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"Why, I'm going to have a sugaring-off tonight," announced Dora impressively, "and I should be very pleased to have you come." For a moment Eleanor hesitated, then her better nature triumphed. This was the first thing the child had ever asked of her, and she should have it, even at the cost of some trifling annoyance. "How nice," she said cordially. "I shall be delighted to come.
She was glad, too, that her aunt had fixed the sugaring-off for a time when she could be present.
Had her request been made before the night of their famous ride, Ranald would have found some polite reason for refusal, but now he was rather surprised to find himself urging her to come to a sugaring-off at the close of the season. "I shall be delighted to come," cried Mrs. Murray, "and it is very good of you to ask me, and I shall bring my niece, who is coming with Mr.
The campers were evidently thieves as well as hunters; for frozen pork hung with venison from the branches of several trees. The sap trough might also have belonged to them, which would explain Paul's laugh, as the whole paraphernalia of a sugaring-off was on the outskirts of the encampment.
Not only did he make a comfortable bunk for himself such as he had frequently constructed when at logging or sugaring-off camps in Vermont, but having several boards left he built along the racks originally intended for canoes some shelves for the books he meant to bring from home.
At the "sugaring-off" they used to pour the hot sugar upon the snow, where it congealed, without crystallizing, into a sort of wax, which I do suppose is the most delicious substance that was ever invented. And it takes a great while to eat it. If one should close his teeth firmly on a ball of it, he would be unable to open his mouth until it dissolved.
Corn-shuckings, apple-parings, log-rollings, sugaring-off all these tasks even down to "hog-killings" were made the excuse for social gatherings. The idea of helping one another in the heavier tasks of their existence on the frontier was likewise combined in this.
The great occasions for the boy, though, are the times of "sugaring-off." Sometimes this used to be done in the evening, and it was made the excuse for a frolic in the camp. The neighbors were invited; sometimes even the pretty girls from the village, who filled all the woods with their sweet voices and merry laughter and little affectations of fright.
Jack, in a violent perspiration and extremely shaky, entered the house, where much was said, all of which he took modestly, and then everybody prepared for dinner. The feast and later the "sugaring-off" were occasions of much joyousness, but Jack and Miss Lennox conversed but little, save in a courteous and casual way.
The last act of all was the making of "hens' nests." A dozen or so of hens' eggs, blown empty, and three goose eggs for the grown-ups, were set in snow nests, and carefully filled from the little kettle. In a few minutes the nests were filled with sugar eggs, and the sugaring-off was over. There remained still a goose egg provided against any mishap.
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