A TASTE OF MAINE BIRCH. 113 



never tasted so sweet as from one of these bark 

 cups. It is exactly the thing. It just fits the mouth, 

 and it seems to give new virtues to the water. It 

 makes me thirsty now when I think of it. In our 

 camp at Moxie we made a large birch-bark box to 

 keep the butter in ; and the butter in this box, cov- 

 ered with some leafy boughs, I think improved in fla- 

 vor day by day. Maine butter needs something to 

 mollify and sweeten it a little, and I think birch bark 

 will do it. In camp Uncle Nathan often drank his 

 tea and coffee from a bark cup ; the china closet in 

 the birch-tree was always handy, and our vulgar 

 tinware was generally a good deal mixed, and the 

 kitchen-maid not at all particular about dish-washing. 

 We all tried the oatmeal with the maple syrup in one 

 of these dishes, and the stewed mountain cranberries, 

 using a birch-bark spoon, and never found service 

 better. Uncle Nathan declared he could boil pota- 

 toes in a bark kettle, and I did not doubt him. In- 

 stead of sending our soiled napkins and table-spreads 

 to the wash, we rolled them up into candles and 

 torches, and drew daily upon our stores in the forest 

 for new ones. 



But the great triumph of the birch is of course the 

 bark canoe. When Uncle Nathan took us out under 

 his little wood-shed, and showed us, or rather mod- 

 estly permitted us to see, his nearly finished canoe, it 

 was like a first glimpse of some new and unknown 

 genius of the woods or streams. It sat there on the 

 chips and shavings and fragments of bark like some 



