TAMARACK BLUE
23
And hoarded it against some secret need;
And slattern she was,—a juiceless crone, more drab
To contemplate than venison long-cured
By the slow smoke of burning maple logs—
And quite as pungent with the wilderness.
What with the fight to draw the sap of life
From grudging soil, in sun and wind and snow,
Twenty-one years of Indian widowhood
Will parch a soul and weather any hide
To the texture of a withered russet apple:
A moon of hauling sap in the sugar-bush,
Of boiling maple-syrup; a moon for netting
Whitefish and smoking them upon the racks;
Two moons among the berries, plums, and cherries;
A moon in the cranberry bog; another moon
For harvesting the wild-rice in the ponds;
Odd days for trailing moose and jerking meat;
And then the snow—and trap-lines to be strung
Among the hills for twenty swampy miles,
For minks and martens, otters, beavers, wolves.
So steadfast was the bronzed coureuse de bois
On her yearly round—like hands upon a clock—
Given the week and weather, I could tell
And slattern she was,—a juiceless crone, more drab
To contemplate than venison long-cured
By the slow smoke of burning maple logs—
And quite as pungent with the wilderness.
What with the fight to draw the sap of life
From grudging soil, in sun and wind and snow,
Twenty-one years of Indian widowhood
Will parch a soul and weather any hide
To the texture of a withered russet apple:
A moon of hauling sap in the sugar-bush,
Of boiling maple-syrup; a moon for netting
Whitefish and smoking them upon the racks;
Two moons among the berries, plums, and cherries;
A moon in the cranberry bog; another moon
For harvesting the wild-rice in the ponds;
Odd days for trailing moose and jerking meat;
And then the snow—and trap-lines to be strung
Among the hills for twenty swampy miles,
For minks and martens, otters, beavers, wolves.
So steadfast was the bronzed coureuse de bois
On her yearly round—like hands upon a clock—
Given the week and weather, I could tell
