A NEW ENGLAND WOODPILE 



sible, the pile of sled -length wood is 

 stretching itself slowly, a huge vertebrate, 

 every day or two gaining in length ; a 

 joint of various woods, with great trunks 

 at the bottom, then smaller ones, gradu- 

 ally growing less to the topping out of 

 saplings and branches. Here is a sugar- 

 maple, three feet through at the butt, with 

 the scars of many tappings showing on its 

 rough bark. The oldest of them may 

 have been made by the Indians. Who 

 knows what was their method of tapping .'* 

 Here is the mark of the gouge with which 

 early settlers drew the blood of the tree ; 

 a fashion learned, likely enough, from the 

 aboriginal sugar-makers, whose narrow- 

 est stone gouges were as passable tools 

 for the purpose as any they had for an- 

 other. These more distinct marks show 

 where the auger of later years made its 

 wounds. The old tree has distilled its 

 sweets for two races and many genera- 

 tions of men, first into the bark buck- 

 ets of Waubanakis, then into the ruder 

 troughs of Yankee pioneers, then into the 

 more convenient wide-bottomed wooden 

 sap-tubs ; and at last, when the march of 

 improvement has spoiled the wilderness 

 242 



