Sweetgum

“ The Swamp Gum grows to the largest size of any of this family in Van Diemen's Land. Its growth is nearly twice as rapid as that of the Blue Gum: the annular layers are sometimes very large; but the bark, and the whole tree indeed, is so like the Blue Gum, as not to be easily distinguished from it in outward appearance. It grows best in moist places, which may probably have given rise to its name. Some extraordinary dimensions have been recorded of trees of this species. ”

“ The Ojibwe garner their sugar crop much the same way as they did years ago, except that they have used large iron kettles since the coming of the white man. The sugar camps are rather permanent affairs, and the framework of the boiling house with its upright poles around the fire place to hold the kettles is left intact. A bark-covered wigwam is used to store the tools of sugar sap gathering, and granulation. Most of the sap vessels and storage vessels are made of birch bark, sewed with boiled basswood fiber or the core of the Jack Pine root. ”

“ I can do nothing with the parasol."
"And what do you hope to do with the rose-leaves? How can a florist help you in finding this young woman by means of them?"
"He may be able to say from what kind of a rose they fell, and once I know that, I may succeed in discovering the particular store from which the bouquet was sold to this more or less conspicuous couple."
"You may. I am not the man to throw cold water on any one's schemes. Every man has his own methods, and till they are proved valueless I say nothing."
Young Sweetwater, who was now all nerve, enthusiasm, and hope, bowed. ”

“ Jim drawled. "Some people's laughin' has made me ashamed, and some has made me walk with a limp, and some has made me fightin' mad. When little Skeezucks starts it off—I reckon it's goin' to make me a boy again, goin' in swimmin' and eatin' bread-and-molasses."
For the next few days, however, Jim and the others were content to see the signs of returning baby strength that came to little Skeezucks. That the clearing away of the leaden clouds, and the coming of beauty and sunshine, pure and dazzling, had a magical effect upon the tiny chap, as well as on themselves, the men were all convinced. ”

“ It grows only in the swamps and wetter situations (see Fig. 11) , often in mixture with cypress, and in the rainy season it stands in from two to twenty feet of water.
40. Black Gum (Nyssa sylvatica) (Sour Gum) . Black gum is not cut to much extent, owing to its less abundant supply and poorer quality, but is used for repair work on wagons, for boxes, crates, wagon hubs, rollers, bowls, woodenware, and for cattle yokes and other purposes which require a strong, non-splitting wood. ”

“ It is easy to find this out by melting a sample before the fire and putting it away to cool, when the humbug appears by the grease going up, and the water, perhaps turbid with whey, settling below.
Honey is humbugged with sugar or molasses. Sugar is not often sanded as the old stories have it. Fine white sugar is sometimes floured pretty well; and brown sugar is sometimes made of a portion of good sugar with a cheaper kind mixed in. ”

“ But by-and-by you huddled close in the twisted sheets and talked low beneath the edge of the coverlet, so that no one heard you—not even the Gummy-gum, who spent his nights on the back stairs.
"Does the Gummy-gum eat little folks while they're asleep?" asked Lizbeth, with a precautionary snuggle-up.
"No; 'cause the Gummy-gum is afraid of the little black gnomes what live in the pillows." ”

“ Immovable, and in silence, Job is concealed behind a Syringa hedge or in a Lilac ambush, and as you stroll peacefully and unwittingly down the paths, sniffing the honeyed sweetness of the dense edging of Sweet Alyssum, all is as balmy as the blossoms. But stoop for an instant, to gather some leaves of Sweet Basil or Sweet Brier, or to collect a dozen seed-pods of that specially delicate Sweet Pea, and lo! [Pg 397] the enemy is upon you, like a fierce whirlwind. ”

“ She dazzles me, bewitches me, makes me all but lose my head. And then I look at my chum, the girl I've known all my life, and I think—well, sugar is all right, but you can't get on without salt—and pepper—and ginger—and——"
"Jimps!" In spite of herself Georgiana was laughing infectiously, and Stuart joined her. "How absolutely ridiculous! I sound like a whole spice box, and nothing but the 'bitey' spices at that."
"That's what you are," declared James Stuart contentedly. "And when I'm with you I have no hankering after sugar. Mustard plasters for me; they're warming." ”

