March 1.—This has been a great winter for signs in the sky. We have had halos around both sun and moon, and both parhelia and paraselenae. (I looked those up in the dictionary. If I had not I would have called them sun-dogs and moon-dogs, but there is nothing like being scientific and correct.) I always understood that such things were signs of storms, but this year they did not seem to work right. We would have these exhibitions, and there would be no noticeable change in the weather.

In all the illustrations of these things that I have examined the straight lines that combine with the circles always run parallel to the horizon or at right angles to it. But one day a couple of weeks ago there was a halo around the sun that had a bright tangent line that was inclined towards the horizon at an angle of forty-five degrees. This moves me to say to the scientists, as my boys say to me: "Now, why was that?" Of ordinary sun-dogs at both sides of the sun and even above and below it we had many, sometimes with halos and sometimes without. Though I have often seen halos around the moon, this winter is the first time I have seen moon-dogs. They are the same as those around the sun, only fainter and without colour. Sometimes the sun would go down with a straight line reaching up from it like the tail of a comet. I am told that all these manifestations are due to ice crystals in the upper air, and I have no doubt there were plenty of them this year. But I should really like to know if that slanting line was good form. The books give no pictures of such lines, and say nothing about them.

To-day the boys and I took a walk to see how the wild things are wintering and were disappointed to find no trace of the quail. There is one corner where there are weeds and briars that seemed to be their favourite shelter and feeding ground, but there was not a track to be seen. On making inquiries I find no one has seen them or any trace of them since the blizzard a couple of weeks ago. Before that there were two flocks on the farm, one of nine birds and one of sixteen. As they had brush-heaps in which to find shelter I thought they would come through the winter all right, but the deep drifts must have buried them somewhere. We used to be able to find their tracks at any time we looked for them and often we would flush the birds themselves. But though the quail have disappeared the mice do not seem to have been affected. Their tracks are everywhere, and in the edge of the woodlot we found a dead mole that had evidently found its way to the surface, only to be overcome by the cold. We saw one black squirrel that dodged around a big maple until we divided into two parties and went yelling around the tree in opposite ways. Then it jumped into a hole. While crossing a field we found an unaccountable track. It was merely a long straight line in the snow such as a boy makes with the whip when driving in a cutter. But there were no tracks beside it. We decided to investigate and after following the line about fifty yards came to a spot where an owl or hawk had stopped to tear up a rabbit. It had evidently been flying low with it, so that it dragged in the snow. We then followed the line in the opposite direction, where we found in the top of a corn-shock the form in which the rabbit had been sitting when captured. It must have been there for some time, for there were no rabbit tracks, though it was two days since the snow had fallen. Its enemy had swooped down on it and lifted it out of the form, but found it too heavy to carry to a tree, so stopped and had its meal on the snow.

Although it is over two weeks since Mr. Clement was here to show me how to prune the orchard, there have been only two days when it was possible to work at the trees. Zero weather with high winds makes tree climbing about the coldest job that a man can tackle. Still there are twenty thoughtfully pruned and carefully scraped trees awaiting his inspection. If the weather moderates a little we shall soon be able to finish the job, for we seem to have got the hang of it. But though I feel sure that I have followed his instructions as I understood them, I am worrying about it just as a schoolboy does about his homework. I want him to come and look them over and say whether they are right. It will soon be time for him to come again and do the first spraying, but everything depends on the weather. This winter seems to be in for making records of all kinds and there is no telling when it will be through with its tricks. But as soon as it gives me a chance I shall finish the pruning and await my fate. If he says that I did not do the work right I shall have to own up to it, and I hate to do that just as much as any one else.

March 4.—Having just read eighteen pioneer biographies and several pioneer novels of the approved kind, in which everything ends happily, and the hero goes into the ministry in the last chapter, I am tempted to-day to invite everybody to go back over fifty years with me and see what an old-fashioned spring in the woods was like. There is nothing to keep us here, anyway. Outside there is an east wind blowing. The day began with sleet and is ending with slush, and the drive to the post office was anything but a "joy-ride."

The impression I have gathered from the stories I have been reading is that a late spring in the old days was a real hardship. It meant more than a delay in getting in crops and spoiling the chances for a money-making harvest. The great question with the settlers during the first few years was not money, but food. A late spring meant, time and again, that they were forced to eat their seed grain and seed potatoes in order to preserve life. I have just read about one pioneer, and not one of the unthrifty kind either, who was forced to dig up the potatoes after they were planted in order to feed his family. In spite of all this, one of his sons is now an eminent doctor and another a banker. When spring came to the woods there might be a few people who were glad to see the flowers, but there were more whose first search was for leeks, cow-cabbage, nettles, and other pot-herbs. Many had to live for months during the winter on potatoes. Those who could afford pork and oatmeal were already on the high-road to prosperity, and to many wheat bread was a luxury. The more I read and learn about pioneer life the more I am forced to the conclusion that much of the courage shown was the courage of despair. Having moved into the wilderness and built their log huts, there was absolutely nothing for them to do but to maintain life by every possible means. Many of the settlers were scores of miles from any place that could make a pretence to civilisation. Even if they struggled out, what could they hope for without money? The hospitality of civilisation soon wears thin to the penniless, and, even if they were too proud to confess failure, they would soon find that it was better to depend on the sometimes niggardly bounty of nature than on the bounty of fellow-men whose condition was but little better than their own. When men and women had to depend on the spring for food, as well as for warmth and opportunity, they had some reason to be despondent if she lingered a little longer than usual in the lap of winter.

