THE SUGARING-OFF The sugar time is, in many ways, the best of all the year.

It is the time of crisp mornings, when "the crust bears," and the boys go crunching over all the fields and through the woods; the time, too, of sunny noons and chilly nights.

Winter is still near, but he has lost most of his grip, and all his terror.

For the earth has heard the call of spring from afar, and knows that soon she will be seen, dancing her shy dances, in the sunny spaces of the leafless woods.

Then, by and by, from all the open fields the snow is driven back into the fence corners, and lies there in soiled and sullen heaps.