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Chapter VI
Chores And Pastimes
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Being a boy is pretty much the same everywhere. The odd jobs so
easily turned over to the boy differ in different places and times,
but, as a rule, since Cain and Abel were "kids," boys have
been expected to do the hundred and one things that no one else seems
to have time, or inclination, to do. Whatever inner rebellion is felt
at the unending nature of the chores, most boys face the music and do
their stunts, and still squeeze out time for more important matters.
Our boy was no exception to other boys when it came to a choice
between chores and pastimes; he found joy in the things that boys
usually do, and found certain tasks irksome, as boys do, have done,
and will do, the world over; and yet, much of his work was play, or
if not, he managed, somehow, to get a pretty full measure of
enjoyment even though not escaping the work.
Sometimes his father found him dreaming under the apple trees, or
behind the wood-pile with a book, the chores still undone, and an
uneasy fear haunted him concerning the lad; he was afraid John would
never be a good farmer, and, with that queer hankering after books,
might even become a Methodist minister. To an Old School Baptist like
Farmer Burroughs, that was about the worst end imaginable! Why, John
sometimes saw his father and their Methodist neighbour, Jerry Bouton,
almost come to blows as, sitting with Bibles on knees, they argued
hotly over" free salvation,"" predestination,"
and other religious beliefs in their diverse creeds.
Farmer Burroughs believed that all his other boys would eclipse John:
There was Hiram who did so many things well. He was handy at making
all sorts of implements used on the farm which had to be made by
handneck-yokes, axe-handles, hay-rigging, cradle-fingers,
sledrunners, and so on. And he could graft trees, blast rocks, and
lay stone walls, in none of which things John showed any aptitude.
Now, while it is true that John never acquired Hiram's skill and
handiness, nor Wilson's boldness, thoroughness, and thrift, nor
Curtis's expertness as a milker, nor Eden's orderliness and system,
yet, as a matter of fact, he equalled and even excelled his brothers
in much of the farm work, in spite of his thirst for knowledge. He
usually tackled his jobs, when "forced put," with more vim
than the others showed, as well as with more "gumption,"
chiefly because he wanted to get through with them and get to
something more interesting. Tasks were, with him, nearly always means
to other ends, and with these ends in view, he could keep his nose to
the grindstone, saw wood, hoe out his row, plough a straight furrow,
and cut as broad and clean a swath as the next one.
There were a few things he failed to do well: he was not good at
loading hay on a wagon, or at building a stack, and he never learned
to manage a team of horses, or a yoke of oxen as well as his
brothers, but in most of the farmwork he did his tasks well-when he
could not get out of doing them!
There was one thing about John as a lad that pleased his father: he
was always ready to hunt straying sheep and salt them on the hills.
His father never knew how much he brought back besides the sheep on
those rambles. As a matter of fact, John felt a keen interest in
sheep, more especially sheep with a fancy strain in them; also in
fancy breeds of poultry. He and Eden used to hang around Neighbour
Chase's poultry-yard, their eyes completely filled with the extra
large top-knots of the fowl there. Although his father did not
realize it, it was that extra touch which fascinated the boys-not
merely the everyday breeds-it was like a bit of poetry; it appealed
to their imaginations. In later years John has said that had he not
become a writer, he would probably have become a fancy-stock farmer.
Eden, on a small scale, followed his boyish bent. The high-bred lords
and ladies in his poultry domain were watched and tended with much
the same interest and affection that his more gifted brother has
bestowed upon the wild birds and other creatures of forest and field.
HIS FATHER'S KINE
Nowadays, one sometimes hears Mr. Burroughs exclaim with a sigh:
"Ah, well-a-day! for the good old days
When I kept my father's kine!"
though he doubtless sighed for other reasons when keeping them.
He knew those kine as he knew the members of his family. The herd of
thirty or more cows was made up mostly of Durhams and Ayrshires. The
"old Sam Scudder cow" was the leader, a peaceful,
well-behaved creature, slender-horned, deep-shouldered,
large-uddered, whose will was law in yard and stable and field. The
boys gave her the first place everywhere. She had her choice of
standing-room when milked; was first served when the herd was
foddered; was given the juiciest pumpkins, and tacitly granted the
best and softest places in the field. She ruled as with the breath of
her nostrils -- a sniff and a threatening look, and everyone gave way
to her.
