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.
To watch the operations of the big fire gives him constant pleasure.
Sometimes he is left to watch the boiling kettles, with a piece of pork
tied on the end of a stick, which he dips into the boiling mass when it
threatens to go over.
He is constantly tasting of it, however, 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.
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 to boil eggs with the hired man 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.
To sleep there with the men, 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 stories of adventures he has ever read.
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