Snow Ride (4 page)

“I put it in at the wrong angle,” she explained, pulling the drill back out. “You’ve got to angle the drill upward so the sap can flow downward through the spile. Also, it’s a good idea to tap right under a big branch. See, a big branch is doing a lot of growing, so the tree will be sending the most sap in that direction.” She studied the shape of the tree a little more, judged where the biggest branch was, placed the drill bit on the trunk, and began again. “I don’t mind, and it only takes a few minutes, but too many holes punched in the tree can’t be good for it,” Dinah said. “It also takes valuable time from our tapping.”

“Well, just how good can it be for the tree to have us take its sap out anyway?” Stevie asked. She was beginning to feel just a little bit sorry for the trees.

Betsy laughed. “I wondered the same thing the first
time I did this,” she said. “I was out here with Mr. Daviet, who has been doing this for practically centuries. Know what he said?”

“What?” Stevie asked.

“ ‘By the size of the trunk on this tree, I’d judge it to be nearly two hundred years old. It’s probably been tapped for sap every year of the last hundred and fifty. Doesn’t seem to have hurt it much, does it?’ ”

Stevie looked around her and saw that the maples in the woods were all big old trees, surely veterans of many years of tapping. None of them seemed the worse for being tapped every year. And besides, if nobody tapped the maple trees, how would she ever have the wonderful syrup on her pancakes?

“My turn to try,” Stevie said, now more eager than ever to pitch in.

Betsy handed her the drill. It was the big, jointed kind. She put the pointed end against the trunk as her friends had done and braced her body against the round end. She leaned forward toward the tree trunk and began cranking the drill. The blade bit into the trunk.

“It’s working!” Stevie declared proudly. The next thing that happened was that the bark of the tree cracked and the bit slid aside. Stevie completely lost her balance and ended up sitting in the snow, the drill hanging limply from where it had caught in the bark on the side of the tree.

“Ah, that’s what we call ‘getting the hang of it,’ ” Betsy said, laughing and offering Stevie a hand to help her get up. “The trick is not to push too hard on the drill. It’ll slip out every time when you push like that. Now try again.”

Stevie didn’t like falling down. Looking ridiculous wasn’t her favorite activity. She was tempted to hold off trying again because she didn’t want to make a fool of herself a second time. But even more, she didn’t like the idea that there was something she couldn’t do. She took the drill in her hand and began again, a little more cautiously this time.

Betsy stood next to her and coached. “That’s right, now begin it gently and slowly. Easy pressure.”

Stevie listened and she followed the instructions. They worked. Before too long the drill was cutting straight into the trunk of the tree. A small collection of shavings curled out of the hole in the trunk, drifting down into the snow beneath the drill.

“Now you can put a little more pressure on, but not too much. Let the tool do the work.”

That was a familiar idea to Stevie. One of the secrets of riding that she’d learned the hard way was to let the horse do the work. As a rider, what she had to do was tell the horse what she wanted, make sure he understood, and then let him do it. Beginning riders often had the mistaken notion that they had to keep telling the horse
everything, all the time. It usually resulted in a kind of “kick and yank” riding that was bad for the horse
and
the rider. Now all she had to do was let the drill do the work—except, of course, she had to keep on cranking it.

“That’s deep enough!” Dinah declared, studying the amount of the drill bit that had disappeared into the tree trunk. “You’ve gotten beneath the bark and into the tree. That’s all you need!”

Stevie dropped down to her knees to look for herself. It was unmistakable. She’d done it. She pulled the drill back out of the tree trunk. Proudly she took the spile that Dinah handed her and tapped it into the tree with the hammer Betsy gave her. Then, with some ceremony, she hung a bucket on the spile and placed a cover on the bucket.

“Ta-
dah
!” she cried.

Dinah and Betsy clapped.

“Now let’s get back to work,” Dinah said.

