THE CENTRE
HALL. PA.
By ELMO SCOTT WATSON
O YOU remember those charming
sketches of old-time fapm life which
Charles Dudley Warner published In
a book under the title of “Belong a
Boy"? One of them, you will recall,
was about “The Sugar Camp” and
in It he sald:
“As I remember the New England
boy (and 1 am very Intimate with
one), he used to be on the qui vive in the spring
for the sap to begin running. I think he discov-
ered it as soon as anybody, Perhaps he knew
it by a feeling of something starting in his own
veins—a sort of spring stir In his legs and arms,
which tempted him to stand on his head, or
throw a handspring, If he could find a spot of
ground from which the snow had melted. The
sap stirs early In the legs of a country boy, and
shows Itself In uneasiness In the toes. which
get tired of boots, and want to come out and
touch the soll just as soon as the sun has
warmed it a little. The country boy gi
foot just as naturally as the trees burst their
buds, which were packed and varnished over In
the fall to keep the water and frost out.
Perhaps the boy has been out digging Into the
maple trees with his jack knife: & iy rate,
he Is pretty sure to announce the di Overy as
he comes running into ti .
state of excitement—as
cackie in the barn—with, 'S
Yes, “sap's runnin’ "—
states, In New York, Ohio, In liana }
fact, wherever hard maples are native to the
soil. On hundreds of farms in those states blue
smoke, curling up into the air above the trees
In a “sugar bush,” tells the passerby that the
“sugar camp” is in operation and that here Is
being produced those two finest of all native
sweets, maple sirup and maple sugar. And {f
that passerby has ever known the joys of maple
sugar time, the sight of that smoke and the
smells which drift toward him from the sugar
camp will make memories tug at his heartstrings
and it will be difficult for him to pass on by.
For as Charles Dudley Warner says: “In my
day, maple sugar making used to be something
between picnicking and being shipwrecked on a
fertile island where one should save from the
wreck tubs and augers, and great kettles and
pork, and hen's eggs and ryeand-Indian bread,
and begin at once to lead the sweetest life in
the world, I am told that it Is something dif-
ferent nowadays, and that there is more desire
to save the sap, and make good, pure sugar,
and sell it for a large price, than there used
to be, and that the old fun and picturesqueness
of the business are pretty much gone. I am told
that it is the custom to earefully collect the
sap and bring it to the house, where there are
built brick arches, over which It is evaporated
in shallow pans; and that pains are taken to keep
the leaves and sticks and ashes and coals out
of it; and that the sugar Is clar ed: and that,
in short, it Is a money making business, in which
there Is very little fun, and that the boy is not
allowed to dip his paddle into the kettle of
boiling sugar and lick off the delicious sirup.
The prohibition may improve the sugar, but it
is cruel to the boy.”
Those words were written more than half a
century ago (“Being a Boy” was first printed
in 1877 and Houghton, Mifflin and Company of
Joston got out a second edition 20 years later,
tllustrated with photographs by Clifton John
son, “lovingly taken from the real life and heart
of New England,” which ald in preserving the
charm of those truly “good old days”), If Charles
Dudley Warner were alive today he would find
that in some places where maple sugar is made
the “fun and picturesqueness” are gone even
more than they were when he wrote. For in-
stance, In the state with which, more than any
other, we associate thoughts of maple sugar,
there's a man, known as the “champion sugar
maker of Vermont,” who has devised an intricate
system of Iron pipes leading from every one of
the trees in his maple grove to huge evaporators
in the sugar house, and this network of pipes,
more than 23,000 feet in length, sends a steady
stream of sap Into the place where it is con
verted into maple sirup and maple sugar.
jut, despite this example of modern efliclency
applied to a business rich in tradition, there still
are sugar camps in many places where the sap
drips through “spiles” made of sumach or alder
into wooden sap buckets (Just like the ones
made famous by President Coolidge during his
administration) ; where it Is collected into great
wooden tubs or barrels on sleds, drawn by a
yoke of oxen or a team of plodding horses;
where it Is bolled down In great iron or copper
kettles: where they still hang a plece of fat
salt pork by a string from the pole over the ket.
tle so that it is about two inches from the top
edge to keep the sap from boiling over: and
where they will let you dip some of the bubbling
sirup out of the kettle and pour it on the snow
where it forms almost mmediztely that delicacy
of all delicacles—maple sugar wax. No, not all
of the fun and plcturesqueness has been taken
out of maple sugar time by modern methods and
new -fangled notions” of efficiency in production,
Like so many other items lu our national diet,
1. Two Girl Scouts from Manhattan learn
the joys of maple sugar time in their national
camp at Pleasantville, N. Y.
2. “Drip! Drip! Dript®
a-trickle near Keene, N. H,
3. The old fashioned way of making maple
sugar. Boiling the sap In an iron kettle over
an open fire, In a little while those youngs-
ters will be pouring the thick sirup out on
the snow to make “maple sugar wax."
4, The sugar house in a Vermont maple
sugar camp.
5. First he “taps” the tree with an auger,
then he drives in a “spile,” then he hangs
a bucket on it, and Nature does the rest!
Maple trees are
we owe the agdition of maple sirup and maple
sugar to the Indians, There is an Interesting
legend about the way the red man discovered
maple sugar. According to the story, a certain
Woksis, a mighty hunter, was out one day In
search of gamé and his diligent squaw, whose
name was Moqua, was busy embroidering a palr
of moccasing to surprise him when he came
back home, But she knew, as all wives know,
that In addition to a surprise she had to have
an evening meal awaiting her lord.
