eral other trees were also tapped by the Indians.
From the birch and ash was made a dark-colored
sugar, with a somewhat bitter taste, which was used
for medicinal purposes. The box-elder yielded a
beautiful white sugar, whose only fault was that
there was never enough of it!

A long fire was now made in the sugar house,
and a row of brass kettles suspended over the
blaze. The sap was collected by the women in
tin or birchen buckets and poured into the canoes,
from which the kettles were kept filled. The
hearts of the boys beat high with pleasant antici-
pations when they heard the welcome hissing sound
of the boiling sap! Each boy claimed one kettle
for his especial charge. It was his duty to see that
the fire was kept up under it, to watch lest it boil
over, and finally, when the sap became sirup, to
test it upon the snow, dipping it out with a
wooden paddle. So frequent were these tests
that for the first day or two we consumed nearly
all that could be made; and it was not until the
sweetness began to pall that my grandmother set
herself in earnest to store up sugar for future use.
She made it into cakes of various forms, in birch-
en molds, and sometimes in hollow canes or reeds,
and the bills of ducks and geese. Some of it was
pulverized and packed in rawhide cases. Being
a prudent woman, she did not give it to us after
the first month or so, except upon special occa-