dilute. It won't be running at night." After a while the voice, full of propitiatory intonations, resumed:--
"My dear, you don't mind if I slip out. It will only take a minute."
"I do mind. Go to sleep!"
Silence. Then:--
"It's raining harder. I hate to think of all that sap--"
"You don't have to think!" I was quite savage. "Just go to sleep--and let me!" Another silence. Then a fresh downpour. The voice was pleading:--
"Please let me go! I'll be back in a minute. And it's not cold."
"Oh, well--I'm awake now, anyway. I'll go." My voice was tinged with that high resignation that is worse than anger. Janet's tone changed instantly:--
"No, no! Don't! Please don't! I'm going. I truly don't mind."
"I'm going. I don't mind, either, not at all."
"Oh, dear! Then let's not either of us go."
"That was my idea in the first place."
"Well, then, we won't. Go to sleep, and I will too."
"Not at all! I've decided to go."
"But it's stopped raining. Probably it won't rain any more."
"Then what are you making all this fuss for?"
"I didn't make a fuss. I just thought I could slip out--"
"Well, you couldn't. And it's raining very hard again. And I'm going."
"Oh, don't! You'll get drenched."
"Of course. But I can't bear to have all that sap diluted."
"It doesn't run at night. You said it didn't."
"You said it did."
"But I don't really know. You know best."
"Why didn't you think of that sooner? Anyway, I'm going."
"Oh, dear! You make me feel as if I'd stirred you up--"
"You have," I interrupted, sweetly. "I won't deny that you have stirred me up. But now that you have mentioned it"--I felt for a match--"now that you have mentioned it, I see that this was the one thing needed to make my evening complete, or perhaps it's morning--I don't know."
We found the dining-room warm, and soon we were equipped in those curious compromises of vesture that people adopt under such circumstances, and, with lantern and umbrella, we fumbled our way out to the trees. The rain was driving in sheets, and we plodded up the road in the yellow circle of lantern-light wavering uncertainly over the puddles, while under our feet the mud gave and sucked.
"It's diluted, sure enough," I said, as we emptied the pails. We crawled slowly back, with our heavy milk-can full of sap-and-rain-water, and went in.
The warm dining-room was pleasant to return to, and we sat down to cookies and milk, feeling almost cozy.
"I've always wanted to know how it would be to go out in the middle of the night this way," I remarked, "and now I know."
"Aren't you hateful!" said Janet.
"Not at all. Just appreciative. But now, if you haven't any other plan, we'll go back to bed."
It was half-past eight when we waked next morning. But there was nothing to wake up for. The old house was filled with the rain-noises that only such an old house knows. On the little windows the drops pricked sharply; in the fireplace with the straight flue they fell, hissing, on the embers. On the porch roofs the rain made a dull patter of sound; on the tin roof of the "little attic" over the kitchen it beat with flat resonance. In the big attic, when we went up to see if all was tight, it filled the place with a multitudinous clamor; on the sides of the house it drove with a fury that re-echoed dimly within doors.
Outside, everything was afloat. We visited the trees and viewed with consternation the torrents of rain-water pouring into the pails. We tried fastening pans over the spouts to protect them. The wind blew them merrily down the road. It would have been easy enough to cover the pails, but how to let the sap drip in and the rain drip out--that was the question.
"It seems as if there was a curse on the syrup this year," said Janet.
"The trouble is," I said, "I know just enough to have lost my hold on the fool's Providence, and not enough really to take care of myself."
"Superstition!" said Janet.
"What do you call your idea of the curse?" I retorted. "Anyway, I have an idea! Look, Janet! We'll just cut up these enamel-cloth table-covers here by the sink and everywhere, and tack them around the spouts."
Janet's thrifty spirit was doubtful. "Don't you need them?"
"Not half so much as the trees do. Come on! Pull them off. We'll have to have fresh ones this summer, anyway."
We stripped the kitchen tables and the pantry and the milk-room. We got tacks and a hammer and scissors, and out we went again. We cut a piece for each tree, just enough to go over each pair of spouts and protect the pail. When tacked on, it had the appearance of a neat bib, and as the pattern was a blue
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