Chapter Four
Uncle Orville set his gathering bucket on the bed of the sled and said, “That’s it, tank’s full. Now we haul it down to the sugarhouse. You can ride the rest of the way.”
Douglas and Scot started around to the back of the sled to the toolbox where there was room to stand, but Uncle Orville waved and said, “No, no, not there,” “You can ride Mike and Ike.”
The boys stared at each other, eyes wide. “Are you sure…” Scot said.
“…they won’t mind? How will we stay on?” Finished Douglas.
“You boys aren’t afraid of riding two gentle little horses now, are you?”
Douglas took Uncle Orville’s challenge. “Nope. Not at all.” He boldly walked up next to Ike. “How do I get on?”
Uncle Orville grabbed Douglas under the arms. “Just like this.” And swung him up onto Ike. The horse didn’t even seem notice that Douglas was sitting on his back.
Douglas had to sit sideways in the middle of Ike’s back because his legs weren’t long enough to straddle the horse’s back. The ground seemed to be a long way down and he swallowed hard trying not to think about sliding off and going under the huge feet.
Uncle Orville walked around the front of the team. “Come on over here, Scot. Mike’s got a place for you.”
Scot climbed over the sled and Uncle Orville tossed him up onto Mike’s back like he was a sack of flour. Uncle Orville walked back to stand on the front of the sled and he said, “All right now, you two hang on to the top of the hames on the horse collars.” Confused, the boys looked around at the maze of leather straps and bits of shiny metal on the horses. Seeing their blank looks, Uncle Orville said, “Those are the things that look like they have metal balls on ’em. Grab on, now. Ready? Here we go!”
Uncle Orville picked up the reins and slapped the flat leather on the rumps of the horses. “Hee up there, boys.” Under their thighs and hips, Douglas and Scot could feel the horse’s muscles bunch and strain to get the sled and heavy tank of sap moving.
They’d ridden only about ten minutes when Uncle Orville pointed and yelled, “There she is—the sugarhouse. Almost there now.”
The boys looked between the trees in the direction he was pointing and saw a rusty, metal roof of a building. Uncle Orville drove the horses in a circle around a small clump of trees and stopped. From the seats high on the horse’s backs, the boys could see a building at the bottom of a steep slope. One end was an open-sided shed full of wood that was almost as big as the sugarhouse. A v-shaped wooden trough ran down the hill through an opening in the wall.
Douglas dropped to the ground followed by Scot on the other side. Douglas said, “That’s a strange-looking building, Uncle Orville,”
“Why does it have another building on top?” Scot asked.
Uncle Orville was working around the tank. “That top building is a vent so the steam can get out once we get the evaporator going. This is the perfect spot for the sugarhouse. The sap runs downhill into the storage tank inside so we don’t have to unload it with buckets. It’s fast, too.” Uncle Orville picked up a section of wooden trough and connected it from the sled tank to the trough that led to the sugarhouse. “Help me get this set up and then you can go down to the sugarhouse and help Aunt Thelma get the evaporator fired.”
Uncle Orville put one end of the trough under the valve on the side of the collecting tank and connected the other end to the trough leading into the sugarhouse. “We built the sugarhouse down there so emptying the collecting tank would be easy. I just have to open ’er up and let it run. Also, the creek’s right there so we have water to clean up with.” He opened the valve and the sap rushed down the trough. “You boys go on down while I empty this.”
Scot and Douglas walked to the edge of the bank and tried to climb down the slope. It was too steep and they ended up sliding and coming to stop next to the sugarhouse. Aunt Thelma grabbed their hands and pulled them to their feet. She grinned and pointed. “You know there’s a path right over there, but I guess sliding down the hill works, too.”
Douglas got to his feet and brushed snow off his pants. “More fun, too. What do you want us to do?”
“Come on inside and I’ll show you everything.” She led the way into the sugarhouse.
Douglas and Scot looked around inside the sugarhouse. Although it was a bright day, the interior was dim because the building was in the shadow of the bank. In one corner sat a wood burning cook stove. Next to it were tables, benches and shelving.
