through which the sweet sap would begin to trickle down into the troughs placed there to receive it.  From these troughs it was collected and carried in buckets and pails to an immense receptacle hollowed out of the trunk of some great tree; usually selecting what was called the ‘cucumber tree,’ as its soft wood could be more easily excavated than that of other trees.  The men used to wear a yoke upon their shoulders with hooks from which the pails were suspended; and thus equipped they would traverse to and fro with the sap.  I well remember lending my assistance to father by trudging valiantly through snow that reached my knees, to carry buckets of sap, but without the assistance of a yoke.

“The process of making sugar is very like that I described in the manufacture of black salts.  The sap is poured into immense cauldrons, and boils sometimes for several days.  As fast as it evaporates, fresh sap is poured in until the syrup becomes thick, and then follows granulation, or, as the farmers call it, ‘sugaring off.’  These periods of sugaring off, which occurred usually once or twice a week during the sugar season, were participated in by the neighbors from far and near, who would come to eat sugar and make merry.

“I forgot, however, to tell you that while the sap was boiling, some one had to spend the night in the woods to refill the cauldron, and to keep up the fire.  In our family this duty fell to brother Barnes, who took much delight in it.  With some boy friend he would camp out upon a bundle of straw before the fire, and with a nice supper, and songs and stories, diversified by rising every half hour to stir up the fire, and watch the cauldron, and to have a private sugaring off for their own benefit, the boys would pass away the night.

“But were they in no danger from wild animals, mamma?” inquired Marguerite.

“Not much,” replied mamma; “the boys always took their guns with them, but although the deer would rustle over the leaves, and bears and wolves would creep softly up to the little encampment, the fire was usually sufficient protection, and the wolves would content themselves with howling, and with a dissatisfied grunt the bears would move slowly away.

“Often the boys would see through the darkness a pair of fiery eyes glaring at them, and seizing their rifles they would shoot; but if they missed aim, the bears or wolves would have been sufficiently alarmed by the noise to make their escape whilst they could.  Boys accustomed to a pioneer’s life feared nothing; such adventures were as great sport to them in the woods, as they are to you, Gabrielle, while listening to them safely housed.”

“But in novels, and books of travel in new countries, auntie,” said Gabrielle with a dissatisfied shake of her pretty head, “when you fire at a bear or other wild animal and do not kill him, he instantly turns and kills you.  Were the bears and wolves of Pennsylvania less ferocious than those of other countries?”