Printed on notepad sheet – Peckett’s Franconia, New Hampshire.

While tending the kettles there beside the old arch in the bright, warm March or April days, with my brother, or while he had gone for dinner, looking down the long valley and off over the curving backs of the distant mountain ranges, what dreams I used to have, what vague longings, and, I may say, what happy anticipatioins ! I am sure I gathered more than sap and sugar in those youthful days amid the maples. When I visit the old home now, I have to walk up to the sugar bush and stand around the old “boiling place”, trying to transport myself back into the magic atmosphere of that boyhood time. The man has his dreams, too, but to his eyes the world is not steeped in romance as it is to the eyes of youth.

John Burroughs