And then, indeed, the stir and excitement begin.  The sap-buckets, which have been stored in the garret over the wood-house, and which the boy has occasionally climbed up to look at with another boy, for they are full of sweet suggestions of the annual spring frolic,—­the sap-buckets are brought down and set out on the south side of the house and scalded.  The snow is still a foot or two deep in the woods, and the ox-sled is got out to make a road to the sugar camp, and the campaign begins.  The boy is everywhere present, superintending everything, asking questions, and filled with a desire to help the excitement.

It is a great day when the cart is loaded with the buckets and the procession starts into the woods.  The sun shines almost unobstructedly into the forest, for there are only naked branches to bar it; the snow is soft and beginning to sink down, leaving the young bushes spindling up everywhere; the snowbirds are twittering about, and the noise of shouting and of the blows of the axe echoes far and wide.  This is spring, and the boy can scarcely contain his delight that his out-door life is about to begin again.

In the first place, the men go about and tap the trees, drive in the spouts, and hang the buckets under.  The boy watches all these operations with the greatest interest.  He wishes that sometime, when a hole is bored in a tree, the sap would spout out in a stream as it does when a cider-barrel is tapped; but it never does, it only drops, sometimes almost in a stream, but on the whole slowly, and the boy learns that the sweet things of the world 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 re-covered with boughs.  In front of it two enormous logs are rolled nearly together, and a fire is built between them.  Forked sticks are set at each end, and a long pole is laid on them, and on this are hung the great caldron kettles.  The huge hogsheads are turned right side up, and cleaned out to receive the sap that is gathered.  And now, if there is a good “sap run,” the establishment is under full headway.

The great fire that is kindled up is never let out, night or day, as long as the season lasts.  Somebody is always cutting wood to feed it; somebody 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.