ody is busy most of the time gathering in the sap; somebody is
required to watch the kettles that they do not boil over, and to fill
them. It is not the boy, however; he is too busy with things in general
to be of any use in details. He has his own little sap-yoke and
small pails, with which he gathers the sweet liquid. He has a little
boiling-place of his own, with small logs and a tiny kettle. In
the great kettles the boiling goes on slowly, and the liquid, as it
thickens, is dipped from one to another, until in the end kettle it is
reduced to sirup, and is taken out to cool and settle, until enough is
made to "sugar off." To "sugar off" is to boil the sirup until it is
thick enough to crystallize into sugar. This is the grand event, and is
done only once in two or three days.

But the boy's desire is to "sugar off" perpetually. He boils his kettle
down as rapidly as possible; he is not particular about chips, scum, or
ashes; he is apt to burn his sugar; but if he can get enough to make a
little wax on the snow, or to scrape from the bottom of the kettle with
his wooden paddle, he is happy. A good deal is wasted on his hands, and
the outside of his face, and on his clothes, but he does not care; he is
not stingy.

To watch the operations of the big fire gives him constant pleasure.
Sometimes he is left to watch the boiling kettles, with a piece of pork
tied on the end of a stick, which he dips into the boiling mass when it
threatens to go over. He is constantly tasting of it, however, to see
if it is not almost sirup. He has a long round stick, whittled smooth at
one end, which he uses for this purpose, at the constant risk of burning
his tongue. The smoke blows in his face; he is grimy with ashes; he is
altogether such a mass of dirt, stickiness, and sweetness, that his own
mother would n't know him.

He likes to boil eggs in the hot sap with the hired man; he likes to
roast potatoes in the ashes, and he would live in the camp day and night
if he were permitted. Some of the hired men sleep in the bough shanty
and keep the fire blazing all night. To sleep there with them, and awake
in the night and hear the wind in the trees, and see the sparks fly up
to the sky, is a perfect realization of all the stories of adventures
he has ever read. He tells the other boys afterwards that he heard
something in the night that sounded very much like a bear. The hired man
says that he was very much scared by the hooting of an owl.