MEMORIES OF THE 



were black with the strong-smelling smoke, which settled in the 

 hollow. Completely out of breath, I reached the shanty and, 

 looking in through the strangling smoke, beheld the forward 

 pan, every inch of it red hot and apparently a live bed of fire. 



I grabbed a bucket of cold sap and dashed into it, and 

 other bucketfuls into the fire under the pans. We had been 

 boiling a long time without having raked out the solid coals 

 from the arch. The fire hissed and sputtered and ashes flew, 

 and the stones of which the arch was built cracked and snapped, 

 but it finally became subdued and cooled down so that I could 

 examine the extent of the disaster. The very hot fire and heavy 

 bed of coals under the pan when we had left it had boiled the 

 syrup down rapidly and burned it completely up, so that there 

 was left but a lot of shelly, scaly charcoal refuse in the bottom 

 of the pan. The pan itself was burned, the bottom warped and 

 apparently completely ruined. 



On every side the woods were filled with the strong-smelling 

 smoke. I was mortified and terribly scared. I had never had 

 or seen any such accident, and knew that it had occurred purely 

 through my carelessness and criminal negligence in leaving the 

 house alone. The amount of sugar wasted was eighty or one 

 hundred pounds, which meant eight or ten dollars. 



Like other criminals who are the victims of accident, I at once 

 jumped to the vicious conclusion that I must conceal my crime. 

 Birney was also agitated and asked me what I was going to do. 

 It was no fault of his, yet he shared the feeling of shame and 

 humiliation, and asked, "What will grandpa say?" He was 

 as nice and conscientious a boy as ever was born, and I feared 

 that he would not help cover up the affair. I told him that we 

 would not tell, and asked him not to say anything about it. 

 He made no special reply, which annoyed me all the more as 



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