“ The quick, almost deprecatory glance he darted at George betrayed his dismay; a dismay which George had begun to share, notwithstanding his growing belief that the man’s face was not wholly unknown to him even if he could not recognise it as the one he had seen outside the Clermont.
“You seem to have forgotten your errand,” came in quiet, if not good-natured, sarcasm from their patiently waiting host.
“It’s the room,” muttered Sweetwater, with an attempt at his old-time ease which was not as fully successful as usual. “What an all-fired genius you must be. ”

“ To an ordinary observer the trunk of the spruce tree seems like any other tree trunk—no rougher, and perhaps somewhat smoother than many; but Tom now found that on every tree almost there were little round excrescences, which, on being picked at with the knife, came off readily, and proved to be gum. Vast quantities of a substance which goes by the name of spruce gum are manufactured and sold; but the pure gum is a very different article, having a rich, balsamic odor, and a delicate yet delicious flavor ”

“ XXV IN EXTREMITY Sweetwater's one thought as he sank was, "Now Mr. Sutherland need fear me no longer."
But the instinct of life is strong in every heart, and when he found himself breathing the air again he threw out his arms wildly and grasped a spar. ”

“ Chewing-gum is rapidly advancing in price, and the demand is far beyond the supply. The call for gum is co-extensive with the onward move of education. They may be said to go hand in hand. Wherever institutions of learning are found, there you will see the tall, graceful form of the chewing-gum tree rising toward heaven with its branches extending toward all humanity.
Here, in Wyoming, we could easily propagate this plant. It is hardy and don't seem to care whether winter lingers in the lap of spring or not. ”

“ Slighted love makes some hearts venomous. Could this ungainly fellow have once loved and been disdained by this bewitching piece of unreliability?
It was a very possible assumption, though Sweetwater's blush was the only answer he gave to her question, which nevertheless had amply served its turn.
To fill the gap caused by his silence, Mr. Sutherland made an effort and addressed her himself.
"Your conduct," said he, "has not been that of a strictly honourable person. Why did you fail to give the alarm when you re-entered my house after being witness to this double tragedy?" ”

“ Thus, on our farm and in the surrounding bush, although these are distinctly not gum-lands, there are little patches of ground, of a few acres in extent, whence we have got a ton or two of gum at times.
It is worthy of remark that the fresh resin of the living trees is not of any commercial value. Great masses of gum are often found in forks and clefts of the trees, and about the roots ”

“ She’d no more taste a magnum bonum, before it is all titivated up with sugar, than—than—than—”
“Babie’s head with brain sauce,” gravely put in Bobus, as his cousin paused for a comparison. “It’s a wasting of good gifts to make jam of these, for jam is nothing but a vehicle for sugar.”
“Then the grocer’s cart is jam,” promptly retorted Armine, “for I saw a sugarloaf come in one yesterday.”
“Come on, then,” cried Jock, ripe for the mischief; “I know the tree! They are just like long apricots. Aunt Ellen will think her plums have been all a-growing!” ”

“ It was not so bad as he had expected it to be and the crowd roared at the expression on his face.
"Ye're a man for yourself now, lad," said a woodsman clapping him on the shoulder. "Come boys, another round to Hartigan's health."
It could not be said of Jim that he was normal in anything. In a rare and multiplied degree he had inherited the full muscling and robust heart of his folk in both lines of forbears. It was a great inheritance, but it carried its own penalty. The big animal physique holds a craving for strong drink. ”

“ Then these men come to the tree and look up and see where the bees' nest is; so they climb up with their axe and cut a hole and get out the honey.
They take that honey and are very pleased, but a little of it they leave for Segu as his share.
On these people going away, Segu comes out and finds the honey which they have left him; so [Pg 110] he sits and eats and fills himself, and arises and flies away. This is, indeed, Segu's manner of living.
Another day Segu sees a lion asleep, and he looks for people, and when he finds them he twitters and says, "Che! che! che! che!" ”

