distant sugar-camps from year to
year, turned bottom side up, through the summer and winter. It was more
thrifty and tidy, however, to carry them home and store them. When this
was done, the men and boys began work by drawing the troughs and spouts
and provisions to the woods on hand-sleds. Sometimes a mighty man took
in a load on his back. It is told of John Alexander of Brattleboro,
Vermont, that he once went into camp _upon snowshoes_ carrying for three
miles one five-pail iron kettle, two sap-buckets, an axe and trappings,
a knapsack, four days' provisions, and a gun and ammunition.

The master of ceremonies--the owner of the camp--selected the trees and
drove the spouts, while the boys placed the troughs. Then the snow had
to be shovelled away on a level spot about eighteen or twenty feet
square, in which strong forked sticks were set twelve feet apart. Or the
ground was chosen so that two small low-spreading and strong trees could
be trimmed and used as forks. A heavy green stick was placed across from
fork to fork, and the sugaring-off kettles, sometimes five in number,
hung on it. Then dry wood had to be gathered for the fires; hard work it
was to keep them constantly supplied. It was often cut a year in
advance. As the sap collected in the troughs it was gathered in pails or
buckets which, hung on a sap-yoke across the neck, were brought to the
kettles and the sap set a-boiling down. When there was a "good run of
sap," it was usually necessary to stay in the camp over night. Many
times the campers stayed several nights. As the "good run" meant milder
weather, a night or two was not a bitter experience; indeed, I have
never heard any one speak nor seen any account of a night spent in a
sugar-camp except with keen expressions of delight. If possible, the
time was chosen during a term of moonlight; the snow still covered the
fields and its pure shining white light could be seen through the trees.

"God makes sech nights, so white and still
Fer's you can look and listen.
Moonlight an' snow, on field and hill,
All silence and all glisten."

The great silence, broken only by steady dropping of the sap, the
crackle of blazing brush, and the occasional hooting of startled owls;
the stars seen singly overhead through the openings of the trees,
shining down the dark tunnel as bright as though there were no moon;
above all, the clearness and sweetness of the first atmosphere of
spring,--gave an exa