MISCELLANEOUS. 257 



stones that once formed part of the old furnace. I stood 

 over them and ruminated. I had spent many happy hours 

 on that spot. We used to gather in several barrels of sap 

 during the day, boil it down, and frequently as the evening 

 approached on which we were to "sugar off," we invited the 

 boys and girls of the neighborhood to come in and join us in 

 a candy-pulling. Those were jolly parties that assembled on 

 such occasions, and we used to make the old woods ring 

 with our mirth and song. Oh, what a delicious bon bon is a 

 dish of warm maple wax, pure and fresh from the woods ! I 

 can taste it now, in imagination. Reader, if you have never 

 tried it in this way, if you have never stood around the large, 

 cheerful furnace and lifted the bubbling mass from the kettle 

 onto your plate of snow or ice, if your knowledge of maple 

 sugar is confined to to the adulterated stuff you buy of the 

 grocer, and that which is dished up at church festivals, you 

 can have no conception of the sweet recollections that crowd 

 through my brain, as I stand over this sacred pile. 



" How dear to my heart are the sweets of my childhood, 

 When fond recollection presents them to view." 



I remember once we had collected several barrels of sap 

 during the day, and I told my father and older brothers that 

 I would come back that night after supper and boil it down. 

 They said it was not necessary, that we could easily boil it 

 down the next morning before we should need the barrels ; 

 but I insisted, so they told me to do as I liked. After supper 

 I took a newspaper and went to the camp. I put in a boom- 

 ing fire, filled up the kettles, and sat down in the cabin to 

 read by the light of the fire. Almost the first lines I read 

 were an account of a man in an adjoining county having 

 killed a large catamount that measured seven feet from tip to 

 tip. I dropped the paper and began to peer out into the 

 17 