When the spring finally came the settler was in many cases a prisoner on the patch of high ground which he had started to clear. It was not until government drains had been put through that there was much thought of clearing the low ground. If any of this low ground was cleared it was left under grass, the native redtop. For at least a month every spring it would be flooded most of the time, but I have been told that this flooding fertilised the ground, and that the hay crops were more wonderful than anything we see to-day. Even though the snow might melt during winter thaws, the water remained in the swamps, and when the spring "breaking-up" really began the country became a series of islands. I know of one place not a mile from here where there is now a good gravel road that is passable at any time of the year. Fifty years ago people who had to pass that way were forced to use a raft for about three-quarters of a mile during the spring floods. That was on a public road, of course, and was a great improvement on the blazed trails through the woods which most people had to use. A pretty custom of those days was to have a pole wherever the trail crossed a creek or water-hole. The foot passenger was supposed to take this and vault over the water. No wonder vaulting with a pole used to be one of the popular sports on the Queen's Birthday and at the Fall Fair. Though the girls did not take part in the public exhibitions, I am assured that in the depths of the forest they often showed themselves just as expert as their brothers. Careful people when going on a journey of any length through the woods in the springtime took with them a strong, slender pole that they could use for balancing themselves when making their way through the swamps on fallen logs or to vault with when necessary. Another favourite way of crossing the old creeks was on logs, and as it was seldom that any one took the trouble to flatten them, considerable skill was needed by those who attempted a passage. And that reminds me of a story. One spring many years ago two young men were paying court to the same girl. Both had to cross the creek that wound before her home, and one of them had a bright idea. As soon as it was dark he hurried to the creek, carrying a pail of soft soap. Straddling the log, he worked his way backwards across and spread the slippery soap lavishly on the little bridge over which his rival was to follow. He then washed his hands and went to the house to press his suit. About an hour later he was quietly gratified to hear a loud splash in the swollen stream. This put so much courage in him that he pleaded his cause with complete success. Some time about midnight he tore himself away from his future bride and was so exultingly happy that he forgot all about the soaped log. There is no need telling you what happened.

Another thing that made the old-time late spring a disaster was the need of clearing the land. It was during the winter that most of the chopping was done, and in the spring the brush and log heaps had to be burned off before any crop could be put in among the stumps. If the spring was late it was often hard to get the seed in the ground early enough.

About the only relaxation of those spring days when settlers were imprisoned on their islands was that of yelling. The young fellows, when they started out to "browse" their cattle in the morning, would let out a lusty whoop just to tell their neighbours that they were alive. Others would answer them, and the "Good-morning" yell would pass through a settlement in much the same way that cock-crowing does now. You know how that goes if you ever happen to be awake early enough. First you hear a faint crowing away to the east. A few seconds later you hear it a little nearer, and almost before you realise what is going on your own pet Leghorns are hard at it. Then the crowing comes from the nearest barnyard to the west, and presently the noise dies away faintly in that direction. Possibly the cocks are telling one another that all is well, just as the settlers did.

What was perhaps the greatest hardship of all was mentioned in only one of the pioneer stories I have been reading. Possibly the reason why nothing was said about homesickness was that, while these stern people felt it, they considered it a weakness to be ashamed of. Yet homesickness is a very real sickness with a fine Latin name—nostalgia—and only a short time ago I read about American soldiers in the Philippines dying from it. The other day a young English emigrant in Toronto was so homesick that he stole a bicycle so that he might be deported. His case was one for a doctor rather than for a magistrate, but in the old days there was no deportation. If there had been some of those husky first settlers would have stolen the governor's mansion if necessary so as to get home. When conditions were at their worst in the old days in Ontario even a cave-dweller would have got homesick, but we who were born here know nothing of this, and it is just as well. Now let us get back to our own late spring and be thankful. Still I don't want any more people telling me that this is nothing to springs they have known, and that they wouldn't be a bit surprised if we had another month of wintry weather. As the old proverb puts it: "Beware the fury of a patient man."

