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It may snow and blow, and winter may seem to have settled in in earnest, but deep down in the earth, the root-tips, where lie the brains of vegetables, are gaping and stretching, and ho-humming, and wishing they could snooze a little longer. When it thaws in the afternoon and freezes up at sunset as tight as bricks, they tell me that out in the sugar-camp there are great doings.
"Here we are," said Jerry. He drew up at the bars that led into old Blaisdell's sugar-camp, and Marietta, not waiting for him, sprang out over the wheel. "You're as light as a feather," said he admiringly, but with no sense of wonder. They were still in that childhood land where everybody is agile for one long, bright day. "Light as a bun," returned Marietta flippantly.
This is called 'the sugar-camp, and the sap-season lasts five or six weeks." "And why is it boiled?" "Boiling drives the water off in vapor, and leaves the sugar behind in the pot." "And do they stay in the woods there all the time?" asked Malcolm, with great interest. "What lots of fun they must have, with the big fires and the snow and as much maple-sugar as ever they want to eat!
When it has been sufficiently boiled, the syrup is poured into moulds or casks to harden. The sugar with which the most pains have been taken is very light-colored, and I have seen it almost white." "Have you ever been to a sugar-camp, Miss Harson?" asked Clara, who was wishing, like Malcolm, that she could go to one herself.
The following morning Saturday I vibrated between the sugar-camp and the barn and other out-buildings, giving, however, most of the time to the help of my wife in getting the house more to her mind, and in planning some work that would require a brief visit from a carpenter; for I felt that I must soon bestow nearly all my attention on the outdoor work.
I'd like to stay in a sugar-camp in the woods." "Perhaps not, after trying it and finding how much hard work there is in sugar-making," replied his governess.
"No," said her governess, smiling at the question; "I did not see one, even at the sugar-camp. Yet the Indians made maple-sugar long before we knew anything about it, and from them the white people learned how to do it." "Well, that's the funniest thing!" exclaimed Malcolm. "I thought that Indians were always scalping people instead of making maple-sugar."
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