 A Real New England Girl by Anna I. Parsons 1. The Shower 2. Oxford County 3. The Stranger and the Girl 4. The Youth and the Girl 5. Pansy and Richard Go Trading 6. The Marvelous Storyteller 7. The Dinner 8. The The Minister Comes for Tea 9. Pansy's Father 10. Pansy and Her Mother 11. Poland Springs 12. The Birthday Cake 13. Ned Patterson Comes for a Visit 14. The Blue Berrying Party 15. The Beginning of Wisdom 16. The Tempted and the Penitent 17. The Concert 18. Stanley's Ride 19. The Bench by the Wayside 20. The Banker and the Widow 21. The Bag of Nuts 22. How They Kept Thanksgiving at Little Farm 23. Hardly a Merry Christimas 24. A Call Down and a Caller 25. The Pride of Mrs. Bradford 26. A Happy New Year 27. Amusement and Winter Sport 28. Kim 29. Richard, the Lion Hearted 30. A Tour of the White Mountains 31. Talking Over the Trip with Henry Bright 32. Thoughts That Lie Too Deep for Words 33. Economics 34. His Toast 35. The Busy Haunts of Man 36. Christmas in New York 37. The Last Night of Their Visit 38. The Language Understood by All 39. Sugaring Off 40. Correspondence 41. Commencement 42. Conclusion Afterward     |
Sugaring Off "Now the sap runs down the maple tree, And the Androscoggin's loose; Let us put the old red sleigh aside, And pasture out the moose." -- Baldwin "We all want to come out to a sugaring-off, Pansy," said Grace Stone, one day in March when the cold nights and warm days had started the run of maple sweets. "Suppose you all plan to come out next Saturday afternoon. The sleighing is still good, and you, Eva, Mabel, and Frances can get a two seated sleigh and have Dean Winters come and drive the horse for you. Phil Morris is coming out to spend the day with Richard, so that will make a nice party of eight." Later the same day, Pansy called her special friends over to a window for a confidential chat. "Girls," she said, "I've been thinking things over since morning, and if it is agreeable to you, I'd like to invite Len Frost to our sugaring-off." Mabel Lawson threw up her hands in horror. "He's such a great lummox!" said Frances Stuart. "I'm afraid he'd be like the proverbial bull in a china shop," said Eva Goodwin. "Len's never impressed me as caring any more for our company than we do for his, but probably Pansy has some special reason for inviting him," said Grace Stone. "I have, girls, and I only wait your assurance that you will treat him with consideration. Len knows we all think him a great big bully, and he lives up to his reputation. Suppose we treat him as a gentleman, and see what the effect will be." "I'm with you, Pansy," said Grace Stone, putting her arm around Pansy's neck, for she was above her in height. "So are we all," said Mabel Lawson. "Only it's strange to think of his being in any of our affairs." Before Saturday arrived, Professor Thayer had heard of the sugaring-off party, and had asked Pansy for an invitation, which was readily extended, so that there were ten in all from the High School who gathered in Mrs. Bradford's kitchen on Saturday afternoon to have their appetite appeased with delicate maple sweets. Maple sugar-making was practiced by the Indians and by them taught to the early New England settlers who depended almost entirely on the maple for their supply of domestic sugar. The process of making the sugar is simple, though the gathering of the sap from tree to tree through the soft snows of spring time entails much hard work. Most farmers in Maine engaged in this industry have a camp down in the woods where sap from the rock maple is boiled down to a thin syrup in an "evaporator;" it is then taken to the farm house to be finished off on the cooking stove. A square pan, about ten inches deep, of galvanized iron that covers the entire top of the cooking range is used for this purpose. A quantity of sweet milk is poured into the thin syrup and the mixture is boiled to clarify it. It is then allowed to stand for a time to cool. When the coagulated milk and all sediments have settled to the bottom, the clear syrup is poured off and again placed on the fire and boiled until it is of the right consistency for sugaring-off. It is then taken from the fire and constantly stirred until it crystallizes into a light brown sugar and is ready for the market. Just before it reaches the sugar consistency, by turning the hot syrup on to pans of snow, a delicious candy is formed, and the eating of this is the real attraction of a sugaring-off. There was considerable steam in the kitchen, and Mrs. Bradford had opened the door into the woodshed to allow this to escape. She constantly stood over the pan with a shallow tin skimmer with which she removed from the seething liquid the proteids, or scummings, as they rose to the surfaces. Pansy brought out two large pans and asked Len Frost to fill them with clean snow. He departed on his errand with despatch, and came back juggling the pans on a finger of either hand, so that there was a scattering of young people on his entrance, lest unhappily they overturn on some one's head. With a long handled spoon, Pansy turned the thick syrup on to the snow in patches, the pans were then carried out to the pump platform, and the young people gathered around ready to devour the sweets as they cooled into viscid crusts. It did not take