A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP.

By AMANDA B. Harris.

S there not a fascination about that word

“camp?” The very mention of it is enough

to set one wild to be off somewhere. It suggests

the freedom of all out-of-doors, which so many of

us grown folks, and all children who have the real
child nature, so often long for and delight in.

To go, as Charles Kingsley says, and “be a
_savage” for awhile! To go as the trappers and
_ hunters go, only there should be no traps and no

guns among our belongings! To doas the explor-
ers and surveyors and naturalists do; sleep o’nights
‘out under the sky, and
live on food not cooked
over civilized fires, or
according to the rou-
tine in civilized homes A\\iR
under roofs in houses
over kitchen stoves!
Would not it be rapture
now and then to try the
way of Daniel Boone
and of Frémont among
the Rocky Mountains,
_ of Wilson, the ornith-
‘ologist, and Audubon
and his wife? Or the
' modern ‘pastoral life of
the young men who
tend the cattle and
_ sheep on the mountain
pastures of Montana and the Texan
plains? I cannot remember the time -
when I did not envy the boys who used
to go off sugaring to a certain camp
under the maples a mile and a half off
on the hill. It was a privilege exclus-
ively belonging to boys; and it always appeared as
if boots had something to do with it—those stiff,
tall, thick-soled boots of theirs which came about
_up to their. knees, made to order by the shoemaker,
out of calf-skin or cow-hide, and by him warranted
water-tight, provided they were kept well greased,

ee
Se
wee
—

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which matter was faithfully attended to by the .

“in wearing such boots!

. was too bad for girls.

  
 
 
 
          
   
  

   
   
   

wearers, who used semi-weekly to smear them with
melted tallow and rub it in till the leather would ©
shed water like a duck’s back. What advantages
Boys could go through
the slush and slumping drifts; but the travelling
Boys could go across lots
and climb over walls, and wade. “Besides,” it
was no place for girls—they could eat maple
sugar at home. “Besides,” it was too far. “ Be-
sides,” they would get “all tanned up.” “ Be-
sides,” the boys were going to stay all night. That
ended it. Now, as for staying
all night, why that was the thing
we greatly desired to do. Oh,
just to sit in the fire-lit camp and
see the shadows come and go,
and the blaze waver and fail and

YD

IN THEIR FOREFATHERS’ WAY.

then roll up in a great wave of brightness; and to
know that we were off in the night; to forget every-
thing we were used to, and live in the new strange
world; and look off and see the phantoms of trees,
and the cold, glistening, frosty mist down in the val-
ley, and the solemn mountains standing back against
the sky; to hear the voices of the night, not like

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