Nine

            I guess that kind of gave me enough for a while.  It seemed bees always did quiet me down for a little while. 

            Anyways, the summer went by with the regular farm work and my rifle.  I always had that with me when I went out to the pasture after the cows in the evening to bring them in at milking time.  I got good enough so I could get quite a few groundhogs while they were running for their holes.  I never had any one to teach me about the gun.  When Father gave it to me he showed me how to sight with it and to never point it at anyone.  From then on I was on my own.  I guess that’s what made me become a pretty good shot in years to come.

            I was getting big enough so one day Father told me to take hold of the other end of the crescent saw, told me not to push, just to pull it my way and he’d pull it his way.  But I found out pretty quick just to pull it my way was hard work and I couldn’t do it very long but he took it easy and didn’t squeeze down on it.  It took me two or three years before I became a pretty fare partner on a crescent saw but we had to do it as it was the only way we had to cut trees down and cut them small enough so the horses could drag them to where we had the big saw set up.  Today it’s called a circular saw.  When we got it there we had to cut it small enough so we could lift it up on the saw table to cut it into stove lengths.  Then it had to all be split and put into the wood shed in the fall before it snowed.  Then all winter I had to help carry it into the kitchen and living room to the stoves then carry the ashes out.  Boy it was work all the way but back in those days it was the only way anyone knew, so it was, do it or freeze.

            We always cut quite a bit more then we needed as Father sold some during the fall and winter.  This farm had a lot of maple trees and we put up a lot of wood at the sugar house too.  Some days, if the weather was right the sap would run so much we had to keep the fire going right on through the night.  Mother would come to the sugar house and help a lot of the time but the sugaring season comes only once a year and lasted only a short time so we had to get what we could while it lasted.  I used to make a lot of taffy on snow when the syrup was down just right then we kept some to boil on down so we had maple sugar most of the summer, hot cakes and eggs or some kind of meat was always breakfast on most all of the farms but the maple sugar was good any time.

I used to like it on oatmeal.  We used to stir it until it went into sugar and made some into cakes like we do fudge today.  It was good and a lot better then most of the maple things the stores sell.  It was the pure thing and nothing added.  All the food on the farm was good.