade's assurances, she was afraid of the consequences.

As McQuade had predicted, they told lies after the "girls" were gone to bed. But it was evident that the singing was not neglected. For, ever and again during the night, Augusta, dozing lightly in her hammock, was awakened to listen sleepily to Jethniah's pleasant philosophy of a future in which he would like to be up and doing and be dozing abed, be working and loafing, all at the same time.

Augusta and Wardwell long remembered this night. It was not that it was marked by any occurrence vital to themselves. It was merely the first night since they had come out upon the road that they had been separated. But it was full of new experiences for them, and somehow it seemed to mark an epoch, to put an end to one thing and to begin another.

McQuade and his Fan left the next day, already anxious to be at home, for Spring on the big dairy farm that was their home was a busy and important time.

Other parties, invited by the McQuade boys, and some that were not invited, came to eat sugar. But Jimmie and Augusta did not join in any of these festivities. Augusta knew that few people had Mr. Gamblin's ready sympathy or McQuade's big, hearty understanding. She did not care to be stared at and questioned as the curiosity that had come into the country in a gypsy wagon and had lived so strangely all winter in the sugar camp. She had learned that a sparsely settled country neighborhood is the most inquisitive and imaginative community in the world. And while she had laughed with Wardwell over the strange stories that were told, and believed, to account for their presence here, yet she did not propose to put herself upon exhibition.

The sugar season was over quickly, for the sap runs only in the brief period while the frost is actually leaving the ground, and it was a matter only of days until the men were hurriedly gathering the buckets and scalding them out and scouring the boiling pans to be stored away for the year under the rafters of the big cabin. Then they loaded their ox carts with the golden garnering of their hard work and drove shouting away down roads that were mere wallows of soft snow and mud.