Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1913-04-08

bush" Most persons in these later
| and degenerate days do not know
what ''sugarbusii'' is or rather was.
For the "sugarbush" has vanished from
! the face OF the earth as the buffalo
from Iowa. 1t vanished up thousands
| floors. Mayhap some "reminiscences OF
it still remain in the furniture grand
mother left to mother. For sugar
bush" was a grove Of hard maple trees
slim yet sturdy, towering above park
| like gades, acres and thousands OF
| them.
! When the sunshine of early spring
coaxed the sap towards the tree tops
| the 'sugarbush' came to life. Long
before. however. the sugar maker had
| chopped his sap troughs out of bass
wood trees and had made "spiles' from
sumach saplings. A sap trough was
| merely two or three foot
length of Eastwood bole hol-
lowed out with an axe as an
| Indian made his dugout or as earlier
settlers made their pig troughs. The
"spile' was a ten-inch length of SUI
mach with one end plug shaped, the
pith punched out and shaped the rest
of the way like a rain conductor or
! eavestrough. When the sap started
and sugar weather" had arrived the
| big trees were tapped with an augur
| like tool, the spies driven into the
! hole. the trougts set underneath the
! drip and the sugar business started.
A sugar camp was a lively spot while
the sap was running. A long shallow
| pan. somewhat like the modern 'evap-
orator of the sorghum maker. sup
ported on stone piers occupied the
center of activity. Barrels TO contain
the sap supply stood around it. Into
| these the sap carriers, who carried
pail in each hand and two suspended
from a woke" which lay across their
shoulders poured the Accommodations
from hundreds of trees. From them the
pan was supplied as the sap evaporate"
under the influences of brisk fire un-
! derneath it. All day the sap boiled in
the pan watchfully skinned and over
looked by the sugar maker. Slowly II
thickened and began to bubble ana
nutter thickIy OF its saccharine treas
ures.
The; ''sugared OFF, always At night.
! Sometimes the boys who were closest
to the proprietor's hopefuls were per-
mitted to attend the ceremony. They
were never invited. There was no
need of such formality. The problem
was to keep them away and from I'M
der foot Night came on chilly ano
damn the fire roared under the pan,
the old square lanterns with their sh ort
lengths of tallow candles shed little
rays and CLEANS of light on the snow
patches on the north side of the trees,
branches a hundred feet overhead and
thru the gaunt skeletons of the nlsh
trees the moon glimpsed from floating
curtains of clouds. The boys huddled
the strange conditions until the sugar
maker filed the black and battered
dipper from the boiling pan and strung
it's contents on a pile OF clean snow
carefully gathered by the visitors for
this purpose. The slab liquid cooled
into black wax" that delectahle gum
my compromise between molasses and
sugar and the horde Of boys swooped
down From then on until the sugarlng
off was completed and the sugar hard
enins in it's molds there was fun IN
plenty. noise enough and the smack
ing of lips.
And when the run" was over ana
the gruff sugar maker, tired and re-
lieved Of his responsibility, banked MS
fire with a maple stump which would
hold fire" indefinitely until it was
heap of white potash. turned toward
his "shanty" and ordered the gang out
of the bush there was the two miie
tramp thru the ghostly woods, past
the big springs where the man hanged
himself, across the creek ana tnFu lie
pasture where the man whom the In
dams killed was buried. When the
lights shone in the home window it Was
as welcome as lighthouse to mariners
on q lee shore.
But do not imagine that you Of this
later generation ever ate real map!e
molasses on your buckwheat cakes, the
} thick, golden amber molasses so thicH
that we had to turn the moiasses
pitcher fairly upside down and which
crept slowly out and piled itself ar
inch nigh on the pancake. You Gel
e syrup nowadays, a poor substitute ioi
that good old expressive word mo-
8 lasses.'' syrup which is as degenerate
y and lacks as much in favor and con-
e sistency of the product of the old time
c .sugarhush" as the word lacks ex-
5 pressiveness.