March 5.—More than once when coming in with an armful of wood that was cut and split just to keep the fire going, I have heard the remark: "If we ever get a year's wood cut, split, and piled, I shall have a photographer come and make a picture of it." So when word came that the buzz-saw men would be in the neighbourhood in a few days I felt a longing to see one of these pictures myself. I felt that it would be a great joy to take the bucksaw and axe and put them away in some safe place and then forget where I had put them. For almost a year we had been preparing spasmodically for a day with the buzz-saw. All the tops and little trees that we bought last winter had been cut and most of them had been hauled to a knoll in the woods and piled. But there was still a full day's work to do at hauling up the larger logs and skidding them in a heap. Having in my mind's eye a picture of that year's wood neatly piled and of an axe and bucksaw losing the brightness that comes from constant use, I agreed cheerfully to help at the skidding. Although the snow was a trifle deep, it was an ideal day for such work. The logs slipped over the ground as if they were greased and the air was too frosty for the snow to melt on your clothes. The woods protected us from the wind that whirled the snow in ghostly drifts across the fields and the work was hard enough to keep us comfortably warm. But before "snaking" up the logs we had to provide ourselves with handspikes, and that showed me how thoroughly the cattle have been destroying the forests. There was not a sapling to be found that was small enough to make a handspike. Every seedling that had sprouted in the past forty years had been nibbled down by the cows and sheep that had been allowed to run in the woods. We had to make handspikes from the straightest limbs we could find. They were not like the blue beeches and ironwoods of earlier days, but they served our needs. The logs were not very big, anyway, and a two-inch handspike made from a maple limb can stand all the muscle I have to spare for heavy work.

Skidding up logs is not what you would call steady work. It is spasmodic, and it is the spasms that catch a fellow. While we were laying the first tier it was comparatively easy. It was no particular trick to pry loose the logs so that we could get chainhold, and most of my time was spent in walking from the pile to the scattered logs, with the handspike over my shoulder. I felt quite primitive, and thought I was getting a better appreciation of what it meant to be a pioneer. But the second tier made a difference. The logs had to be rolled up on skids, and that meant some moments of heavy lifting, pushing, and heaving with the handspikes. No matter how skilful a man may be at "soldiering" and at taking the little end of the log and doing the grunting while the other man takes the big end and does the lifting, there are bound to be times when he will have to put out every ounce of his strength to keep about a ton of maple from falling back on top of him. After one of those strenuous moments I suddenly remembered a triumphant phrase of cunningly wrought coarseness that described the effort I had put forth with a vigour and accuracy far beyond the possibilities of the vocabulary I am now using. I had heard it long ago from a moss-backed ruffian who had been lifting one of the old horsepowers they once used with thrashing machines. It was a phrase of more than Elizabethan frankness, but somehow it did not seem so bad out in the woods in connection with fierce physical action. Its robust humour could have been conceived only by an imaginative pioneer who knew hard work in all its phases, but, though everything connected with the pioneers is of interest to me, I am afraid I must allow that phrase to pass into oblivion. Still it had its value, for it reminded me of the fact that there were men among the makers of Canada whose mental attitude would be more thoroughly appreciated by Burns than by Longfellow. Clearing the land was not a pink tea affair, and it is not surprising that some of the rough diamonds who did the work described it with brutal frankness.

The supreme moment of the day came after we had heaved a big, cranky, bowed log into its place at the top of the pile. A couple of times it almost slipped back, but by heaving and straining we made it go up. When it was in its place and we stopped, panting and breathless, I could see stars in every direction. My brain was absolutely vacant—every thought and idea crushed out of it, just as you might squeeze water out of a sponge. While the other man drove away to get another log I sat down to recover myself. Then came the flush of exaltation that always comes to every one when something has been accomplished. I was strangely in accord with the world of effort in which we are living. Not thinking, but accepting all things, for one great moment I was exalted above the struggle. Somehow the things that I often rage against seemed intelligible and part of one great plan that is working out for the good of all. It was

Thinking it over afterwards, I understood what Thoreau meant when he wrote:

But it was some time before definite thoughts came back to me. Almost unconsciously I began noting my surroundings as part of a great picture or mood that I would wish to remember. I saw the grey sky and the snowflakes sifting down between me and the trees. I noticed a woodpecker busy on a lichened trunk and heard the distant clamour of cattle.

In spite of the momentary physical exhaustion the feeling experienced was one of joyousness—a joyousness that comes to all men who accomplish a task, however humble. It was probably such moments that Bergson had in mind when he wrote:

"We seek efficiency, or, perhaps, it would be truer to say that we seek the immediate product of efficiency, which is joy. Joy is not pleasure, but the satisfaction of creation. Making money gives pleasure, no doubt, to the artist; his joy, however, comes only from seeing the picture grow under his brush, from feeling that he is bringing something new into the world. It is this joy which, in some form or other, man always seeks."

Man always seeks joy, and he can find it when skidding logs as easily as when painting a picture, and the effort in one case is as noble as in the other. Joy is always evanescent, but I clung to my moment as long as I could.