There were Old Brockleface, Old Bob-tail, the Far' cow (the farrow
cow), the Brindled heifer, the Dun heifer, White-foot, Lop-horn, the
Muley cow, and many others of varying appearances and character.
There were timid cows in the herd, awkward cows, forlorn cows,
kicking cows, benevolent cows, fractious cows-each with its special
character, which the boys grew to know as they knew one another. They
learned to keep a sharp eye on the ring-leaders in all the mischief-the
ones who jumped the fences and led the others into the corn Then
there was the butt of the herd and there was the bully, who was
always pushing, crowding and goring the others. There were gentle,
soft-eyed cows with faces like a deer's-all kinds and conditions made
up. the Burroughs herd.
One became expert at understanding the creatures. John learned to
interpret their lows-whether of hunger, of impatience, of distress,
of danger, of unrest, or of frenzy. He loved to watch them grazing,
or lying under the trees, chewing their cuds, or standing belly-deep
in the streams. He especially loved the sight of them silhouetted
against the sky at twilight, as they grazed along the level summit of
the side-hill above the house. He delighted to watch them eating
pumpkins or apples. In fact, John loved the cow, and found most of
her ways, ways of pleasantness, her paths, paths of peace. She was,
in truth, the Rural Divinity at whose shrine he bowed.
DRIVING THE COWS TO PASTURE
It oftenest fell to John and the dog to drive the cows to and from
the pasture over beyond the beechwoods, half a mile or more, and they
had a good many adventures by the way.
"Co' boss! Co' boss! Co' boss!" he would stand in the
bar-way and call while Cuff would run down and round them up. The
cows being disposed of, he and Cuff were ready for whatever might
come up. It was often a chase for a woodchuck which whistled shrilly
as it took to the stone wall. Now boy and dog were sworn enemies of
those bold rodents that burrowed in every hillside and made raids
upon the grass and clover, and even upon the garden, and the pursuit
of them was swift and deadly.
Such a yelping and a pawing as there was when the dog, baffled, saw
his prey escape! but they were not to be outwitted thus. The two of
them were much too much for the wretched 'chuck. John would pull down
the rocky sanctuary, Cuff would seize his victim, and soon the flabby
rodent would be only a lifeless, bloody, disembowelled mass, when boy
and dog would march away home, glad that there was one less ugly
"varmint" in the fields. He remembers one woodchuck black
as jet which he got when fourteen or fifteen years old; it weighed
fourteen pounds.
More peaceful pastimes, however, claimed many of the summer hours. He
wandered in the beechwoods to listen to the mellow flute of the
veery, or to watch the antics of that Puck of the woods, the red
squirrel, as he snickered and scampered amid the trees. On frosty
mornings he sometimes saw him beating the "juba" on a limb
-- a regular breakdown performance, his own squeals and snickers
furnishing the applause
Sometimes in poking about the woods John discovered where the red
squirrel had hoarded his small savings: not far from his nest he
would tuck a butternut here, a black walnut there, in the crotches of
the trees, for all the world as though he had heard the warning
against putting all one's eggs into one basket. He had great respect
for this shrewd rodent who always seemed to know just where to gnaw
into a nut the best to expose the meat; every nut he examined showed
that the frisky creature had known on which side his bread was buttered.
Loitering in the beechwoods he occasionally found in a hollow tree,
the stores of the little white-footed, whitebellied mouse -- a quart
or more of beech nuts, every nut shelled as clean as a whistle!
When going along the road with the cows he often saw the junco, or
slate-coloured snow-bird, dart from a low bank in the roadside, her
white petticoat fluttering as she flew. On searching the bank, there
under its brink, cunningly concealed, was the nest of dry grass and
moss, with its lining of finer grass and hair, and its greenish-white
eggs, each with a wreath of brownish spots at the larger end.