a great amount of candy to satisfy the appetite of Professor Thayer; he soon returned to the living room to talk with Miss Ruth, and Richard joined them, intent on increasing his knowledge in physics, a subject in which he was greatly interested. There was a dignity and ease about Richard that one could not help but admire as he sat with an elbow on the table and his head resting on his hand while he talked with his learned professor. Outside the sky was slightly overcast, but the weather was mild and spring-like, and for some time the young people hovered about the pump platform eating, jesting and having a good time generally. Unable to resist the delicious candy and fearing the effects of overeating, Frances Stuart, at last, exclaimed ruefully, "Will some one please put me where I can't get any more!" "Me too!" said Mabel Lawson. "Yes, I will," said Len Frost. Quickly seizing a girl in either arm, so that they were obliged to cling to this shoulder for support, he carried them like a lumbering elephant through the deep snow out to the garden wall, and after climbing on top of this, with but little tax to his enormous strength and, little stretching of his long limbs, he deposited them on a high grapevine trellis from which they could not possibly get down without assistance. Pansy, who had returned to the kitchen to assist her mother, happened to look out of the west window in time to see the giant leave his victims and come wallowing back through the snow, laughing gleefully. Letting the spoon with which she was stirring the syrup slide into the pan, she hurried into the living room, "O Richard," she said, "I invited Len Frost to make a gentleman of him, and see what he has done with Frances and Mabel!" Even Professor Thayer and Ruth joined in the laugh which followed. "I guess you'll have to get Len to take them down; it's too high a proposition for me" said Richard. There was real distress on Pansy's face. Richard suddenly got his cap and left the room. He soon appeared at the grapevine trellis with a ladder, and with the aid of Dean Winters and Phil Morris, Frances and Mabel were rescued from their plight. In the meantime, the pan of hot syrup had been removed from the fire and rested on two boards on the kitchen table. Len coming in and seeing Mrs. Bradford stirring it vigorously, abruptly took the long handled spoon from her hand. "Guess it's my turn to stir now," he said. "You go sit down and cool off. I ain't never had so much fun in my life." The others came into the kitchen and stood about the table to watch Len, the nineteen year old prodigy of strength and stalwart manhood, perform the last rites over the fast disappearing syrup. Under his skillful manipulation, gradually it grew thicker and thicker and its color became paler and paler; it clung to the spoon and lingered in the corners of the pan; it piled up in masses wherever the centripetal force was greatest; it resolved from the adhesive to the granular state, and, like shifting sands, changed its base with every movement of the spoon. At last, Len threw this against the side of the pan with a resounding clatter, dropped his hands to his sides, and drew himself up to his full height, with a look of pride at what had been accomplished. "There's twenty pounds of as good sugar as ever was or ever will be made in this neighborhood," he said. "You're a wonder, Len!" said Eva Goodwin, for once really admiring something the giant had done. "Of all the strong men I have heard about, you take this cheese for quick work in the devolution of sweets," said Dean Winters. "Samson slew a lion and left the carcass for the bees to store his honey in; but you manipulate a weapon, and lo! better than honey is here." "G'on with your kiddin'! Here, Mrs. Bradford, give me that bucket, and I'll heave the whole business inside in a jiffy. Look alive you bunch of sugar-eating ants; this factory don't pay wages to slackers!" With his two long arms, Len swung the fire blackened pan from the table and inclined it over the bucket until the sugar was discharged therein. Then he set the pan back on the table, carried the bucket of sugar into the pantry, and returned again to the kitchen. "Guess you and me could keep up with the best of 'em in the sugar-making business," he said, with a grin to Mrs. Bradford. "Pansy, we all want to go upstairs and see your room and Richard's room," said Grace Stone. "Very well," answered Pansy. "Lead on Grace, you know the way." Len followed the others to the foot of the stairway, but turned back; he had no heart for the reminders which he knew would follow. Going into the living room, he seated himself in Mr. Alden's big chair by the window and let his eyes rove alertly from the face of his professor to that of the assistant teacher in High School. "I hear you have been making yourself very useful, Leonard," said Ruth, kindly. "Twasn't nothin', Miss Bradford. There ain't much sweeter job to be had then helping your mother." When the young people were all packed away in the sleigh ready to start off, Pansy turned to Len, "Are you going to walk back with Professor?" she asked. "Yep." Then he bent down and whispered close to her ear, "Guess he and your sister Ruth will be having a sugaring-off before long." Click Here for Chapter 40 |