And then, and then I had to come back to the earth and tackle another log. But what does it matter? All things are in the day's work just the same, whether it be heaving on a handspike or doing paragraphs that are wickedly designed—to parody Shelley:

In the everyday world where we drudge joylessly most of the time everything seems to be at sixes and sevens, and we could hardly endure it were it not for the moments when something jars us out of ourselves into accord with the great purpose of all things. And I firmly believe that every being that draws the breath of life has such moments, though he may not know how to give them expression. It is in such moments that we feel that all men are free and equal. The joy of the ditcher who accomplishes his task supremely well is the same as that of the millionaire who puts through a successful deal, or of the artist or poet. It is nonsense to say that all the poetry of the world has been written. Every moment of joy is a living poem, and such moments come to all of us somehow, some time.

March 7.—When the quail came right up to the door I might have known that something good was going to happen. It was during the cold spell—the lion spell—in the beginning of March. Everything was buried under snow and at seven o'clock in the morning the thermometer had touched ten degrees below zero. I was doing the chores at the stable when I heard the quail whistling in the orchard and fully intended going to have a look at them, to see how they were wintering. I had not set out feed for them for, alas, there are enough weeds on the place and in the neighbourhood to feed them fat. But to resume. When I had finished the chores and was starting towards the house I struck the tracks of the quail, looking like a picture of loosely strung barbed wire on the snow. To my surprise I found that they were headed straight for the house. In growing amazement I followed them until they passed around the corner of the house and then I saw the marks of their wings on the snow where they had taken flight, within ten feet of the front door. I felt really disappointed when I found that they had paid me a visit and I had not been at home. I do not know of many from whom I would have so thoroughly enjoyed a little call. No one in the house had noticed them, but judging from the excitement of Sheppy, the dog, he must have seen them and perhaps had something to do with their flight. He kept running about nosing their tracks and barking. It made me feel that I am being accepted in the country, now that the quail are so friendly. They are very careful about their neighbours and it is not every one they are willing to chum with.

On the very next morning after the visit of the quail spring came. The temperature rose fifty degrees in a few hours, a warm wind drove from the south, and almost before we could realise what was happening the snow was a memory. The crows had taken possession of the woods and the sky and were talking crow politics till you couldn't hear yourself think. A couple of song sparrows fluttered around the orchard, but it was too early for them to begin singing. The first thing we knew winter was under foot, beaten to earth by the wind and the sun. Only in the frost under the soft mud was there any trace of it. Then some one said: "I'll bet the sap is running to-day." After a conference in which the prospects of this kind of weather lasting were fully discussed we got the brace and bit and the spiles and began to rinse the sap-buckets. Then we went to the woods and started to tap in earnest. Before the bit could be withdrawn from the first hole the sap was already trickling down the bark. There was no doubt of it! Sap was running! With the help of a little boy who was just tall enough to reach up and hang the buckets on the spiles we went at the work with a will and soon the "tink-tunk" of the falling drops could be heard in every direction. The grave little helper picked what he called "a big fat tree" for his very own so that he can have plenty of hot syrup and taffy. As we are making maple syrup strictly for our own use we tapped only fifty trees. Wood is so scarce that it makes maple syrup an expensive luxury and the current price would not pay for the fuel used, not to mention the labour and the investment in buckets and the boiling kettle. But, at the present writing, as they say on the editorial page, we have twenty pails of sap gathered, and bright and early to-morrow we are going to boil in. The sap was gathered in the twilight with a new moon, a little moon, shedding its blessing on us, and to-night it is freezing a little. It is perfect sugar-weather!

I simply will not write spring poetry! Nature may tempt me as much as she likes, but I will not yield! Never before did I have so much trouble keeping from this world-worn form of folly. It is simply hissing at the safety valve, but I am keeping a firm grip on myself. The flicker of the sunshine on the roofs and fences, the far blue of the sky, the twittering of the birds, the cackling of the hens, the bawling of the cattle, the barking of the dogs, and the echoes that make the woods alive, all conspire to start my thoughts jigging and my words tinkling in rhyme. But I will not give in! I know, I feel that the world is flooded with the life impulse, with the "elan vital" of Bergson, but I have set my teeth and refuse to give in. The big, wise, absurd world laughs at spring poets and what I am enjoying these days is too good to be laughed at. I know that the life stirring in the innumerable roots of the grass and the myriad seeds and the swelling buds is the same life that is flushing me with joy, but I shall be silent at any cost. These favourites of Nature will expand in beauty and be living poems and no one will laugh at them. As I reach out and touch them with my finger tips I seem to feel the fire of life in them and my pulses beat to a new rhyme. And oh, it would be so easy to relieve my soul with a little lyric. A catchy refrain begins to beat in my head:

No, I will not crow either! The world is full of people who are enjoying this spring glamour as much as I am and they are keeping quiet about it. I wonder if poetry should be written at all. Perhaps it should be lived and enjoyed. Who knows but the poet is simply a leaky vessel spilling out in words the lyrical fire that was meant to warm his heart and keep his pulses attune for the struggle of life. I seem to remember that Walt Whitman asserted somewhere that he had in himself all poems and all books. Who knows but that is true of all of us? And the wise people keep the poetry of life for their own use, knowing that all men have the same poetry in their souls if they will only relax themselves enough to enjoy it. In those beautiful spring days I feel sure that all my fellows of the world are moved with the same poetic urge that is thrilling me with its beauty. Why should I bother them with attempts to put in words what they already have in their hearts?