Oftener still when in the sheep pastures he would see the modest
little vesper sparrow (the grass finch) in its dress of mottled
brown, skulking in the stubble. The bird would start up at his
approach, run along a few yards before him, then, flitting a pace or
two, again alight upon the ground, only to start up as he came
near-luring him on and on, the two white quills showing in its tail
during flight. He loved this bird of the stony pastures, and at dusk
often wandered out on the hills alone where, sitting on his Boyhood
Rock, he listened to its tender strain. Little poet of the pastures!
its three long, silvery notes, followed by low trills and quavers
subtly expressed to him that peaceful scene-the brown stubble, the
quiet herds, and the warm twilight among the hills. The bird builds
on the ground in the open with no protection except, perhaps, a
thistle or a yarrow to guard its door. John used to amuse himself by
stealing upon it, clapping his hat over the nest, peering under at
the little prisoner, and sometimes taking it in his hand when, after
stilling its alarm, he would let it go -- a practice that was
doubtless more fun for the boy than comfortable for the bird.
YOKING UP THE OXEN
Oxen were the only horses the earliest settlers had, and even in
John's time old Brock and Bright, his father's oxen, figured
prominently in the farm life; but in the pioneer days those patient,
hulking animals were real heroes; they hauled the farmer and his
belongings from one dwellingplace to another, over rough trails
through the woods; they broke the first soil for the settlers; they
never balked at the tasks required of them; they could live where
moose and deer could live, browsing on birch and lindens until their
owners could raise a crop of hay.
Brock and Bright were great handsome, sweet-breathed creatures with
long, glistening, wide-spreading horns. It was often John's task to
yoke them up before he was big enough to guide them about.
Going into the stall, untying Brock, and leading him out by the
horns, John would take down the heavy, birchen-wood yoke, remove the
key, and pulling out one of the bows, lift the end of the yoke up on
his shoulder, and from there on to the shoulder of Brock, the off ox.
Then putting the ends of the bow up through the holes in the yoke, he
fastened them with the key. Lifting the other end of the yoke, he
would then call to the nigh ox, "Come, Bright!" and Bright
would walk in and, be yoked up also; in. went the key, and the job
was done.
BOYS AND BEES
John and Eden were keen for spying out the bumblebees and digging
them out of their nests. Of course they got stung, but they expected
that. They learned to distinguish three kinds of bumblebees-the
red-waisted bees, the yellow-banded ones, and the white- or
cream-banded ones. The first kind built on the ground, or in the
braces of barns, and from them the boys got masses of comb as big as
their fists. The cells of the comb are not hexagonal, like those of
honey bees, but round sacs stuck together. The yellow-banded often
took possession of a meadow mouse's nest. The vicious white-banded
ones chased the boys out of the meadow, settled in their hair, got up
their trouser legs, and gave John and Eden many a savage thrust for
their interference. The boys found swatters whittled out of shingles
helpful in their combats with the bees.
Once John succeeded in collecting two pounds of bumblebee honey. He
squeezed it out of the comb, securing a good-sized bottleful, a great
rarity. Hiding it in the attic away from the other boys, the
Honey-Gatherer tiptoed up there at rare intervals to taste sparingly
of the precious store.
HOEING BEANS
It was bad enough to hoe beans when they had to do it at home, but
when their father would send Curtis and John across lots to Noah
Woolheitzer's to hoe his beans, it was a chore that did not set well.
