A TASTE OF MAINE BIRCH 101 



would have a birch-bark cup ready before any of us 

 could get a tin one out of his knapsack, and I think 

 water 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, covered with some leafy boughs, I think 

 improved in flavor 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 Na- 

 than declared he could boil potatoes in a bark ket- 

 tle, and I did not doubt him. Instead 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 woodshed, and showed us, or rather 

 modestly permitted us to see, his nearly finished 

 canoe, it was like a first glimpse of some new and 