March 8.—With fuel so dear and maple syrup so cheap sugar-making is about the most peculiar job a man can get at. The harder you work the more money you lose. It involves the whole problem of the producer and consumer, and if you try to think it out you are likely to get as fatally twisted as the man who was kicked down a spiral staircase. I didn't try to think it out, but as I have a sweet tooth and all the members of the family have sweet teeth I decided to make sugar—in moderation. Fifty trees are not likely to give enough sap to make more syrup than one family will need in a year and the work of boiling in will not be too hard for one leisurely man. Besides, the dead limbs that have fallen from the trees in the past year will furnish enough fuel. Taking sugar-making in this way it resolves itself into a kind of holiday in the woods and I am strong on holidays. My favourite saint is St. Kavin for

When a barrelful of sap had been gathered I took the new boiling pan to the woods and prepared to enjoy myself. Now, don't interrupt to tell me that I should have an up-to-date evaporator and all that sort of thing. I know it would make the work easier and more scientific, but the initial cost would be too great. A sheet-iron pan made by the tinsmith is more within my range, and if it leaks at every rivet-hole to begin with, that is my affair. I can cure that by using furnace cement and by boiling some oatmeal in the pan before beginning with the sap. I also know that I should have an arch instead of a trench cut through a cradle-knoll for the fire, for I have read all the advertisements of the best appliances for making maple sugar, but a man must cut his coat according to his cloth, and even if my temper had "Fourteen rattles and a button on it" before I got that sieve of a pan working right I am not going to tell about it. No one heard the remarks I made except the birds and I shall take a chance on a bird of the air reporting the matter.

When I finally got the pan caulked and the sap boiling briskly the world began to look brighter. Practically all the birds had come back over night. Killdeers and meadow-larks were calling, song-sparrows and horned larks were singing, bluebirds were flashing past and shedding music, and the crows, blackbirds, jays, and robins were gossiping everywhere. A south wind was blowing just enough to make a good draught under the pan and the sun was looking down on everything "Fur's I cud look or listen" and finding it good. Now, most people, when their work is going right and they are feeling happy, begin to whistle. I do not. Trained musicians have told me in confidence that my whistling sounds "like a hog in a high wind" and I have long since given up the practice—by request. My favourite relaxation is to let a few lines of poetry begin drumming in my head. I let that inward voice which puts all our thoughts in shape for us sing or chant the poetry for me over and over until I have tasted all its sweetness. On the particular day I have in mind the poem that thrust itself on me was one of Poe's:

But try as I would I could not recall the next two lines of the stanza. After repeating these two lines indefinitely, while my eyes and ears were taking in all that was going on about me in nature, I skipped to the next stanza which I could remember:

But Poe is not the poet for the open air and the woods. His gloomy imaginings began to overshadow the day:

As quickly as possible I shook off the spell of his haunting word magic. There have been times when I have given myself up to his morbid brooding, for like Vance Thompson I have

But he did not belong in the open sunshine. I had to seek another companion.

In the intervals of gathering brush for the fire and pouring sap into the steaming pan—which still leaked here and there, drat it!—I began to hunt for a poet companion to help me pass the time—not to improve the time, mark you, but to make it pass pleasantly. Naturally I thought of Shakespeare for he is supposed to fit everywhere, but I guess the wrong quotations came to me. Every quotation had a moral tagged to it—sermons in stones, books in the running brooks, etc. Under a roof Shakespeare can be uproariously humorous, wise, witty, sublime, but in the open air he seems to moralise everything "into a thousand similes," to be constantly gathering "honey from the weed" and making "a moral of the devil himself." I would have none of him. Whitman proved equally difficult. I could not attend to my work and at the same time "loaf and invite my soul." Neither could I chum with him in his more cosmical moods. To do that I would have to spurn the earth away with my toe and look at things from "the outer dark."

But what would happen to the boiling syrup while I was taking such flights? It would be scorched and burned beyond a doubt. Moreover, I like to keep my feet on the earth—in good Canadian mud—even when indulging the wildest flights of imagination. I would have none of Whitman, even if he is the poet of outdoors. So one by one I tested many poets and rejected them all. They demanded too much.

