'To go a sparking,' is to go a courting; a common expression in the Northern States.
Mr. Justice Crow was soon overtaken; Lieut. Col. Simcoe accosted him roughly, called him "Tory," nor seemed to believe his excuses; when, in the American idiom for courtship, he said, "he had only been sparking."--Simcoe, Military Journal, p. 73.
He rolled his eyes horribly, and said that that was the way the young men cast sheep's eyes when they went a sparking.--Mrs. Clavers's Western Clearings, p. 16.