IN THE CATSKILLS 



the mountains, or salting them on the breezy hills. 

 Then there is the annual sheep-washing, when on 

 a warm day in May or early June the whole herd 

 is driven a mile or more to a suitable pool in the 

 creek, and one by one doused and washed and rinsed 

 in the water. We used to wash below an old grist- 

 mill, and it was a pleasing spectacle, the mill, 

 the dam, the overhanging rocks and trees, the round, 

 deep pool, and the huddled and frightened sheep. 



One of the features of farm life peculiar to this 

 country, and one of the most picturesque of them 

 all, is sugar-making in the maple woods in spring. 

 This is the first work of the season, and to the 

 boys is more play than work. In the Old World, 

 and in more simple and imaginative times, how 

 such an occupation as this would have got into 

 literature, and how many legends and associations 

 would have clustered around it! It is woodsy, and 

 savors of the trees; it is an encampment among 

 the maples. Before the bud swells, before the grass 

 springs, before the plow is started, comes the sugar 

 harvest. It is the sequel of the bitter frost; a sap- 

 run is the sweet good-by of winter. It denotes a 

 certain equipoise of the season ; the heat of the day 

 fully balances the frost of the night. In New York 

 and New England, the time of the sap hovers about 

 the vernal equinox, beginning a week or ten days 

 before, and continuing a week or ten days after. 

 As the days and nights get equal, the heat and cold 

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