166 LITERARY PILGRIMAGES 



a week before. But the cold had shut down and 

 the trees had quit. The morning before the ther- 

 mometer had stood at zero and the sap in the pan 

 was ice. So, no doubt, it was in the trees, and 

 would be until the warmth had reached the heart of 

 them. I learned more in the grove as the patient 

 old horse drew the sled through a foot or two of 

 old snow, and we gathered the crystal-clear sap 

 from the buckets and poured it into the barrel, 

 plodding from tree to tree. More still I got in the 

 sugar house while the veteran fed the roaring fire 

 and skimmed the scum from the boiling liquid as 

 it flowed, an inch deep or so, along the winding 

 channels, back and forth, sap at one end, syrup at 

 the other. 



The white men learned from the Indians the art 

 of making maple sugar. In the " Philosophical 

 Transactions of the Royal Society," published in 

 1684, we find the following: "The savages of 

 Canada in the time that the sap rises in the maple 

 make an incision in the tree by which it runs out. 

 After they have evaporated eight pounds of the 

 liquor there remains one pound as sweet and as 

 much sugar as that which is got out of the canes. 



