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Little did the fathers of the town anticipate this brilliant success, when they caused to be imported from farther in the country some straight poles with their tops cut off, which they called Sugar-Maples; and, as I remember, after they were set out, a neighboring merchant's clerk, by way of jest, planted beans about them.
The wood is firm and durable, and is much used for cattle-yokes as well as for bedsteads and chairs. The large trees yield a great quantity of sweetish sap, which makes a pleasant drink. The trees are tapped just as the sugar-maples are, and in some parts of the country gathering this sap, which is sometimes used to make vinegar, is quite an important event."
Great yellow birches, shaggy with age, stretched their knotted arms high above us; sugar-maples stood up straight and proud under their leafy crowns; and smooth beeches the most polished and parklike of all the forest trees offered opportunities for the carving of lovers' names in a place where few lovers ever come. The woods were quiet. It seemed as if all living creatures had deserted them.
"Exactly, ma'am; but there's no want of sugar-maples in these woods." "You promised us some honey, Malachi," said Emma, "but we have not seen it yet. Can you get us some?" "We had no time to get it last autumn, miss, but we will try this autumn what we can do. When John and I are out in the woods, we shall very probably find a honey-tree, without going very far.
"Sometime, you shall finish that story, Fran. I know of a road much longer than the one we've taken we might try it some day, if you say so." "I do say so. What road is it?" They had paused at the front gate, Fran in the yard, Abbott outside. It was dark under the heavy sugar-maples that guarded the gate; they could not see beyond each other's faces.
"You aren't going to tap your sugar-maples?" said Stephen, looking up at the great symmetrical efflorescence of rose and green which towered about them. Christopher laughed. "No, bless 'em," said he, "the trees shall keep their sugar this season. This week is the first time I've had a chance to get acquainted with them and sort of enter into their feelings. Good Lord!
But now, or generally by the seventeenth of October, when almost all Red Maples, and some White Maples, are bare, the large Sugar-Maples also are in their glory, glowing with yellow and red, and show unexpectedly bright and delicate tints. They are remarkable for the contrast they often afford of deep blushing red on one half and green on the other.
Meanwhile the winter dragged slowly away, and the ice of Lake George, cracking with change of temperature, uttered its strange cry of agony, heralding that dismal season when winter begins to relax its grip, but spring still holds aloof; when the sap stirs in the sugar-maples, but the buds refuse to swell, and even the catkins of the willows will not burst their brown integuments; when the forest is patched with snow, though on its sunny slopes one hears in the stillness the whisper of trickling waters that ooze from the half-thawed soil and saturated beds of fallen leaves; when clouds hang low on the darkened mountains, and cold mists entangle themselves in the tops of the pines; now a dull rain, now a sharp morning frost, and now a storm of snow powdering the waste, and wrapping it again in the pall of winter.
This region abounds in Sugar-Maples, which are very beautifully tinted, and in a sufficient variety of other trees to delight the eye with every specious hue. A remarkable appearance may always be observed in Maples. Some trees of this kind are entirely green, with the exception perhaps of a single bough, which is of a bright crimson or scarlet.
Here we have them all graphically represented: the daily "chores" that must be looked after; the driving of cows to and from the pasture; the clearing up of fields where vegetation struggled with difficulty against the prevailing stones; the climbing of lofty trees and the swaying back and forth in the wind on their topmost boughs; the hunting of woodchucks; the nutting excursions of November days, culminating in the glories of Thanksgiving; the romance of school life, over which vacations, far from being welcomed with delight, cast a gloom as involving extra work; the cold days of winter with its deep or drifting snows, the mercury of the thermometer clinging with fondness to zero, even when the sun was shining brilliantly; the long chilling nights in which the frost carved fantastic structures on the window-panes; the eager watching for the time when the sap would begin to run in the sugar-maples; the evenings given up to reading, with the inevitable inward discontent at being sent to bed too early; the longing for the mild days of spring to come, when the heavy cowhide boots could be discarded, and the boy could rejoice at last in the covering for his feet which the Lord had provided.
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