Harper's Round Table, March 31, 1896

by Various

There is something in their anticipation, too, besides the mere thought of the regaling of their palates. The running of the sap means the end of the winter, with all which that has implied of cold and dreariness and isolation. True, there have been periods of glorious cold weather, when coasting and skating and straw rides in great sleighs over sparkling snow and under brilliant moonlight have made even life in winter worth living, but these bright spots have been oases in long deserts of dolefulness. There may be poetry and excitement in being snow-bound; there are only monotony and discomfort in being slush-bound.

"When the ways are heavy with mire and rut,
In November fogs, in December snows,
When the north wind howls, and the doors are shut,
There is place and enough for the pains of prose."

And there are other trials unmentioned by the English poet which the New-Englander knows only too well. Frozen water-pipes, frozen fingers and toes, recurring colds caught in rooms that are too chilly for comfort or close and over-heated by coal stoves, and many more annoyances that, small enough when taken separately, make a formidable sum total when they all come at once.

IN A SUGAR CAMP.

But now the harbingers of spring are at hand. In sheltered places the trailing arbutus has begun to show its fragile blossoms, that "take the winds of March with beauty"; there is even here and there a stray violet; the mosses in damp places are a deliciously vivid green, and the grass is losing its sereness in hollows and on the edge of water-courses. The bluebird has been in evidence for some days, the song-sparrow's rippling note is heard, and there are rumors that a robin has been seen. The ways are still "heavy with mire and rut," but there is a not distant prospect of settled roads and good walking. There is a suggestion of spring in the air, in spite of the drifts of snow in the ravines and in the woods. The young people do not wish to see that snow go too fast, for it is essential to a part of their fun. For how could they "sugar off" without snow? Even the farmers would prefer hauling the sledge that carries the store tub, in which they collect the sap, over the snow than over the bare ground.

To the children and young people the thought of "sugaring off" is the chief one connected with the maple-sugar season. That is unless they live on farms and have to do their part in preparing the sap for market. The time means something quite different to the farmer and his men, who must tramp through snow and mud from tree to tree of the sugar orchard that is generally scattered over hill and dale, and seldom within a small radius, who must watch the sap-buckets and empty them before they overflow, who must bring the sap from the tree to the sugar-house and empty it into the great store tubs that await it. And even then their work is but just begun, for the shorter the space between the time the sap leaves the tree and its transformation into syrup and sugar, the better will be the quality of these. So the sap must not stand long in the store tubs before it is turned into the great evaporator over a roaring fire, where it is to be changed from what appears to be slightly sweetened water into thick, flavorous syrup. The improvement of methods in sugar manufacture no longer render it necessary that the boiling sap should be watched all night, as the sugar-makers had to do in the old days, when the sap was boiled in a great kettle swung over an open fire in the woods. Still the work is hard and absorbing, for the season is short and no time can be wasted.

The women have their share of the toil. To them it falls to boil down the syrup to the proper thickness for sending out as maple molasses or as sugar in cakes. They "sugar off" frequently, but it is only to ascertain whether the syrup has reached the stage where it can be taken from the fire, stirred until it granulates, and then turned into the little tins that mould it into the cakes familiar to us all.

That is what "sugaring off" means to the farmer and his wife. It means something quite different to the young people who have been planning for sugar parties long before the farmer thought of tapping his trees.

A sugar party is not a fall-dress affair. Evening clothes and low-cut gowns would be decidedly out of place in the farm-house kitchen, where the most important part of the entertainment comes off. The "best Sunday-go-to-meeting" garments fulfil all the requirements of the toilet.