After all, do the poets amount to so very much? Out in the woods I do not feel that they do. At their best they merely give us a point of view and a mood so that we can see and feel things as they did. But we all have moods and points of view of our own. Why shouldn't we use our own? You will soon find that every point of view overlooks as wonderful a world as any other. And you will find that your own moods attract the thoughts that belong to them as a magnet attracts steel filings. What if they are not the thoughts that you have seen in books? They are better, for they are your own. And that reminds me that we are inclined to make too much of books and even of thoughts. Books are all right to hold facts until we need them, just as a tool-chest holds tools. And thoughts are dangerous, whether they be our own or the thoughts of others, unless we keep them under control. Do you not remember Shelley's picture of one who

On this perfect afternoon I did not want to be harried by thoughts, by my own or those of other men. I wanted to let the great sunshine and the earth smells, the sounds of wind and wing, and the homely farm and woodland sights—spreading about me as far as the horizon—seep into my soul through my senses, so that on some future day of storms and sorrow I could recall it entire and regain something of its peace. Is it not wonderful how in this way the things of the material world are constantly entering our minds through our senses, while the things of the inner and immaterial world are constantly passing out into the material world through our words and actions? Our observations and our thoughts are forever being woven into a wonderful tapestry of life and we are a part of the pattern. As I realise that I seem to see the spirit that answered:

And so the afternoon passed, with the poets and without them, with thoughts and without them, until the sun went down in gold and amber and my work was done. With the urge of spring in my heart and a strange music in my brain I bore home my spoils, feeling that the day had not been wasted.

March 11.—"Now what on earth kind of mess are you making?"

Wasn't that a cheering remark to fling at a man who was having his crowded hour! When it startled and irritated me, I was busy being a pioneer of science, a prose poet, and the patient head of a family, all at the same time. Some people have their crowded hour of glorious life. That is the kind that poets sing about. Mine, as you will notice, was a crowded hour of simple life, and what it was worth will be set down hereinafter with humble truthfulness.

"Do you think that other people have nothing to do but wash saucepans for you to muss up? What do you think you are doing, anyway?"

The phrases of prose-poetry evaporated. The importance of the scientific discovery dwindled, and the dignified attitude necessary to the head of a family was seriously threatened.

"I'm just trying an experiment," I replied in guarded tones that covered a volcano of peevishness. My crowded hour had come during the sugar weather. There had been a cold snap that froze the sap in the buckets and hung icicles from the spiles. I had wandered disconsolately through the bush to investigate the frosty situation, when suddenly I remembered a treat that had been the delight of my youth. Unhooking a bucket, I tilted it over, until the ice-cake loosened, and then a spoonful of clear, thick syrup slipped over the rim into my waiting lips. M-m-mmm, but it did taste good, and right there the idea occurred to me that caused all the trouble.

It was evident that the real sweetness of maple sap did not freeze at the same temperature as water. Now, the whole process of sugar-making consists of removing the water from the sap. This is done by ordinary, prosaic people by boiling it down until all the water has evaporated. Not good enough for me. I would do something unique, characteristic of the north, Canadian, wonderful! (You will notice that the prose-poetry began with the inception of the idea.) If the first freezing removed so much of the water, why couldn't it all be removed by successive freezings—purified in the alembics of frost—perfected in Nature's wind-swept laboratory. Sounds good to me. Here goes:

With me, like Richard, to think is to act. Taking a pail, I went from tree to tree, unhooked bucket after bucket, and secured a grudging spoonful from each. The temperature was ten degrees below freezing, a north wind was blowing as if it had a search warrant, snow was drifting, and long before I had visited all of the hundred trees we had tapped, my fingers were numb. But what of that? Would it not be something to make the Canadian climate perfect the most delicious of all Canadian products? Not even the realms of poetry could furnish anything to equal it. Keats' "Syrops tinct with cinnamon" would be insipid by comparison, and Shakespeare's "Poppies and mandragora, and all the drowsy syrops of the world" but a high-sounding phrase. Cheered by such thoughts as these I kept on, in the words of Katherine Hale:

—and also with chattering teeth. An hour of frostbitten industry yielded about a quart of crude syrup, and without waiting to remove my ear-muffs, I raided the kitchen for saucepans. I was simply bubbling over with quotations of poetry, scientific enthusiasm, and phrases in the process of coining. And it was while in this tumultuous mood I was interrupted with the question recorded above. Was ever a man so interrupted?

"What kind of an experiment are you trying?" persisted the unsympathetic inquisitor.

"I am going to make maple syrup by a new process. I shall refine it by cold, instead of heat."

"What good will that do?"

"What good, woman? What good did it do Peary to go to the North Pole? I'll bet Mrs. Galvani stood around and asked just such fool questions when Galvani was making frogs' legs twitch with electricity. What good did that do! huh! It opened the way for all the modern developments of electricity. If it hadn't been for Galvani making frogs' legs twitch, we wouldn't have any Hydro-Electric Power scheme and you wouldn't be able to gossip with your neighbours over the telephone. Just you wait till I have pipe lines carrying the sap from every sugar bush to the Arctic regions, and am refining maple syrup for the whole world by the zero process. You won't ask me then, 'What's the use?' No, indeed! You will just stand 'round wearing diamonds and remarking that you don't see anything very wonderful about it all. Any one might have thought of it. It only happened that I thought of it first."