They never lingered over the job, and were at no great pains to do it
so well that their services would be sought again. Having ideas of
their own as to the propriety of their being impressed into old
Noah's service in that way, they adopted a unique method of hoeing
his beans: On coming to a fine-looking hill, regarding it long and
admiringly, they decided that that hill needed no hoeing; and on
coming to a poor-looking hill, they decided that that was not worth
the hoeingit would be a waste of time; and so, putting nearly all the
hills in one or the other, of these classes, they got along with very
little hoeing of beans, and were soon ready to go home, making
leisurely pauses along the trout brooks in the valley, chuckling,
while lingering there, as to how expeditiously they had hoed Noah's beans. |
Sugar making at Riverby |
SUGAR-MAKING
Maple sugar-making was a chore that was not a chore, but a joyous
pastime. April days were a delight to the Burroughs boys,
sugar-making atoned for all their hardships-it covered a multitude of
chores. Even the preparation for the work in the "bush" was
eagerly made with something of the zest the angler feels when, as the
trout season draws near, he gets out his tackle and sorts his hooks
and flies. The night before the tree-tapping the boys sharpened the
old basswood spiles and made some new ones, and bright and early in
the morning loaded the big sled with the hogsheads, kettles, pans and
spiles, Brock and Bright hauling them to the boiling place under the
maples. While Farmer Burroughs and Hiram cut the gashes in the trees
and drove in the spiles, Curtis, Eden, and John put the pans in place
on the sunny side of the trees, and soon were listening to the
musical dripping in the pans. The bees smell the sap and hover near;
sugarloving bugs settle on the spiles; squirrels come to sip it; the
cattle and sheep, unless watched, drink it eagerly, the silly sheep
being so fond of it, they will, unless prevented, drink enough to
kill themselves. Of course the boys take frequent toll as it sparkles
in the pans. Sometimes they find a little orangecoloured salamander
drowned in a bath of sap. |
The boys frisked about the old "bush," almost as madly as
did the calves in spring when let out into the barnyard. Everything
was a fresh delight: the blue smoke rising in the crisp air, Phoebe
announcing her name, Downy drumming his reveille to spring, squirrels
snickering, and robins laughing and running about like happy
children. John's cup of joy was filled to the brim; the pans were
filled to the brim, too, on the days when it was good sap weather
-when it froze at night and thawed by day, the contest between sun
and frost so nearly equal as to make a kind of see-saw -- the sun
seeming to draw the sap up, and the frost to draw it down.
The boys cut and gathered birch and beechwood for the fire, the sound
of their axes ringing through the woods; they built and tended the
fire, pushing up the burnt ends, and adding fresh logs from time to
time. Sometimes when John was absorbed watching the wild geese flying
northward, or a chipmunk frisking along the wall, he would be brought
back to the work in hand by hearing Hiram shout for a piece of salt
pork, whereupon he would make his legs " clappit " for the
house, returning soon with the pork which he would throw into the
foaming sap to keep it from boiling over.
Later in the afternoon they collected the sap, storing it in
hogsheads from which the supply in the cauldrons was replenished.
(Nowadays much quicker results are obtained by the more extended
evaporating surface of large, shallow, rectangular pans.)
The boys got so they knew the capacity of the whole two hundred trees
in the "bush," just as they knew the individual cows in
their father's herd. Some stood in little groups or couples. Some
climbed the hill, others strayed out in the sunny fields; a file of
six or more stood sentry to the woods above. Besides the rank and
file of the commoner trees, there were certain favourites. One of
these, at the head of the spring, lifted a gaunt bare arm above the
woods; it was a resting-place for hawks and crows, and in it, every
year, a flicker reared her brood. Then there were the Siamese twins
with their busby heads; and the two rough-coated brothers who stood
in the forks of the wood-road embracing each other; and there was the
old cream-pan tree which would run a cream-pan full while the others
would be running only an ordinary pan full. Next to this, the best
milcher in the lot was a shaggy, deformed tree on the edge of the
field, while the poorest milcher was a short-bodied, heavy-topped
tree near the run, which seldom gave more than a half gallon of sap
in a season, but that sap was four times as sweet as sap from the
other trees. |
A sap yoke |
The cream-pan tree is gone long ago, but for many years its bones lay
bleaching in the woods where they fell. Some of the old trees still
stand like faithful friends, yielding their life-blood for the
present generation, but at every visit to the old homestead in these
later years, the boy that used to be notes with sadness others that
have fallen, while the ranks are kept filled with many that his
boyhood never knew.
On the second day's boiling they had the fun of making
"jack-wax," or "lock-jaw": Boiling some of the
syrup down to a waxy consistency, and dipping it out with a big
spoon, they spread it on a pan of snow, and then the fun began! Armed
with whittled sticks, or forks, they lifted the golden wax from the
snow, twisted it round and round, and, on putting the toothsome gobs
in their mouths, found their jaws pretty effectually locked for
varying periods, depending on the size of the gobs.
