At sound of his voice the squirrel abandoned its perch, and, mounting to the top of the tree, proceeded to scold the intruders.
“Guess he thought I meant him,” laughed Ben, when the boys walked over to where he had tapped another tree. “Well, how did you like it?”
“Fine,” they declared.
“Wait till we get it boiled down; then you’ll taste real maple-syrup. We’ll make some sugar, too.”
When he had hung the last of his pails, Ben proceeded to make several troughs from logs cut and split for the purpose. He placed them on the ground beneath the spigots in the trees for which he had no buckets. By the time he had finished tapping all of the trees selected, it was past noon. Seating themselves in a sunny spot, the “sugarers” enjoyed their lunch.
The smell of escaping sap soon enticed bees and early insects to the vicinity. But the sticky sap clogged their wings, and the boys had much sport freeing them from their predicament with twigs, and watching while the confused little honey-gatherers cleaned themselves.
They were also much interested in a pair of big, black, pileated woodpeckers, with large crests of scarlet feathers on top of their heads. Ben said the woodsmen called them “Cock of the Woods,” and declared they were becoming very scarce. The birds alighted against the trunk of a tree, from which, after having carefully examined it, they began to chisel great pieces with their powerful bills. The guide said it was the way they excavated a cavity in which to lay their eggs.
Late in the afternoon Ben gathered the sap and, assisted by the boys, carried it home to boil. It was placed in a big iron kettle and boiled over a hardwood fire. Ed and George were kept busy stirring and skimming, and, as the “sugaring” was continued for several days, their job became a steady one. Ben taught them how to do the boiling, while he tended the trees and brought in the sap. When the job was finished they had a large quantity of golden syrup and many tempting cakes of appetizing brown sugar to reward them for their labor.
GATHERING THE MAPLE-SUGAR SAP