It will be a draught for Juno when she banquets. It will be a liqueur to be quaffed at the close of the feast from long-stemmed glasses of Venetian artistry. In each there shall be a flake of gold-leaf, beaten from the precious ores of Yukon or Larder Lake. This shall make it give its colour aright, and those who quaff——

"Well, of all the fool notions——" commented another observer.

It was thus, no doubt, that the people of Syracuse joshed Archimedes when he was fussing with the first lever, and making fool remarks about how he could move the world. Yet see what the lever has done for humanity. One after another the grown-ups about the place investigated what was going on, sniffed superior, and went in to warm themselves by the kitchen fire.

Surely this would be the opportunity of a lifetime. A description of frost-refined syrup could be made as eloquent as Ingersoll on whiskey, or Voorhees on the dog. Br-r-r—but it's cold! As the ice formed in the saucepans the thickening syrup was drained off with tender care, but not until the children came from school did I receive any sympathy. As they had no preconceived notions, it seemed quite logical and wonderful to them that syrup should be refined in this way. They forgot their cold fingers and toes in the kindling of their imaginations.

"We'll get a refrigerator to make our syrup with, won't we, father? That'll be better than an evaporator, won't it?"

"Certainly."

When in need of sympathy, go to the young! They are the only ones whose eyes can see the promised land. Moses was right in his dealings with the Israelites. He led them around through the wilderness until the older generation had died off. The older generation has been made up of doubters and knockers since the beginning of time. They all come from Missouri.

By this time it was so cold that the muse went on strike. For the last time the syrup was drained off from the ice, and with the children at my heels, I went into the house to enjoy my triumph. Since the truth must be told, this was a time when those who sat in the seats of the scornful were right. My frost-refined syrup was a sickishly sweet, colourless fluid of no distinction. In all probability it was not true maple syrup at all, but what the scientists call maple honey, a substance derived from maple sap, and which will not crystallise. Still, the Crowded Hour was not in vain. It enabled me to learn at first hand just what the pioneers of progress must have suffered when perfecting their inventions. It was a mere detail that my invention was no good.

March 15.—It is a great day, an expansive day, a large day. The first thing that impressed me about it was its size. I know it is not customary to describe a day in terms of space, but there seems to be no way out of it. This is not a day of the kind that can be enjoyed in a house, or a field, or even within the rim of the horizon. It reaches up to the great neighbourly sun, and spreads as wide as the imagination. It is a day that overwhelms me, but, on thinking it over, I have found the key to its mystery. When I got up this morning it was the sun that first fixed my attention. It came bustling over the horizon with the air of one about to start spring house-cleaning. It awakened the south wind, plucked the myriad icy fingers from the little rivulets and flooded the world with light and warmth. But it is hardly exact to speak of the sun as house-cleaning. It is really building a new home and using only the foundations and framework of the old. It is upholstering the hills, decorating the woods, and refurnishing the fields. In a few days it will recarpet the earth and tack down the green breadths with brass-headed dandelions. When that work is done we can get down to a consideration of the buds and flowers and birds and the exquisite little things of spring. To-day the invitation is to have an outing with the universe. Only the sun and his work are worth considering.

On a day like this it is hard to believe that the sun is ninety million miles away. Why, it is just up there in the sky, and is busy at our feet and all around us. I do not thank the astronomers for teaching me that it is so distant. I would much rather have the point of view of the Prince of Morocco, who protested:

All through the winter the sun may have been as far away as learned men say, but to-day it is visiting with us. It is at work in the back yard and in the front yard and in the fields and woods. It is making the warm wind blow and the sweet sap flow, and making us all so happy that we drop into rhyme without noticing. But one cannot do justice to such a day as this even while sitting on a log in the sugar-bush and writing in the intervals of firing-up under the pan. To enjoy and describe it aright he should be able, in imagination, to sit on a mountain with his feet in a pleasant valley and his head aureoled with smoky haze. He should be conscious only of the kindly sun and of its footstool, the earth. His singing robes should be woven of golden sunshine, and—and—I guess I had better leave that sort of thing to the poets and put a few more sticks under the pan.

March 21.—Yesterday we began to cut the big maple into stove wood. The work was undertaken in a leisurely and proper way, and not with a view of piling up a record. This made it possible to take an interest in the tree as well as in the work, and there was much to repay observation. The tree stood over thirty inches on the stump, and, according to the rings of growth, must have been over one hundred and thirty years old; but the crosscut saw was in good condition, and as no one was in a hurry the work was not killing enough to be amusing. The butt of the tree was hollow and partly filled with the kind of rotten wood or punk that, I am told, was once used for tinder in the days of flint and steel.

