This is the grand event, and is only done once in two or three days.

15. But the boy's desire is to "sugar-off" perpetually. He boils his syrup down as rapidly as possible; he is not particular about chips, scum, or ashes; he is apt to burn his sugar; but if he can get enough to make a little wax on the snow, or to scrape from the bottom of the kettle, with his wooden paddle, he is happy. A great deal is wasted on his hands and the outside of his face and on his clothes, but he does not care he is not stingy.

16. To watch the operations of the big fire gives him constant pleasure. Sometimes he is left to watch the boiling kettles. He has a piece of pork tied on the end of a stick, which he dips into the boiling mass, when it threatens to go over.

17. He is constantly tasting the sap to see if it is not almost syrup. He has a long round stick, whittled smooth at one end, which he uses for this purpose, at the constant risk of burning his tongue.

18. The smoke blows in his face; he is grimy with ashes; he is altogether such a mass of dirt, stickiness, and sweetness, that his own mother wouldn't know him. He likes, with the hired man, to boil eggs in the hot sap; he likes to roast potatoes in the ashes; and he would live in the camp day and night if he were permitted.

19. Some of the hired men sleep in the shanty and

keep the fire blazing all night. To sleep there with them, and awake in the night and hear the wind in the trees, and see the sparks fly up to the sky, is a perfect realization of all the adventures he has ever read. He tells the other boy, afterwards, that he heard something in the night that sounded very much like a bear. The hired man says that he was very much scared by the hooting of an owl.

20. The great occasions for the boy, though, are the times of the "sugaring-off." Sometimes this used to be done in the evening, and it was made the excuse for a frolic in the camp. The neighbors were invited, and sometimes even the pretty girls from the village, who filled all the woods with their sweet voices and merry laughter, and little affectations of fright.

21. At these sugar parties, every one was expected to eat as much sugar as possible; and those who are practiced in it can eat a great deal. It is a peculiarity about eating warm maple-sugar, that, though you may eat so much of it one day as to be sick and loathe the thought of it, you will want it the next day more than

ever.

22. At the "sugaring-off" they used to pour the hot sugar upon the snow, where it congealed into a sort of wax, without crystallizing; which, I do suppose, is the most delicious substance that was ever invented; but it takes a great while to eat it. If one should close his teeth firmly on a ball of it, he would be

unable to open his mouth until it was dissolved. The sensation, while it is melting, is very pleasant, but one cannot talk.

23. The boy used to make a big lump of this sugarwax and give it to the dog, who seized it with great avidity and closed his jaws on it, as dogs will do on anything. It was funny, the next moment, to see the expression of perfect surprise on the dog's face, when he found he could not open his jaws.

24. He shook his head;-he sat down in despair;he ran round in a circle; - he dashed into the woods and back again. He did everything except climb a tree and howl. It would have been such a relief to him if he could have howled, but that was the one thing he could not do.

HEADS FOR COMPOSITION.

I. "Sap's runnin'": who tells the news?— effect of the an

nouncement.

II. PREPARATIONS: the sap-buckets - the sled loaded - the procession.

III. IN THE SUGAR WOODS: tapping the trees-driving in the spouts placing the buckets.

IV. THE GREAT FIRE: the huge logs - the uprights the long pole - the caldron kettles.

V. THE BOILING: dipping the liquid from one kettle to another its condition in the end kettle.

VI.

Sugaring-off" explanation of the process - how often done-frolic in the camp.

flit'ted, passed rapidly.

73.-A Dream.

| flood’ing, filling full.

1. ALL yesterday I was spinning,

Sitting alone in the sun;

And the dream that I spun was so lengthy,
It lasted till day was done.

2. I heeded not cloud or shadow
That flitted over the hill,

Or the humming-bees, or the swallows,
Or the trickling of the rill.

3. I took the threads for my spinning
All of blue summer air,

And a flickering ray of sunlight
Was woven in here and there.

4. The shadows grew longer and longer,
The evening wind passed by,

And the purple splendor of sunset
Was flooding the western sky.

5. But I could not leave my spinning,
For so fair my dream had grown,
I heeded not, hour by hour,
How the silent day had flown.

6. At last the gray shadows fell round me,
And the night came dark and chill,

And I rose and ran down the valley,

And left it all on the hill.

7. I went up the hill this morning,
To the place where my spinning lay,-
There was nothing but glistening dewdrops
Remained of my dream to-day.

LANGUAGE EXERCISE.

I. What poetical word (2) means small stream?
Explain "flickering ray" (3); "I heeded not " (5).
Give a synonym of: "lengthy" (1); “fair” (5).

II. Give the principal parts of these irregular verbs: spin; weave; grow; fall; rise; run; go.

"And left it all on the hill" (6): to what does "it" refer?
Which stanza is a complex sentence?

III. How many lines in each stanza?
Change to the prose order: —

Which lines rhyme?

"So fair my dream had grown,

I heeded not, hour by hour,
How the silent day had flown."

74.-The Farmer and the Fox.

be

hal'ter, a rope used in hanging. | hăng:
| hăng =le hanged.

1. A FARMER whose poultry-yard had suffered severely from foxes succeeded at last in catching one in a trap.