In my day maple-sugar-making used to be something between picnickingand being shipwrecked on a fertile island, where one should save fromthe wreck tubs and augers, and great kettles and pork, and hen's eggsand rye-and-indian bread, and begin at once to lead the sweetest lifein the world. I am told that it is something different nowadays, andthat there is more desire to save the sap, and make good, pure sugar,and sell it for a large price, than there used to be, and that theold fun and picturesqueness of the business are pretty much gone. Iam told that it is the custom to carefully collect the sap and bringit to the house, where there are built brick arches, over which it isevaporated in shallow pans, and that pains is taken to keep theleaves, sticks, and ashes and coals out of it, and that the sugar isclarified; and that, in short, it is a money-making business, inwhich there is fairly little fun, and that the boy is not allowed todip his paddle into the kettle of boiling sugar and lick off thedelicious sirup. The prohibition may improve the sugar, but it iscruel to the boy.