birch was stripped down in thin strands, and brooms enough made for a
year's service in house and barn; and various other useful offices
rendered. The sound of busy hands and nimble fingers was lost in
commingling happy voices. Fun and jest, joy and love, ruled the hour.
The whole affair was followed by "Blind-man's Buff" or some other
sport. After the "old folks" had considerately retired, who knows but
that the sons and daughters of Puritans sometimes wound up with a
dance? There were sleigh-rides, and the woods rang with the happy
laugh and jingling bells. The vehicles used on these occasions were,
prior to 1700, more properly called "sleds." Our modern "sleigh" had
not then been introduced. As the spring came on, logs would be
hollowed or scooped out and placed near the feet of sugar maples, a
slanting incision made a foot or two above them in the trunks of the
trees, a slip of shingle inserted, and the delicious sap would trickle
down into the troughs. When the proper time came, tents or booths made
of evergreen boughs would be erected in the woods, great kettles hung
over blazing fires, and a whole neighborhood camp out for several days
and nights, until the work was accomplished, and the flavory syrup or
solid cakes of sugar brought out.

These were some of the recreations of the country people in the early
settlements of New England; continuing, perhaps, in frontier towns to
this day. They constituted forms of enjoyment which cannot exist in
cities or older communities; and possessed a charm, in the memory of
all who ever participated in them, greater, far greater, than society
in any later stage can possess.

The principal method of travelling in those days was on horseback. It
afforded many special opportunities for social enjoyment. Women as
well as men were trained to it. The people of the village were all at