A sap-run usually lasted about three days. The trees then had to be,
as it were, wound up again. It had to come off cold before the sap
would take a fresh start. |
One hundred and fifty pails a day was a good day's yield from the
Burroughs "sap-bush." Usually at the end of the second
day's boiling, they syruped off: Carefully dipping the concentrated
sweetness out into the pails, the men adjusted the sap-yokes, and,
very gingerly, carried the heavy syrup down to the house in the
gathering darkness, the boys going ahead with the lanterns. To
stumble and spill a pail of syrup would mean spilling fifty pails of
sap, and two pailfuls! -- but that is a calamity that never visited
any worker in the Old Home " sap-bush. " The women folks
strained the syrup while it was hot through an old home-spun sheet
into a firkin, the next day reducing much of it to sugar over the
fire, making it into cakes, but putting some in cans for immediate
use on their buckwheat cakes. From three hundred to five hundred
pounds was the average annual yield in the Burroughs "bush."
As the early bird catches the worm, so the early boy, boiling the
first run of sap, reaped the shining coins. |
When the sap first began to stir, before the buds swelled, or the
grass greened in the meadow hollows, John, needing funds of his own,
anticipated the general tapping in the bush, and gathered annually a
little harvest from scattered trees along the sunny borders of the
woods. The bees, knowing that the sap was mounting, were on hand for
the first run also, and boy and bees worked diligently.
Carrying the sap to the house, John boiled it down in a deep kettle
on the kitchen stove (for by that time the fireplace was not used
except as a place to pile stove-wood in) much to the annoyance of his
mother. Even when he did not let it boil over (which seldom
happened), it was a nuisance to have him pottering about. He took
great pains with it, reducing it about twelve times. After allowing
it to settle for half a day, clearing it by pouring in a little milk,
he ran it into small, greased, patty-pans, making little white cakes,
pure as wax, and with a delicacy of flavour that only sugar from the
first run can have.
Every spring when he appeared in the village with his little basket
of white sugar-cakes, his customers hailed him eagerly. No one else
made such white sugar, or got it to market so early. The money he
earned from this industry looked bigger than any he has ever had
since. One season he earned twelve silver quarters that way, and,
carrying them in his pockets for weeks, jingled them in the faces of
his envious schoolfellows, at intervals feasting his own eyes upon
them. With some of that money he bought a little double-barrelled
shot-gun. If the truth must be told it wasn't much of a gun-one
barrel was bigger than the other, and one was not straight; sometimes
it would go off, and sometimes it wouldn't, but it was a prized
possession just the same.
One spring Curtis, deciding to compete with John in his early
sugar-making, tapped some trees and proceeded to gather sap also.
John, preferring a monopoly, proposed after one day's run to buy him
out, so one morning offered him four cents for that day's sap.
Curtis, always weather-wise, quickly closed the deal; but alas! that
day the trees were on a strike; the sap wouldn't run. " It made
a big hole in my reserve," said John; "I almost suspended
specie payment."
One spring just after John had got his sugar made, a little
sweetheart from the village, his Lowland Mary, came up to the farm to
spend the day. He was very glad to have a sugar-cake to offer her,
and stood by in bashful delight as she devoured it, but when she did
not stop there, but ate more, and yet more, of his little cakes, he
looked on ruefully, fearing his entire store would thus disappear;
and he wanted that season's yield to bring him enough to 'buy an algebra!
What did the young Sap-gatherer of ten or twelve think and dream
about in those far-off years under the maples while tending the
kettles? Sometimes he beguiled the time by fancying himself going
forth into the world as a young man, and acquiring great wealth, then
returning to the old homestead in a splendid equipage, astonishing
family and friends by his style and liberality. As he stood before
the fire of the great arch and looked forth upon the homely familiar
scenes, he pictured the look on his mother's face, the comments of
his father, the envious glances of his school-fellows. We shall see
later on how his dreams turned out.
FISHING WITH GRANTHER
About the most fun in summer was when Granther Kelly would come over
the mountain from Red Kill to spend a few days. Some of these times
he went fishing alone, but generally took John with him; when they
saw him slip out into the garden without saying anything, taking
along the hoe to dig for worms, they knew he was going alone; but on
other days, when he said, "Johnny, get the bait," the lad
knew he was to go along. "We'll go and get a powerful string of
fish, Johnny," Granther would add, and the boy would hustle and
get the worms or the grasshoppers. Then, reaching down his
beech-pole, with creel slung on shoulder, Granther would start off,
the boy close at his heels. (Their fish-lines, home-made, were of
braided horse hair.)
