“Grandma,” said Alice the next evening, “you said you’d tell us how the sugar got in the Easter egg.”
“And so I will,” answered Grandma. “I’ll tell you about that this very evening. Where’s my knitting? I can talk so much better when I knit. There now, are you all ready?”
Bobby and Alice and Pink drew their stools closer and Grandma began:
“On my father’s farm, about half a mile from our house, was a grove of maple trees. We always called them sugar trees. In the spring, you know, the sweet juice or sap comes up from the roots into the trees, and it is from this sap that maple sirup and sugar are made. In the spring Father and the boys would tap our sugar trees. They would take elder branches and make spouts by removing the pithy centers. Then they would bore holes in the trees and put the spouts in the holes and place buckets underneath to catch the sap. These buckets would have to be emptied several times a day into the big brass kettle, where it was boiled down into sirup and sugar.
“Truman tended to the sap buckets and kept a supply of firewood on hand, and Stanley watched the boiling of the sap. He knew just when it was thick enough and sweet enough to take off for sirup and how much longer to cook it for sugar. One of the girls was always there to help, and Father or Mother would oversee it all.
“There was a one-roomed log cabin with a great fireplace in the maple grove. It had been built years and years before by some early settler and was never occupied except during sugar-making time. The girls would go up the week before and clean it out, and Mother would send dishes and bedclothes for the two rough beds built against the wall. The ones making and tending the sirup would camp up there.
“Mother would send butter and bread and pies, and the girls would boil meat or beans in a black iron pot that hung over the fire. In the evenings they would have lots of fun sitting in front of the fire, telling stories and popping corn. Sister Aggie could make the best popcorn balls that were put together with maple sirup. They would often have visitors, too, neighboring boys and girls who would come in to stay until bedtime. And there would be songs and games.
“And they would make the sugar eggs for Easter. Before sugar time came we would blow the contents out of eggs by making little holes in each end. Then we would dry the shells and put them away. When they were taking off the maple sugar, Mother or Belle or Aggie would fill the egg shells and set them aside for the sugar to cool and harden. They would fill goose-egg shells with the maple sugar, too, and when the sugar hardened they would pick the shell off, and by and by the girls would paste pretty pictures of birds or flowers on them and tie them with gay-colored ribbons for Easter.
“Neither Charlie nor I had ever been allowed to stay all night at the sugar camp, and when Mother said we could stay one night with Stanley and Truman and Belle we were wild with joy.
“Truman had shot and cleaned three squirrels that morning, and Belle cooked them in the big black pot with a piece of fat pork until the water boiled off and they sizzled and browned in the bottom of the pot. We had little flat corn cakes baked on the hearth and maple sirup, and, my, but that supper tasted good to me!
“I dried the dishes for Belle, and we had just settled down for the evening when one of the Strang boys came in. He didn’t know we children were there, and he had come up to see if Stanley and Truman and Belle would go home with him to a little frolic. His sister Esther had been married a few days before and had come home that afternoon, and they were going to have a serenade for them. Belle and the boys wanted Charlie and me to go down to the house so they could go, but we wouldn’t do it. We declared we were not afraid to stay by ourselves and told them to go on. Finally they did.
“Charlie and I didn’t mind being left alone at all. We thought it was great fun. For a while we played we were pioneers. Then Charlie got tired of that and wanted to play Indian, so we played Indian for a long time. But we had been out all day in the cold, and after a while we got sleepy and decided to go to bed. I went to the window to see if Belle and the boys were coming. There was a moon, and I could see the trees with their spouts and the buckets under them. I looked closely. At one of the buckets was a black shadow. I looked and looked at it and just then it moved a little.
“‘Charlie,’ I cried excitedly, ‘Brierly’s old black dog is out there drinking up our sap!’
“Charlie gave one hurried glance out the window, then he picked up a stick of firewood and opened the door.
“‘I bet I give that dog a good scare,’ he said, and rushed out the door and made straight for the black shadow. He raised the stick and brought it down ker-plunk on the back of what we thought was Brierly’s dog. But it wasn’t Brierly’s dog at all, nor anybody’s dog. It was a bear! I don’t know which was the most surprised, Charlie or the bear. Charlie darted back to the cabin, and when he reached the door he threw his stick with all his might and hit the bear on the nose. The nose is the bear’s tenderest point, you know. Charlie must have hurt him, for he gave a growl, backed away from the sap bucket, and scampered up the nearest tree. Maybe he meant to wait a while and come back for more sap, I don’t know. Anyway, up the tree he stayed while Charlie and I watched him through the window.
Up the tree the bear stayed while Charlie and I watched him
“‘If we could only keep him up the tree till the boys come home from Strangs’ one of them could get a gun and kill him,’ said Charlie, ‘and we’d get the money for his pelt.’
“‘Father says wolves won’t come near a fire,’ I remarked, and that gave Charlie an idea. He would build a fire and keep the bear treed until the boys came.
“At first I wouldn’t agree to help him. I was too afraid. But Charlie coaxed and threatened and was getting ready to do it himself. So I helped him carry out the first burning log from the fireplace in the cabin. After that my part was to watch the bear and warn Charlie if he moved while Charlie built up the fire. Once as the fire grew warmer and the smoke got thicker and thicker the bear snorted and moved to a limb higher up.
“Charlie kept a roaring fire going, and it wasn’t long until Belle and the boys came rushing up all out of breath from running. They were nearly scared to death because they had seen the smoke and thought the cabin was on fire.
“At first they wouldn’t believe we had a bear treed. Truman said, ‘Whoever heard of a bear climbing a tree like that?’ But Stanley said nobody knew what a bear might do, and Charlie said that there was the bear all right, they could see for themselves.
“Truman went home and got his gun and shot the bear. It turned out to be a young bear. Father sold the pelt and divided the money between Charlie and me.
“Now, let me see, what shall I tell you about tomorrow night? Oh, I know! I’ve thought of something, but I won’t tell. No, indeed, not a word till tomorrow night.”