in the open fields; these were the earliest to run.

In early March we used to begin to make ready for sugar-making
by overhauling the sap "spiles," resharpening the old ones, and
making new ones. The old-fashioned awkward sap-gouge was used in
tapping in those days, and the "spiles" or spouts were split out
of basswood blocks with this gouge, and then sharpened so as to
fit the half-round gash which the gouge made in the tree. The
dairy milk-pans were used to catch the sap, and huge iron kettles
to boil it down in.

When the day came to tap the bush, the caldrons, the hogsheads,
and the two hundred or more pans with the bundles of spiles were
put upon the sled and drawn by the oxen up to the boiling-place in
the sap bush. Father and Brother Hiram did the tapping, using an
axe to cut the gash in the tree, and to drive in the gouge below it
to make a place for the spile, while one of my younger brothers and
I carried the pans and placed them in position.

It was always a glad time with me; the early birds were singing and
calling, the snowbanks were melting, the fields were getting bare,
the roads drying, and spring tokens were on every hand. We gathered
the sap by hand in those days, two pails and a neck-yoke. It was
sturdy work. We would usually begin about three or four o'clock,
and by five have the one hundred and fifty pailfuls of sap in the
hogsheads. When the sap ran all night, we would begin the gathering
in the morning. The syruping-off usually took place at the end of
the second day's boiling, when two or three hundred pailfuls of sap
had been reduced to four or five of syrup. In the March or April
twilight, or maybe after dark, we would carry those heavy pails of