"Thrue for you, Masther Joe; but your own cattle would have the
first chance. Why should I risk my life and limbs, by cutting down
the tree, when it was yerself that threw it so awkwardly over the
other?"
"Oh, but you are a boy, and have no wife and children to depend upon
you for bread," said Joe, gravely. "We are both family men. Don't
you see that 'tis your duty to cut down the tree?"
The lad swung the axe to and fro in his hand, eyeing Joe and the
tree alternately; but the natural kind-heartedness of the creature,
and his reckless courage, overcame all idea of self-preservation,
and raising aloft his slender but muscular arm, he cried out,
"If it's a life that must be sacrificed, why not mine as well as
another? Here goes! and the Lord have mercy on my sinful sowl!"
The tree fell, and, contrary to their expectations, without any
injury to John. The knowing Yankee burst into a loud laugh. "Well,
if you arn't a tarnation soft fool, I never saw one."
"What do you mane?" exclaimed John, his dark eyes flashing fire.
"If 'tis to insult me for doing that which neither of you dared to
do, you had better not thry that same. You have just seen the
strength of my spirit. You had better not thry again the strength
of my arm, or, may be, you and the tree would chance to share the
same fate;" and, shouldering his axe, the boy strode down the hill,
to get scolded by me for his foolhardiness.
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.