They found many more trees in the grove by the edge of the field and tapped them all. Then they moved on to another maple grove, and a third. After a while it seemed to Stevie that there was a nearly endless supply of maple trees and perhaps they’d never be done, never use all the buckets they’d brought. That was when she understood what Betsy and Dinah had meant about wishing she was back in the twentieth century. Modern tapping used electric drills and, instead of collecting the sap in buckets,
collected it in tubes that went to a central collection point. It was faster and more efficient. However, Stevie thought, it probably wasn’t as much fun.

By the time the girls finished tapping every sugar maple they could find in the third grove, they’d used up all but two of their buckets, and it was time to go back in because it was beginning to be dark.

“I can’t stand the idea of returning an empty bucket, much less two,” Dinah said. “I’m sure we’ll find more trees to tap before we get back to the Sugar Hut.”

“We may find a couple of trees, but they’ve got to be convenient,” Betsy said sensibly. “After all, we don’t want to have to go traipsing all over the place just to empty one or two buckets. Besides, we might forget where they are. That’s as bad as forfeiting. So, anyway, let’s go.”

“I think it’s my turn to drive,” Dinah said. “I know you love it,
but
 …”

Betsy smiled. “I do love it,” she said, handing the reins to Dinah. “Sometimes I love it so much that I forget that other people like to have a chance. Sorry about that.”

Dinah slid into the center spot on the sleigh and took over driving. “Mr. Daviet thinks it’s important for all of us to learn to drive a horse on a wagon or sleigh,” she told Stevie. “Advanced riders even work with teams of two or four. I saw a competition once with eight horses pulling old-fashioned coaches. It was something—but I didn’t
know how special it was until I had the chance to learn how tricky it can be driving just one horse!”

“You don’t seem to be having any trouble with this,” Stevie said.

Dinah smiled proudly. “It’s not really hard at all,” she said. “Want to try?”

Stevie did. In fact, she wanted to try very much, but she didn’t want to take over when Dinah had just gotten her chance. She said as much.

“Don’t worry about that,” Dinah joked. “I’m not going to give you a
long
turn.”

“Okay, then, I will,” Stevie said. She took the reins from Dinah and moved into the driver’s seat.

It took a few seconds to get used to the feel of the reins. Stevie was accustomed to holding reins as she sat in a saddle, but they were short ones, only a few feet long. This was different. These reins were more than ten feet long. They were much heavier in her hands and, she realized, would also be harder on the horse’s mouth. Just a little pressure would signal the horse clearly. She tested her theory. She tugged almost imperceptibly on the left rein. Willingly the horse moved to the left.

“It works!” she said proudly.

“Sure it does,” Betsy said quickly. “Now move back over to the right before we slide off the trail altogether.”

Stevie looked to see what she’d done. The trail was rutted on either side for cars, trucks, or horse-drawn wagons.
They were now perched with the right runner on the hump and the left almost off the edge of the trail.

Hastily Stevie reversed her gentle tugging, and the sleigh shifted easily back into the ruts on either side of the road.

“I think it’s your turn now,” Stevie said, returning the reins to Dinah’s hands.

Dinah took over. Her eyes scanned the roadway in front of them, but they also scanned the forest around them. Stevie knew she was thinking about the two empty buckets in the back of the sleigh. Stevie scanned along with her.

“There’s one!” Dinah declared, drawing the sleigh to a halt.

Betsy squinted. “I see it,” she said, looking through the trees. She hopped down off the sleigh, grabbed the tools and a bucket, and was off, clambering through the snow, over some dried and frozen vines, to the maverick sugar maple tree. “If there’s one here, there must be others,” Betsy said reasonably. “Keep driving and looking!”

That made sense. Dinah flicked the reins. The horse began moving again. Stevie and Dinah paid little attention to the horse, who seemed to know what he was doing. All they cared about right then was finding another maple tree.

“There must be one, there must be one,” Dinah said, nearly chanting.

“There it is!” Stevie declared, spotting the familiar and welcome painted maple leaf. The tree was off to the right, along a little pathway.

Without hesitation Dinah tugged at the right rein. Without hesitation the horse obeyed. Dinah flicked the reins to hurry him ahead. Again he obeyed.