In the middle of the room was the strangest contraption they had ever seen. There was as brick base that was about ten feet long and four feet wide. A pair of metal doors were on one end and at the other was a chimney through the roof. Two metal pans were on top of the brick base. The pan nearest the chimney was divided into three sections and the front pan was divided into four. A pipe from the storage tank ran to the back pan near the chimney.
Aunt Thelma said, “This is the evaporator we use to boil off the water and get maple syrup. Come on over here and I’ll explain how it works.” She went to the back of the evaporator near the chimney and pointed at the pipe running in from the storage tank.
“Sap runs in here through this float valve and runs around the pans between the dividers.”
She opened the valve and sap flowed in following the path between the dividers. When both pans had about a few inches of sap in them, the float on the valve rose and shut off the flow.
“Now we’re ready to start the fire. As the sap boils, the water evaporates so the level in the pan goes down. Then the valve opens and more sap runs in. The new sap pushes the thicker, boiled sap toward the front over the fire where it’s hottest. As the water boils off, the sap slowly changes to syrup and we draw it off here on the front pan.”
She walked to the front of the evaporator and opened the doors. “This is called the arch and it’s where we build the fire. Hand me more wood from the pile and I’ll finish making up the fire.”
Scot and Douglas spent a few minutes passing wood from hand to hand and giving it to Aunt Thelma who stacked it in the firebox.
“That’ll do.” She stood up and brushed her hands off. “The boys should be here anytime. Jamie had to do all the chores this morning since Uncle Orville and I are up here. He said he’d bring the twins on his horse when he was done. Maybe that’s what’s taking so long.” She stopped loading wood into the arch and listened. “Wait a minute, I think I hear them coming. Why don’t you go outside and wait for them?”
Outside, Douglas and Scot could hear a commotion behind the ridge above the sugarhouse. A dog barking and the sound of several small boys’ voices yelling got steadily louder. Finally, a horse walked over the ridge and down the path to the sugarhouse carrying three boys riding bareback. A huge black dog leaped around the horse, barking in a deep rough voice.
The boy riding in front guiding the horse was about their age while the boys behind him were much younger. They were yelling at the black dog keeping him excited and barking.
The older boy stopped the horse in front of the door. On his face was a look of painful resignation as he held the arms of each small boy to ease him down to the ground.
Aunt Thelma smiled and waved at the two little boys. “Scot, Douglas, these are the twins, Ron and Russ.”
And they were twins, identical down to the same constellations of freckles sprinkled across the bridges of their noses. Together, they waved a shy greeting.
The older boy slid off the horse and stood behind the twins.
“This is your cousin Jamie. You probably don’t remember him much since it’s been so long since you’ve been here.”
Jamie reached over the heads of the twins, stuck out his hand, and grabbed each of theirs in turn. He shook hands as if Douglas and Scot’s arms were pump handles and he was trying to get water out of dry well. “Hi, Scot. Hi, Douglas. Wanna play checkers?”
Aunt Thelma laughed and shook her head. “Later, Jamie. We have a lot of work to do before you’ll have time to play games. I’ve got to get the arch lit and the sap boiling.”
“Oh, all right,” Then he frowned pointing at his younger twin brothers. “I wish I didn’t have to carry Ron and Russ around all the time.”
“I understand, but your horse is the only way you three can get up here.”
“You have your own horse?” asked Douglas.
“Yeah, sure. That’s how I get to school. Only this year I had to start taking the twins, because they started first grade. Checkers is big enough for the three of us for a few years anyway. How do you guys get to school?”
“We take the bus.”
Jamie smiled. “Oh, I forgot you have buses in the city. Probably wouldn’t have a place to keep a horse.”
Douglas said, “That’s for sure. It’d be impossible to find a place to keep a horse at our school. What do you do with him when you get to school?”
“Her. Checker’s a mare. Didn’t you notice?”
Scot said, “Uh… no, I guess we weren’t paying attention because of all the barking.”
“Yeah, Bear sure can make a lot of noise. That’s the name of Russ and Ron’s dog—Bear. I think he’s big enough that they could ride him to school. Anyway, everybody puts their horses in a small barn next to the schoolhouse. At recesses, we go out and check on ’em. Then we ride home.” Jamie took the reins of his horse. “I’ll be right back. I have to put Checkers in the stable behind the sugar house.”