So she hastily cut off a plece of moose ment
and set it to boil In the water which ran from
the maple tree at the door of her tepee-—since
the tree was nearer than the spring. Then she
bent so interestedly over her embroidery that
she forgot all about the moose meat and the
sweet water boiled away into a thick, brown
sirup and formed a crusted sweetness around
the ment,
When Woksis returned, he graciously accepted
the moccasing with their bead-embroidered bears
but he exclaimed with delight when his teeth
sank into the daintiest morsel that he had ever
tasted. Eagerly he devoured the meat and called
for the kettle so that he could lick It clean.
Then he went out in his new moccasins—saying
never a word about them-—and told all his tribe
how Kosekusheth, the heaven-sent Instructor,
had taught his Mequa how to make a delicious
food by bolling the juice of maple,
Soon this knowledge spread to all the tribes
and every spring saw them gashing the sugar
maples with their hatchets and gathering the
sap In containers made from birchbark, It was
then boiled in earthen pots (and later, after
the coming of the white man), In Iron kettlea
which they obtained from traders, into which
heated stones were dropped to facilitate the
bolling., The early settlers were quick to appre
ciate this toothsome native delicacy and in many
a ploneer home maple sugar was the only sweet.
ening ever used, But they Improved upon the
Indians’ method of making it--mainly In the
matter of cleanliness—and maple sugar time be.
came one of the traditions of American farm
life,
For a description of that delightful period
fn the farm year one can do no better than to
refer to Charles Dudley Warner again, and see
it, as be saw It, through the eyes of Young
*, aire brou ght
1 ide of the house
now is still a fool or two deep
the ox sled is got out to make
a road to the sugar camp, and the campaign be
gins. The boy 1s ever
n the woods, and
yy
ing everything, asking questions, and filled with
a desire to help the ¢
“In the first piace the
the trees,
where present, superintend.
"Xt itement,
men go about and tap
drive In the spouts, and hang the
buckets under, The boy
erations with the greatest interest. He wishes
that sometime when a hole is bored in a tree
that the sap would spout out in a stream as it
does, It only drops, sometimes almost in a
stream, but on the whole slowly, and the boy
learns that the sweet things of life have to be
patiently waited for, and do not usually come
otherwise than drop by drop.
“Then the camp is to be cleared of snow
The shanty is recovered with boughs. In front
of it two enormous logs are rolled nearly to.
gether, and a fire is built between them, Forked
sticks are set at each end, and a long pole is
caldron kettles, The huge bogsheads are turned
sap that Is gathered.
good ‘sap run,
way.
the sap: somebody Is required to watch the ket-
It is pot the boy, however;
the hot sap; he likes to roast potatoes in the
ashes, and he would live in the camp day and
night if he were permitted
in the evening, and it was made the excuse for
vited ;
village, who filled all the woods with their sweet
volces and merry laughter,
“At these sugar parties everyone was expected
to ent as much sugar as possible; and those
who are practiced In It can eat a great deal, It
is a peculiarity about eating warm maple sugar
that, though you may eat so much of it one day
as to be sick and loathe the thought of it, you
will want it the next day more than ever, At
the ‘sugaring off" they used to pour the hot
sugar upon the snow, where it congealed, with.
out crystallizing, Into a sort of wax, which I do
suppose 1s the most delicious substance that was
ever invented. And it takes a great while to eat
it. If one should close his teeth firmly on a ball
of It, he would be unable to open his mouth un-
til it dissolves, The sensation while it Is melting
is very pleasant, but one cannot converse,
“The boy used to make a big lump of it and
give it to the dog, who seized It with great
avidity, and closed his Jaws on it, as dogs will
do on anything. It was funny the next moment
to see the expression of perfect surprise on the
dog's face when he found that he could not open
his jaws, He shook his head; he sat down in
despair; he ran ‘round in a circle; he dashed
into the woods and back again, He did every
thing except climb a tree and howl It would
have been such a relief to him If he could have
howled! But that was the one thing he could
not do.”
® by Western Newspaper Union,
No Honors
There is no monument to Sir Henry
Morgan In Jamalea, although he was
once lieutenant governor there, fol-
lowing a career of piracy second to
none in the wide confines of Amerl-
ca’s Mediterranean, the Carribbean
sea, In all of Kingston there 1s not
a street, square or lane named after
him. Visitors to the island frequent-
ly express surprise at the lack of
even a tablet perpetuating the mem.
ory of the man who ravaged the
Spanish Malin and then at the behest
of his government stamped out bue-
caneering in the British West Indies,
‘orn In Wales, he first arrived in
the West Indies as a stowaway on a
ship bound for Barbados. A short
time later he reached Port Royal,
across the bay from Kingston, with
a string of prize ships captured at
Campeche, Shortly afterward he pll-
laged and burned Panama, the oldest
town on the Ameriean continent.
of treasure,
He was infamous for cheating and
iemes of
torture were
extreme, combin
the brut
untries since
time,
lly arrested
lipped to
former
complices, hanging them without trial
or mercy, and thus for the time
ending piracy In British dominions,
His despotism finally led to his re.
call,
Some gay Sir Henry Morgan died
peacefully In England under an
sumed name; others that he resume
his piratical career and was ki
a raid: while the best li
to the effect that
shipmates tled him In spread
fashion on the shore and
ked st
some of hi
Incoming tide slowly drown
generally considered an approp
fate,
Banish Freckles,
Weather-Beaten Skin
Weeks Quicker
BO €5
ce, ~~ ear
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