“ They were introduced as Susie and Rachie and Ellie. Their other name was Stowe. This much being soon made known, the three regarded their rights to the house, to little Skeezucks, and to Tintoretto as established. They secured the pup by two of his paws and his tail, and, with him thus in hand, employed him to assist in surrounding tiny Skeezucks, whom they promptly kissed and adopted.
"Girls," said the father, mildly, "don't be rude."
"They're all right," drawled Jim, in a new sort of pleasure. "There are some kinds of rudeness a whole lot nicer than politeness." ”

“ She was a self-contained woman, this wife of a master mechanic in one of the great shops hard by; but her jaw fell at this, and she forgot to chide or resist her child when he began to pull her towards the open kitchen door.
Sweetwater, sensitive to the least change in the human face, prayed that the husband might be detained, if only for five minutes longer, while he, Sweetwater, worked this promising mine.
“You were looking out,” he ventured. “And you did see that horse and cutter. What luck! It may save a man’s life.” ”

“ The growth of the young eucalypt affords some points of strange interest. There is the rapidity of growth of the three species which have been best tried, and which certainly will figure largely as the world's future timber-trees: E. globulus, the blue-gum; E. gigantea, the stringy-bark; and E. amygdalina, the messmate, or peppermint-tree. The one best known in experiments at acclimatizing is the blue-gum. We have followed its growth from seeds planted by ourselves. ”

“ He was sure that he read the evidences of struggle in her slowly working lips and changing impulses.
“So, so!” thought he. “The good seed has found its little corner of soil. I’ll leave it to take root and sprout. Perhaps the coroner will profit by it. If not, I’ve a way of coaxing tender plants which should bring this one to fruit. We’ll see.”
The moon shone that night, much to Sweetwater’s discomforture. As he moved about the stable-yard, he momentarily expected to see the window of the alcove thrown up and to hear Mr. Cumberland’s voice raised in loud command for him to quit the premises. ”

“ From that moment I loved her, though I knew this interposition in my behalf sprang from her womanly instinct rather than from the spontaneous impulse of a freshly awakened heart. I must have shown how deeply I was moved, for the coroner looked distressed, though he gave no signs of modifying his intention, and I was beginning to empty my pockets before his eyes, when Sweetwater's expressive countenance showed a sudden change, and he rushed again to the rear. Here he stood a moment before the dining-room door, striking his forehead in wrathful indecision ”

“ A peep under the lid of the sugar-bowl has shown me that there is another poem ready for the company. That receptacle is looked upon with an almost tremulous excitement by more than one of The Teacups. The two Annexes turn towards the mystic urn as if the lots which were to determine their destiny were shut up in it. Number Five, quieter, and not betraying more curiosity than belongs to the sex at all ages, glances at the sugarbowl now and then; looking so like a clairvoyant, that sometimes I cannot help thinking she must be one. ”

“ His quiet was like the slow dropping of tears.
“No, Jim. There is the joy of loving. You know that.”
“You are more piteous than I, Eppie. You, you, to sue to such a man. He is the negation of everything you mean. To live with him would be like fighting for breath. If you marry him,—if you bring him to it,—he’ll suffocate you.”
“No, Jim,” she repeated,—and now, looking up, he saw in those beloved eyes the deep wells of solemn joy,—“I am the stronger.”
“In fighting, yes, perhaps. Not in every-day, passive life. He’ll kill you.” ”

“ Sweetwater found some sort of a reply, though the thing which this man now did must have startled him, as it certainly did George. They were so grouped that a table quite full of anomalous objects stood at the back of their host, and consequently quite beyond their own reach. As Sweetwater began to speak, he whom he had addressed by the name of Dunn, drew a pistol from his breast pocket and laid it down barrel towards them on this table top. Then he looked up courteously enough, and listened till Sweetwater was done. A very handsome man, but one not to be trifled with in the slightest degree. ”

“ He carried a bunch of bamboo tubes at his belt, and when he reached the top of the smooth stem began letting down bamboo cups, fastening one at the base of each leaf-stalk to collect the sap.
Everywhere in Java we saw them collecting the sap of the true sugar-palm and the toddy-palm, that bear such gorgeous spathes of blossoms; but it is only in this region of Middle Java that sugar is made from the cocoa-palm. Each tree yields daily about two quarts of sap that reduce to three or four ounces of sugar. ”