When it thaws in the afternoon and freezes up at sunset as
tight as bricks, they tell me that out in the sugar-camp there are
great doings. I don't know about it myself, but I have heard tell
of boring a hole in the maple-tree, and sticking in a spout, and
setting a bucket to catch the, drip, and collecting the sap, and
boiling down, and sugaring off. I have heard tell of taffy-pullings,
and how Joe Hendricks stuck a whole gob of maple-wax in Sally
Miller's hair, and how she got even with him by rubbing his face
with soot. It is only hearsay with me, but I'll tell you what I
have done: I have eaten real maple sugar, and nearly pulled out
every tooth I had in my head with maple-wax, and I have even gone
so far as to have maple syrup on pancakes. It's good, too. The
maple syrup came on the table in a sort of a glass flagon with a
metal lid to it, and it was considered the height of bad manners to
lick off the last drop of syrup that hung on the nose of the flagon.
And yet it must not be allowed to drip on the table-cloth. It is a
pity we can't get any more maple syrup nowadays, but I don't feel
so bad about the loss of it, as I do to think what awful liars
people can be, declaring on the label that 'deed and double, 'pon
their word and honor, it is pure, genuine, unadulterated maple syrup,
when they know just as well as they know anything that it is only
store-sugar boiled up with maple chips.
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