“Let’s get it!” Dinah said excitedly. The horse picked up the pace, sensing the urgency.

And then Stevie heard an awful sound—the protest of wood strained to its utmost. The shafts!

Dinah was so focused on the maple tree ahead, she almost didn’t notice what was happening with the sleigh. She just gripped tightly at the reins.

Stevie didn’t have time to take the reins from her. She merely grabbed the left rein and tugged. Instantly the horse responded, shifting back toward the left. Then he stopped abruptly. He wasn’t aimed toward the maple tree then, but he also wasn’t about to break the shafts or hurt himself.

“What did I do?” Dinah asked, surprised by their sudden stop.

“You were trying to turn too sharply,” Stevie said. “It sounded to me like the shafts were about to crack.”

“Oh, wow,” Dinah said, as the realization came over her. “You’re really some horsewoman, Stevie Lake. You don’t even know how to drive this thing, and you saved me, and the horse, and the sleigh.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Stevie began to protest.

“Yes, you did,” Dinah said. “I really almost blew it—just to tap one maple tree. It wasn’t worth it—definitely.”

“Who says we can’t tap it now?” Stevie asked. She hopped down out of the sleigh, took the other drill and the last bucket and spile. In a few minutes she’d done the job and returned to the sleigh, now headed straight along the path toward the Sugar Hut.

While Stevie had been working on the last tree, Dinah told Betsy how Stevie’s quick thinking had saved them from a disaster.

Betsy gave Stevie a hug. “Nice work!” Betsy said proudly.

“It’s just because you’re such a good teacher,” Stevie said, a little embarrassed by all the attention her little rescue was getting.

“Whatever it is, I’m awfully glad you’re here,” Dinah said. Stevie was glad, too.

“T
IME TO GET
up!” Dinah announced the next morning at an hour that seemed very early to Stevie. She found that all the cold fresh air was very tiring. She could have slept for hours more.

“What’s the hurry? Is it time to go collect the sap?” she asked.

“Not yet,” Dinah answered, laughing a little. “It’s still too cold for that. We have to wait until the temperature’s just right so the sap will run the best before we go collect it. Part of winning this competition is knowing when that is.”

“Okay, so we don’t collect sap today. What
do
we do?”

“Horseback riding,” Dinah said. “Today is my regular riding class, and you’re cordially invited to join us. I
know you’re a better rider than I am and than most of my classmates, but I think you’ll have fun. I hope you will, anyway.”

“Don’t worry,” Stevie assured her. “If horses are involved, I always have fun. Let’s go.”

The girls bounded out of bed, washed and dressed quickly, and headed for the stable, followed out of the house by warnings and admonitions from Mrs. Slattery.

“… and make sure you follow Mr. Daviet’s instructions. Remember, no cantering and no leaving the ring without an experienced rider. Also, make sure your hard hat is snapped tightly and …” She went on, but the girls weren’t listening.

“She really doesn’t like the fact that I ride horses and love it so much,” Dinah explained once they were outside.

“I can understand that,” Stevie said. “Lisa Atwood—she’s new at Pine Hollow, so I don’t think you know her—has the same problem with her parents. Her mother thinks she ought to be taking ballet and painting instead. To please her mother, she takes ballet and painting
and
horseback riding.”

“It isn’t that with my parents,” Dinah said. “They wouldn’t want me taking ballet, either. It’s too dangerous, they’d say. They knew someone once who had a freak accident on a horse and got brain damaged or something. They’re convinced the same thing’s going to happen
to me, unless they can spend hours before each class warning me to be careful. It’s very boring, but I have to let them do it, or they won’t let me ride at all.”

“Then let them do it, I guess,” Stevie agreed. She felt a little sorry for Dinah. Stevie’s parents never seemed to worry about her riding, and they never made it hard for her. If she occasionally had arguments about schoolwork or visits with friends or sleepovers or dates with Phil, that was okay. At least she didn’t have arguments about riding—not often anyway.