Free The Sugar Season by Douglas Whynott Page B

up gloves and hands. But picking up rocks happened to be a time when Ken and Bruce talked to each other. On this day Bruce asked about some money he had lent to Ken, the $600 he saved from his cider business. Ken had been having financial difficulty. Later Bruce would see that his father was getting close to bankruptcy despite working eighty hours a week.
    Ken asked what Bruce wanted it for, saying he didn’t have that kind of money. “I want to buy an engagement ring,” Bruce said.
    Ruth was thrilled with the news. Two days later Ken gave Bruce a check for the full amount, plus interest compounded for the duration of the loan.
    “Always with interest, that was his way.”
    During Bruce’s senior year at UNH he took a course in entrepreneurial management, in which each student had to devise a business project. There were many interesting projects in the class, and each student made a presentation. Bruce had his usual difficulty making his, which was a design for a maple sugaring operation with 25,000 taps feeding into a central evaporation plant. There was a lot of interest among his classmates and some skepticism. They were New Hampshire kids, and they knew about maple. Some called it the “flubbing tubing project.”
    Ruth assumed that when Bruce went into the business school that he would eventually get a job with a corporation. Despite some evidence to the contrary, with Bruce’s work in the sugarhouse and the trip to Ontario, she did not expect him to return to the farm and hoped he wouldn’t. The economics of farming were too difficult, as was the relationship between father and son. When she realized during hissenior year that he intended to work with Ken, she wrote a letter asking him to get a job with a corporation. When he didn’t respond she drove to Durham, got a room, stayed for two days, and took Bruce out to dinner. At the restaurant she pleaded with him not to return to the farm. Get a job with IBM, she said.
    For Ruth, farm life was a shock at times. Money was scarce. Ken was one not to spend on consumer goods or vacations, only on farm improvements. There was one car, but often it was being used to make deliveries, and so days passed without leaving the farm. Ruth could have put her education to use in the maple business and been a great asset, but Ken was too difficult to work for and she couldn’t be part of the business. Eventually Ruth got a job off the farm, working for the 4-H organization and later for the school district.
    Many farm wives had a list of things for their daughters to avoid or not learn how to do. Some would say, “Don’t learn how to tap trees, because you’ll end up out in the woods in the winter.” Ruth’s list for Judy and Nancy was
1. Don’t learn how to drive a tractor.
2. Don’t learn how to milk a cow.
3. Don’t marry a farmer.
    The wedding took place the weekend after Bruce’s graduation from the University of New Hampshire. They scheduled it for that weekend because there were three other Bascom weddings that June. They held it at the church in Acworth, the one that sat high on a hill with a tall steeple. Eric Bascom Sr. officiated, just as he had for Ken and Ruth. ABascom uncle played the organ. Peter Rhoades was the best man. Peter’s wife, Deb, was a maid of honor.
    The new couple honeymooned in Bar Harbor, Maine. The weather brought clouds and rain, and after a few days Bruce thought it a good idea to cut the honeymoon short and return to the farm. Ruth was so annoyed that she wouldn’t speak to him. Ken punished him by making him pick rocks the next day.
    When Bruce and Liz moved into the stone house Ken set his salary at $75 a week. To be fair, he gave himself a salary of $75 too.
    Bruce wanted to prove that he could do it better than his father, but he first had to prove he was capable. One thing he was now able to do was knock on doors. Bruce went to his neighbors and arranged to rent enough trees for 12,000 taps and paid rent of 10 cents per tap.