After a couple of cuts had been dropped off, the hollow gave place to punk that was honeycombed with wormholes. The next cut brought to view a colony of winged ants, and in my ignorance of entomology I supposed that they were responsible for the catacombs in which they lived. They were all torpid when brought to light by the splitting of the block, but they soon came to life in the sunshine and began crawling about. The next cut explained the mystery of the tunnels in which the ants lived, for it revealed a colony of boring worms. They had evidently done the carpentering for the ants, who had merely cleared up after them and taken possession, from which it appears that "Old Grub, time out o' mind the fairies' coachmaker," is also the house-builder for the winged ants. The next cut carried us beyond the grubs into solid wood that was as sound as a bone. As the trunk at this point was still two feet in thickness, and was as straight as a lead pencil for over fifty feet, a council was held, and it was decided that, with good maple flooring at present prices, it would be a shame to devote such a tree to stove wood. After arriving at this decision we went to the top and resumed work. We started to saw just below the hole into which I had so often seen the black squirrels disappear. The cut revealed a hollow of about a foot in diameter and four feet in length that was worthy of a special study in itself. In the bottom there was about two feet of rich brown mould that had evidently been formed by the rotting of leaves that had been carried in for squirrel nests for many years. There was a nest of dry leaves that had evidently been in use during the past winter, and, as the entrance was so small, all the leaves that had gone to making the deposit of mould must have been carried in by the squirrels, who had probably been occupying this retreat for fifty years or more. What interested me most was the cleanness of the walls of the upper part of the hollow. I was assured that this could only have been done by bees that had occupied it at one time. The fact that there was no old comb or any other trace of these inhabitants was explained by the fondness of mice for wax. It is said that when a colony of bees dies out the mice very quickly clear away every trace of honey and comb. It was certainly an ideal hive for wild bees, and the only wonder is that some of the swarms that escaped last summer did not make a home in it.

The breaking-up of the mould brought to light a number of unexpected inhabitants in the shape of ordinary white grubs and wire-worms. They were likewise torpid, and waiting in cold storage for the return of spring. I also found some blue-bottle flies and a couple of very active black spiders that had evidently been living over fifty feet above the ground. Altogether, with its squirrels, ants, grubs, bugs, flies, and spiders, the big maple had been something of a world in itself.

While I was looking at the splendid trunk and wondering mildly whether it would be used to floor the chancel of a church or a profane dancing-hall, I suddenly recalled a delightful fable in blank verse that was written about fifteen years ago by Mr. John Lewis of The Star. It was never published, and I have lost my copy, but, fortunately, I can remember enough of it to show what a gem it was. He fabled, in good, workman-like verse, of a reporter who had been assigned to report many banquets until he loathed after-dinner speeches from the depth of his soul. At last, in desperation, he prayed that the gods would change him into a tree and place him in a forest, far from the haunts of men. The gods were kind and changed him into "a tree—a large deciduous tree." The transformed reporter, in his new-found happiness,

But the period of contentment did not last long. A lumber-man who was at work in the woods saw the big tree and, calling his workmen, they cut it down, hauled it to a sawmill, and ripped it into planks. Then it was seasoned and made into a great table that was placed in a banqueting hall, and the poor reporter

Speaking of banquets, I happened to look towards the butt of the tree and found that two spotted woodpeckers and a couple of sapsuckers were having the feast of their lives on the ants and grubs that had been routed out of their homes by our work. They were so busy and hungry that they let me approach to within a few yards of them without flying away. As I remember it, the chickadees used to be the first to a feast of this kind, but there was none in sight. As a matter of fact, I have not seen a chickadee this year, though they are not migrating birds. I am afraid that the woods are no longer dense enough for these busy, impudent little fellows. Other birds are quite plentiful, however. Every dead limb that can serve as a sounding-board now has its bachelor or widower woodpecker or highholder rattling out his love call until you would think that a sky-scraper was in course of erection in the woodlot, with the pneumatic riveters hard at work. At least two flocks of quail have wintered safely on this farm, and they must be mating now, for every morning they can be heard whistling "Bob White" from every point of the compass. Unless we have a wet summer, the place should be overrun with them next fall. The blue jays are not squawking as much as they were during the winter, so it is probable that they are also nesting, but the blackbirds and crows are still in flocks. A couple of weeks ago the nest of a horned lark with four eggs in it was found in the snow, but it was apparently deserted owing to the unusually cold weather.

This morning the hawks were circling over the old nest, and I am afraid that I shall once more have the unpleasant task of breaking up their housekeeping. For three years I have shot up their nest during the breeding season, but still they will not desert the old homestead. They must have been there for years, for the nest is now a huge pile of sticks about four feet in diameter, in the top of the tallest and most slippery beech tree within miles. As the owner does not live on the farm and has no young chickens to be destroyed, he does not want a valuable tree cut down, and the nest is so high that no one thinks of climbing to it and pulling it down.

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