Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-06-02
Camp Life.

Days who's" martial music was n.
eveille of a bird song and the tattoo q,
a woodpecker's bill on the hollow troa
that is the great bass drum Of tho |
woods. Nights that sent one shiver;ns
to the camp fire with leaping lights ana
shadows. Mornings in which frost ,na
sunshine mingled on the gray rim ~ |
dawn. Evenings that were like tba |
little old woman in the nursery rhyme |
who, 'the longer she lives, the shorter |
she grows" Something of this sort was
what went on in the woods in those hal. |
cyon days when the world made its own |
sugar. There must be men in Congress |
now to whom afrosty highland a warm !
sunny morning suggest a "good sugar
day" For one brief moment they NAV |
leave the country to save itself while
they cut elder quilts to run off the sap. |
There must be lawyers who are "hum- |
ming in court the old love tune" they
learned in those early days. Grand
danes of society, as they are handed
in to dinner, must remember how their
health was drunk in that sweet wine Of
the woods against which there was no
need of prohibition. 1t is years and
years since they have ''assisted'' at a
sugaring-off, and if they were to find
their way back now to the old camp on
the home farm they would find so
many modern improvements and so
much method in doing the work that
half of the charm of the old free life
would be gone. Instead of the hollow
tubes or the elder, galvanized iron
spouts stab the trees to the heart. The
sugar-trough that was the traditional
cradle of greatness is replaced by =
more elaborate device. There is no more |
lettering through shady wood paths
two to carry. No more roughing It in |
the log-hut that served for shelter. The
modern sugar-house is an ambitious
and permanent structure. The sap is
emptied into a 1ume, which conducts it
into a reservoir. A 'heater'' takes the
place of the great kettle that swung
owe the open fire. Elaborate systems
of pipes and tubes and strainers have
been invented and all sorts of labor
saving apparatus takes the place of the
hand work that used to make it a labor
of love. The delicate process of sugar
ing-off required such experience and
judgment and subtle instinct of taste
and touch that it was the GROWING
ceremony of the season. Now, like So
many other things, it is materialized
and made so mechanical that all the
poetry has gone out Of it.
Under the new dispensation no doubt
labor is saved, but of the things more
precious than labor that are lost or mis-
laid by the change, no one can tell but
those who lived under the old regime.
Among other things, a certain subtle
flavor is missed in the maple sugar in
the market to-day, which used to sweet
en- it. So say those who know, and one
can hardly help being Swedenborgian
enough to believe that that final flavor
of sweetness missing now was the touch
of the human hand, the affection and
the romance that was put into sugar
when men and women worked togetherI
through the spring days to store upl
sweetness for their households. ALI
this, it is to be feared, has vanished be-
fore the materialism of the man who
invented the patent evaporator, ," and
who calls the camp an .orehard."-4
IoWo State Register.