The first week of March, all the people were busy making maple
sugar. "Did you ever taste any maple sugar, ma'am?" asked Monaghan,
as he sat feeding Katie one evening by the fire.
"No, John."
"Well, then, you've a thrate to come; and it's myself that will make
Miss Katie, the darlint, an illigant lump of that same."
Early in the morning John was up, hard at work, making troughs for
the sap. By noon he had completed a dozen, which he showed me with
great pride of heart. I felt a little curious about this far-famed
maple sugar, and asked a thousand questions about the use to which
the troughs were to be applied; how the trees were to be tapped, the
sugar made, and if it were really good when made?
To all my queries, John responded, "Och! 'tis illigant. It bates all
the sugar that ever was made in Jamaky. But you'll see before
to-morrow night."
Moodie was away at P - -, and the prospect of the maple sugar
relieved the dulness occasioned by his absence. I reckoned on
showing him a piece of sugar of our own making when he came home,
and never dreamt of the possibility of disappointment.
John tapped his trees after the most approved fashion, and set his
troughts to catch the sap; but Miss Amanda and Master Ammon upset
them as fast as they filled, and spilt all the sap. With great
difficulty, Monaghan saved the contents of one large iron pot. This
he brought in about nightfall, and made up a roaring fire, in order
to boil in down into sugar. Hour after hour passed away, and the
sugar-maker looked as hot and black as the stoker in a steam-boat.
Many times I peeped into the large pot, but the sap never seemed to
diminish.
"This is a tedious piece of business," thought I, but seeing the lad
so anxious, I said nothing. About twelve o'clock he asked me, very
mysteriously, for a piece of pork to hang over the sugar.
"Pork!" said I, looking into the pot, which was half full of a very
black-looking liquid; "what do you want with pork?"
"Shure an' 'tis to keep the sugar from burning."
"But, John, I see no sugar!"
"Och, but 'tis all sugar, only 'tis molasses jist now. See how it
sticks to the ladle. Aha! But Miss Katie will have the fine lumps of
sugar when she awakes in the morning."
I grew so tired and sleepy that I left John to finish his job, went
to bed, and soon forgot all about the maple sugar. At breakfast I
observed a small plate upon the table, placed in a very conspicuous
manner on the tea-tray, the bottom covered with a hard, black
substance, which very much resembled pitch. "What is that
dirty-looking stuff, John?"
"Shure an 'tis the maple sugar."
"Can people eat that?"
"By dad, an' they can; only thry it, ma'arm."
"Why, 'tis so hard, I cannot cut it."
With some difficulty, and not without cutting his finger, John broke
a piece off, and stuffed it into the baby's mouth. The poor child
made a horrible face, and rejected it as if it had been poison. For
my own part, I never tasted anything more nauseous. It tasted like a
compound of pork grease and tobacco juice. "Well, Monaghan, if this
be maple sugar, I never wish to taste any again."
"Och, bad luck to it!" said the lad, flinging it away, plate and
all. "It would have been first-rate but for the dirthy pot, and the
blackguard cinders, and its burning to the bottom of the pot. That
owld hag, Mrs. R - -, bewitched it with her evil eye."
"She is not so clever as you think, John," said I, laughing. "You
have forgotten how to make the sugar since you left D - -; but let us
forget the maple sugar, and think of something else. Had you not
better get old Mrs. R - - to mend that jacket for you; it is too
ragged."
"Ay, dad! an it's mysel' is the illigant tailor. Wasn't I brought up
to the thrade in the Foundling Hospital?"
"And why did you quit it?"
"Because it's a low, mane thrade for a jintleman's son."
"But, John, who told you that you were a gentleman's son?"
"Och! but I'm shure of it, thin. All my propensities are gintale.
I love horses, and dogs, and fine clothes, and money. Och! that
I was but a jintleman! I'd show them what life is intirely, and
I'd challenge Masther William, and have my revenge out of him
for the blows he gave me."
"You had better mend your trousers," said I, giving him a tailor's
needle, a pair of scissors, and some strong thread.
"Shure, an' I'll do that same in a brace of shakes," and sitting
down upon a ricketty three-legged stool of his own manufacturing,
he commenced his tailoring by tearing off a piece of his trousers
to patch the elbows of his jacket. And this trifling act, simple
as it may appear, was a perfect type of the boy's general conduct,
and marked his progress through life. The present for him was
everything; he had no future. While he supplied stuff from the
trousers to repair the fractures in the jacket, he never reflected
that both would be required on the morrow. Poor John! in his brief
and reckless career, how often have I recalled that foolish act of
his. It now appears to me that his whole life was spent in tearing
his trousers to repair his jacket.
In the evening John asked me for a piece of soap.
