could be burned in
ricks. Many of the trees were very old, nearly lifeless, and punky at
the heart; but they made an abundance of ashes.

There is no wood in the world from which such quantities of ashes can be
secured; and that is the reason, I suppose, why the tree is called
_ash._ Nor is there another tree whose ashes make so strong a lye. It
was for this reason that we came here to make "salts."

We brought up on our raft twenty old flour-barrels, to be used as
leach-tubs. These were set up in a semi-circle round our boiling-place,
which was a long stone "arch." A pole and lumber-shed served us as a
camp.

We used to sit there evenings, and by the light of the fire under the
boiling kettles of lye, try to read Aesop's fables in Latin, and I never
to this day take up my old Latin reader without seeming to hear the
steady drip-drop of those twenty leach-tubs.

Making salts was hard work for us, though not much harder than
translating some of those fables; but one needs to work to keep warm in
Northern Maine in December.

In the forenoons we would all three cut and split the ash into
fire-wood, then burn it and boil the ashes. Sometimes we burned eight or
ten cords in a single rick, which made from seven to ten barrels of
ashes. Then we poured water into the barrels, and set earthen pans or
pots underneath to catch the lye as it drained through.

When our four iron kettles,--hung with "hooks" to a long pole over our
arch,--were all boiling, there was a strong odor, and the steam made our
eyes smart. It took a lively fire, and we made a good many ashes in the
arch.

When boiled away, the lye leaves a residuum, which, in color and general
appearance, resembles brown sugar. This was the "salts." It is very
strong. Compared with lye, it is like the oil of peppermint compared
with peppermint tea.

We had been promised six cents a pound for salts delivered at Bangor, to
be refined into soda. When we met with no interruptions, we obtained
from forty to fifty pounds of salts in a day. Not a very rapid way of
getting rich, yet better than nothing for boys who were determined to
earn something so that we could prepare for college.

But it was shocking work for the hands, handling the lye and these
"salts." Round our finger nails the skin was eaten off, and the nails
themselves were warped and yellowed. Often the blood followed a single
accidental slop of the "juice" which settled at the bottom of the
"salts." I once