Jamie led his horse away and Scot leaned close to Douglas and said in a low voice, “Watch what you say. We’re in 1932, remember. They don’t have electricity, or TV, or anything like that so Jamie won’t know what we’re talking about.”
“Oh yeah. That’s right, I forgot.” In a louder voice Douglas asked, “Hey, Ron, Russ, did you know Douglas and I are twins, too?”
The twins looked at the boys and backed up a few steps, talking to each other in low voices.
Scot asked, “What’s wrong? Haven’t you seen other twins before?”
Russ said, “Mama told us…”
“…not to tell fibs,” Ron finished.
Scot was startled. “I’m not fibbing…”
“…we are twins,” Douglas finished.
Ron pointed at them. “Well, hows come you don’t look alike?”
Scot laughed. “Well, there are two kinds of twins. Some are identical like you guys and some aren’t, like us.”
Russ wasn’t sure and he asked, “That true, Mama?”
Aunt Thelma, said, “It is. Not all twins look alike.”
The twins smiled, “Okay, if mama says so,” said Russ.
“People can tell you apart that way,” said Ron. “Lots of people can’t tell us apart.”
Aunt Thelma interrupted, “Come on boys, let’s get to work. Start carrying wood in. I’m going to light the fire and then you can play games until the sap starts to boil. Jamie you know what to do. Show Scot and Douglas.”
Following Jamie’s directions, the boys carried wood from the shed into the sugarhouse until there was only enough room to walk around the end of the evaporator. Aunt Thelma lit the fire in the evaporator and when the burning wood started to crackle and snap, she said, “Okay, we have time before the sap boils so you boys can play games.”
Jamie clapped his hands together. “All right. Let’s play checkers. The games are over here.” He pulled down a box, opened the checkerboard and started arranging the red and black pieces. “Pull up a bench. Who wants to start?”
Douglas sat down. “I will, but I get to move first.”
Douglas discovered that moving first didn’t help a bit and he lost to Jamie in about twenty moves. Jamie jumped four of his men at once to end the game.
“Scot, you’re next,” Jamie said, gleefully rubbing his hands together.
Scot’s game did go any better. While Ron and Russ romped with Bear in the snow, Douglas and Scot each lost six games in a row to Jamie.
Aunt Thelma came to their rescue. “That’s enough for now, Jamie. You boys carry in more wood and then play something else so your brothers can play, too. How about Parcheesi?”
Jamie reluctantly collected the checkers. “Oh, all right. But there’s no skill in that game. It’s all luck.”
Aunt Thelma laughed. “You’re right and luck is involved but it does require some strategy. Anyway, you’re just saying that because you can’t win every game the way you do playing checkers.”
Jamie put the game away and then while they hauled wood from the woodshed and stacked it by the firebox, Douglas asked, “How did you get so good at checkers?”
Jamie grinned. “It’s my favorite game. After I get my homework done, I play almost every night. I’ve been the school champion for two years running.”
“You have checker contests at school?”
“Oh, sure. But this year Judy Sturtz almost beat me. She’s been practicing with her uncle who won the championship at the county fair last summer. What kind of games do you like to play?”
Douglas said, “Well, we play video games a lot.” Scot jabbed him in the ribs.
Jamie looked perplexed. “Vid-ee-oh games? What kind of games are those.”
Scot glared at his brother who had a sheepish look on his face. “Uh… well, those are games that you have to have electricity to play.”
Jamie said, “No wonder I never heard of ‘em. Dad says we might get electricity up here in a few years.”
“Sometimes we get movies,” Douglas said, which earned him another jab from Scot.
Jamie sighed. “It must be nice to watch movies whenever you want. In summer, we go to town on weekends and watch movies in the back of the general store. My favorites are westerns with Tom Mix. Trouble is the movies don’t have sound because the projector’s too old. Wouldn’t it be great to hear people talking and Tom Mix shooting his gun?”
Scot grinned. “It is. We’ve seen some. But imagine if they were in color. It’d be like you were right in the movie.” This time, Douglas jabbed Scot in the ribs.
“Wow,” Jamie said. “That’d be amazing. Think that’ll ever happen?”
“You never know,” Scot said. “Let’s play Parcheesi. You’ll have to explain the rules though. We’ve never played it.”
“Okay.” He explained how to play as he set up the board.