A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP. 67

eight different kinds of common field corn; but
they did not know that it could be extracted from
even the one kind they raised in the clearings, and
they could not have spared the corn if they had
known.

They made the most, however, of what they
_ had. About ten years after the Pilgrims came,
somebody composed what was called a “ Forefath-
er’s Song;” wretched rhymes, telling of wretched
fare, but supposed to show us how they lived:

Instead of pottage and puddings and custards and pies,
Our pumpkins and parsnips are common supplies ;

We have pumpkins at morning and pumpkins at noon,
If it was not for pumpkins we should be undone.

 

THE SAP-YOKE.

If barley be wanting to make into malt,

We must be contented and think it no fault;

For we can make liquor to sweeten our lips

From. pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips.

 

Then four lines are wanting, which I will trust
and hope were about something more toothsome
than parsnips and pumpkins, nainely, maple syrup
—for next these two lines come in:

Now, while some are going, let others be coming,
For while liquor’s a-boiling, it must have a-scumming.

Which is what the syrup needs,

Poor rhymes; and poor forefathers and fore-
mothers, if they had no better food!

The settlers tapped the trees in a way that was
no better than murder to those magnificent sugar
maples of the primeval forest. The process was
called “boxing;” that is, cutting a deep gash to
let the sap run out. A piece of sumach with a
hole bored through the pith was the spout. The
troughs to receive the sap were like a pig’s trough.
The trunk of a white ash was sawed into proper
lengths, and then split in halves, and then dug out
with a gouge or a chisel, driven in by hand beetles,
An expert woodman, as an old historian says, could
make thirty or forty of theseinaday. Big troughs
out of mammoth logs were hewn out for reservoirs
into which to empty the contents of the small ones.
The men and boys went around with pails attached
to a sap-yoke over their shoulders, to collect the sap.
If the snow was deep they wore “ rackets,” or snow-
shoes, such as we see preserved as relics in muse-

ums, a sort of kite-shaped frame woven across

with leather thongs or basket stuff.

The sap was boiled out-of-doors right in the
“sugar bush® as they called it. Two crotched
sticks were driven into the ground, perhaps eight
feet apart, and a strong pole known as the
“lug-pole,” was laid across them, a big side log
placed against each stick on the inside, and be-
tween these the fire was built, usually of fallen
limbs, and green ones which were gathered
from the forest around. Great potash kettles
were used, or smaller ones when those were not
to be had; and when the sap was nearly thick-

ened to syrup a piece of fat pork, or even tallow,
was put in to keep it from boiling over. At the
last it was strained through a flannel sieve and
hung up in bags to drain. The women, and chil-
dren who were old enough, helped, working with
handkerchiefs tied over their heads; and altogether
it was a wild and picturesque scene.

Sometimes the pleasant sugar-making season had
a sudden tragic ending when Indians swooped