Page 11 - A Hero of Ticonderoga

he felt a closer friendship than had warmed his heart for many a year.

Though it was March, winter lacked many days of being spent in this
latitude, and, during their continuance, Seth was busy with his axe,

widening the clearing with slow, persistent inroads upon the surrounding
forest, and piling the huge log heaps for next spring’s burning. Nathan gave
a willing and helpful hand to the piling of the brush, and took practical

lessons in that accomplishment so necessary to the pioneer--the
woodsman’s craft. Within doors his mother, with little Martha for her

companion, plied cards and spinning-wheel, with the frugal store of wool
and flax brought from the old home. So their busy hands kept loneliness at
bay, even amid the dreariness of the wintry wilderness.

At last the south wind blew with a tempered breath. Hitherto unseen stumps

appeared above the settling snow, the gray haze of woods purpled with a
tinge of spring, and the caw of returning crows pleased their ears, tired of
the winter’s silence.

Seth tapped the huge old maples with a gouge, and the sap, dripping from

spouts of sumac wood, was caught in rough-hewn troughs. From these it
was carried in buckets on a neck-yoke to the boiling place, an open-fronted
shanty. Before it the big potash kettle was hung on a tree trunk, so balanced

on a stump that it could be swung over or off the fire at will. Sugaring
brought pleasure as well as hard labor to Nathan. There were quiet hours

spent in the shanty with his father, with little to do but mend the fire and
watch the boiling sap walloping and frothing, half hidden beneath the
clouds of steam that filled the woods with sweet odor.

Sometimes Job joined them and told of his lonely scouts in the Ranger

service, and of bush fights with Indians and their French allies, and of
encounters with wild beasts, tales made more impressive in their relation by
the loneliness of the campfire, with the circle of wild lights and shadows

leaping around it in the edge of the surrounding darkness, out of which
came, perhaps from far away, the howl of a wolf or the nearer hoot of the

great horned owl.