Janice Day at Poketown

by Helen Beecher Long

"You are perfectly ridiculous," declared the girl. "Aren't you ever serious two minutes at a time?"

"Pooh! what's the good of being 'solemncholly'? Take things as they come—that's my motto."

Still, Janice believed that the young man was really becoming more deeply interested in the Poketown school and its problems that he was willing to admit, even to her. She had heard that the Middletown architect who was planning the school had consulted Nelson Haley several times upon important points, and that the teacher was the most active of all the five special committeemen.

They reached the sugar camp before the middle of the forenoon, although the roads at that season were very heavy. Winter had by no means departed, although a raucous-voiced jay or two had come up from the swamp and scoured the open wood as though already in search of spring quarters.

The Hammett sugar camp consisted of an open shed in which to boil the sap and an old cabin—perhaps one of the first built in these New Hampshire grants—in which dinner was to be cooked and eaten. Miss Blossom Hammett was already busy over the pots, and pans, and bake oven in the cabin; while her sister, the thin Miss Pussy, overseered the sap-boiling operations.

It was a regular "bee", for beside the twins' hired hands, there were several of their neighbors, and the visitors from Poketown were expected to make themselves useful, too, the boys and Nelson Haley especially.

Janice joined the sap gatherers, for she was strong and liked exercise. They carried buckets to collect the sap that had already run into the shiny two-quart cups which were used to collect it.

First an incision was made through the bark and into the wood of the tree. Into this incision was thrust a whittled plug that had a shallow gutter cut in its upper side, and notches from which the bail of the two-quart cup hung. Into the cup the sap dripped rapidly—especially about midday, when the sun was warmest.

They tapped only about a quarter of the grove belonging to the old ladies, for that numbered as many trees as could be handled at once. Pail after pail of the thin sap was brought in and emptied into one of the two big cauldrons, under which a steady fire of hickory and beech was kept burning. Later the fire was started under the second pot, while the contents of the first one was allowed to simmer down until the sugar would "spin", when dipped up on the wooden ladle and dropped into a bowl of cold water.

The old ladies supplied a hearty and substantial dinner for the young folks to put away before the sugar was boiled enough to spin. After that, the visitors gathered about the sugar troughs like flies about molasses. The Hammett Twins were not niggard souls by any manner of means; but they kept warning the girls and boys all the afternoon to "save room for supper."