Litchfield enquirer., 1855-03-22
Vol XIX No. 47. whole No.l45s.
MAPLE suaAn.

a The editor of a New York paper thus gives his recolIeclions of sngar-making- called up by the sight of early maple-sugar displayed for sale
 - And so we invested the sum of. one cent. good and lawful currency, andr ceved therefor cake of sugar, marvellous ly little larger, but it was large enough; it has lasted until now we have isyet thers it lies this minute, hard by the inkstand.- [" Why don't you eat it!" Eat itf Eat memory! We are no ghoul-not we. We bought it to look at, to think about. and we have got our money's worth already, and the sugar besides. @t
 So, somewhere, they have had sugar weather. Have you forgotten those bright mornings in spring, little snow on the hills and in the woods, and good deal for- gotten in the valleys7 Those. mornings, when alter slight frost the night before there was great "telling of beads'' among the icicles, and musical trickling from the fine old naples into the sap-troughs. Did you ever dig out such drought Did you ever "gather" sap-they used to say 'gefh- err in those old days--walking about under a wooden ayoke, and between two pails like the scales of JUSTICE escaped from the dome of some courthouse And what times you had, carrying out, in triangle of d house-to speak geometfically, hypo,h- enuse-three boards, rough from the saw. mill base, two bundles of straw, buffalo robe and blanket; perpendicular, blue air. There you lay, hour after hour, the bubble of 'the great kettles" and the crackling of the bright fires making music. while strange lights and shadows came and went among the tall trees that stood grimly round, and the volumes of smoke worked their way out among the branches aloft, and melted into the blue heaven. It is eight o'cloc> in tho evening, and you hear merry voices In the distance. How clearly they rang through the still, and yet leafess woods. Some of those voices have not been heard in manya year, and you can remember whose if you try. It is party of young folks comingto "eat sugar." By-and-by, you hear tho cracking of the fallen twigs beneath their feet; then you see dark group; then out they come into the full fre-light, and you know them all at glance; there are KITTY and MARY, and JENNY, and two or three more, and only solitary beau in the party, but he's favorite-the schoolmaster; he holds sway in the log temple down 10 the " Corners." Robe and blanket are dispo- sed uponsa fallen log before the fires and the girls Are "all in row" like the black birds our grandmothers were forever telling of. But they don't stay there. They arc too happy to be still. Like globules of quicksilver on marble stand, they are for. ever running hther and thi,her. One peeps into your cabin to sec how you manage to sleep !; another is tasting and testing from this kettle and that; another has bent a twig into loop, digs it into the slow bubbling kettle and brings it out glazed as with bit of mica-a little pocaet mirror almost-and proclaims ..done;" fourth comes out of the shadows with pan full of snow, anoth- e. stirs the 6reto sac the sparks go up and laughs gleefuils as achild at the evanescent cmhlems of this moral lie; but she is no child; she is past eighteen, right proficient hae she become in sOvtD's gentle art, under the admirable tuition of the schoolmaster aforesaid. Poor Jenny! Dead and gone this many year.
 Some ma @ curticues with the golden syr- up. pouring it upon the crisp snow; one fills an egg-shell; another little scallop tin, while a third quietly and indrstriously goes through with the spoon exercise.
 So the hours pass by on wings of down. Kitty sings song, and it falls to you to tell story. By-and-by some chanticleer in distant farm-yard crows faintly in his sleep. It s,artles the party like the sound ofatrum. pet--away they go through the woods by starlight; the bubbing of the ksttles and the hissing of the green wood once more bs- comes audible, and you are alone with your thoughts. Perhaps that party all meet again. and perhaps-not.
 An! merry, care-free times were there, in the camp of the old Sugar Rush, but sad. der and wiser have the actors grown since then. The old campfire was extinguished score of springs ago, never to be re-kindled; the naples have been, fslled. and cern, in rustling ran's, has waved it's blades and saluted many a ripening year, where they stood.
 Alack a-day! we are all growing old. Ctr ON THE LAiry.-We remember hear.