How briskly the old man steps off! John has hard work to keep up with
him! If they take a piece of rye bread and butter in their pockets,
as a rule, John has his eaten long before he reaches the brook. They
were usually gone three or four hours and 'most always came back with
a "powerful" catch, and powerful appetites as well.
How coyly the old man throws in his hook! He knows just where the
trout hide. How nicely he measures the distance, how dexterously he
avoids the overhanging limbs!
" If the trout were not eager," John says, " Granther
humoured them by seeming to steal by them; if playful, he matched
their mood; if frank, he met them half-way. You see he baited his
hook with his heart, so the fish had to bite! "
Sometimes Granther was magnanimous and surrendered the rod to the lad
for a period all too brief, but fishing with Granther usually meant
just tagging along, letting Granther have the most of the fun. Still
he would not have missed it for anything.
The last time the two cronies went together, Granther was past
eighty, but spry as a cricket. They went down in the Hemlocks that
day and got a good catch. On the way back, stopping at a stone wall
to rest, the old man, without knowing it, sat on the boy's hand as it
lay on the top of the wall. It hurt, but John sat beside him
motionless until he was ready to get up and walk on.
When Granther no longer went with him John used to go alone. His
first solitary trouting was down in the Hemlocks, but he just went on
the edge of the deep, dark woods, dropping his line in the first pool
he came to, and standing where he could still look. back upon the
sunlit fields. He felt no desire to penetrate alone into the gloom
and mystery of those woods. The trout he took from that pool were big
and black, but the shadows beyond were still blacker. Little by
little, however, on each excursion, he pushed a little deeper into
the woods, so that, after a year or two, he not only penetrated them,
but also went on to the pastures and woods still farther away. Yet
the fishing he liked best was in the meadow brooks with the gay
buttercups and marsh marigolds around him, and bobolinks singing
overhead. That was where he fished when he could get only a few hours
off; when he had half a day, the Hemlocks was by far the favourite
stamping ground ; but on the rare real holidays, with a whole day at
his disposal, he went through meadows and pastures and beechen woods,
three or more miles from home, to Montgomery Hollow. If the trout
fever raged too fiercely, when no holidays were forthcoming, John was
forced to play hookey, the good "catch" he usually had so
pleasing his father that he escaped "catching it" on
reaching home. |
Planting a tree |
"Father was very fond of trout," he says nowadays, and when
they came on the table, always selected my biggest ones for himself.
Well, I'm glad he did, but I was not glad, then."He has always
had the true angler's ardour; could never possess his soul in
patience after getting within sight of the brook, but always had to
run the rest of the way; and until he could make a few casts and
perhaps get a fish or two, could never calm down enough to arrange
his tackle properly.
I once went fishing with him and his brother over in Montgomery
Hollow when both men were past threescore years. As we neared the
stream, Mr. Burroughs began to fidget:
"Isn't it about time to get out, Curtis?"
"Not yet, John, not yet." |
We drive on. Presently he suggests, more pointedly, "Curtis, I
think this would be a good place to stop." But Curtis thinks we
better drive on still further before going down to the stream, and
the eager angler is on pins and needles at the delay. Finally, asking
no more questions, nor standing upon the order of his going, he jumps
from the wagon and plunges down to the mountain stream as though
drawn there by a powerful magnet, as indeed he was. Well may he say
that trout streams gurgled around the roots of his ancestral tree.
"It looks as though I should never be too old to go
afishing," he said somewhat apologetically the summer of his
eighty-third year while eagerly getting his tackle ready for his June
trouting in the Neversink.
We drive on. Presently he suggests, more pointedly, "Curtis, I
think this would be a good place to stop." But Curtis thinks we
better drive on still further before going down to the stream, and
the eager angler is on pins and needles at the delay. Finally, asking
no more questions, nor standing upon the order of his going, he jumps
from the wagon and plunges down to the mountain stream as though
drawn there by a powerful magnet, as indeed he was. Well may he say
that trout streams gurgled around the roots of his ancestral tree.
"It looks as though I should never be too old to go
afishing," he said somewhat apologetically the summer of his
eighty-third year while eagerly getting his tackle ready for his June
trouting in the Neversink. |
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