none of your polite sugar-makers, that boils for the great folks; but if the raal sweet maple is wanted, I can answer your turn. First, I choose, and then I tap my trees; say along about the last of February, or in these mountains, maybe not afore the middle of March; but any way, just as the sap begins to cleverly run"
"Well, in this choice," interrupted Marmaduke, "are you governed by any outward signs, that prove the quality of the tree?"
"Why, there's judgment in all things," said Kirby, stirring the liquor in his kettles briskly. "There's something in knowing when and how much to stir the pot. It's a thing that must be larnt. Rome wasn't built in a day, nor, for that matter, Templetown 'ither, though it may be said to be a quick-growing place. I never put my axe into a stunty tree, or one that has'nt a good, fresh-looking bark; for trees have disorders just like creaters; and where's the policy of taking a tree that's sickly, any more than you'd choose a foundered horse to ride post, or an overheated ox to do your logging"
"All this is true; but what are your signs of illness? how do you distinguish a tree that is well from one that is diseased?"
"How does the doctor tell who has fever, and who colds?" interrupted Richard—"by examining the skin, and feeling the pulse, to be sure."
"Sartain," continued Billy; "the Squire a'nt far out of the way. It's by the look of the thing, sure enough.—Well, when the sap begins to get a free run, I hang over the kettles, and set up the bush. My first boiling I push pretty smart, till I get the vartoo of the sap; but when it begins to grow of a molasses nater, like this in the kettle, one musn't drive the fires too hard, or you'll burn the sugar; and burny sugar is always bad to the
