Tattine | Page 8

give too
many by far.
"Now, Mabel," continued the drum-major, "will you please bring some
more wood, and will you please put your mind on it and keep bringing
it? These little twigs that make the best fire burn out in a twinkling,
please notice," but Mabel did not hurry so very much for the next
armful; since she could see for herself there was no great need for haste.
Rudolph was simply getting excited, but then the making of maple-wax
is such a very responsible undertaking, he could not be blamed for that.
You need to stop its boiling at precisely the right moment, else it
suddenly reaches the point where, when you cool it, it grows brittle like
"taffy," and then good-bye to maple-wax for that kettleful. So Rudolph,
every half-minute, kept dripping little streams of the boiling sugar from
the spoon upon the piece of ice, and Tattine and Mabel kept testing it
with their fingers and tongues, until both at last exclaimed in one and
the same breatlg, "It's done! it's done! Lift it off the fire quickly; it's just
right." Just right means when the sugar hardens in a few seconds, or in
a little more than half a minute, into a delicious consistency like--well,
just like maple-wax, for there is nothing else in the world that I know
of with which to compare it. Then the children seated themselves
around the great cake of ice, and Rudolph, with the kettle on the ground

beside him, tipped against a log of wood at just the right angle,
continued to be master of ceremonies, and dipped spoonful after
spoonful of the syrup, and let it trickle over the ice in queer fantastic
shapes or in little, tbin round discs like griddle-cakes. The children ate
and ate, and fortunately it seems for some reason, to be the most
harmless sweet that can be indulged in by little people.
"Well, I've had enough," remarked Rudolph at the expiration of say a
quarter of an hour, "but isn't it wonderful that anything so delicious can
just trickle out of a tree?" his unmannerly little tongue the while
making the circuit of his lips in search of any lingering traces of
sweetness.
"Trickle out of a tree!" exclaimed astonished Tattine.
"Why, yes, don't you know that's the way they make maple sugar? In
the spring, about April, when the sap begins to run up into the
maple-trees, and often while the snow is still on the ground, they what
they call tap the tree; they drive a sort of little spout right into the tree
and soon the sap begins to ooze out and drop into buckets that are
placed to catch it. Afterwards they boil it down in huge kettles made for
the purpose. They call it sugaring off, and it must be great fun."
"Not half so much fun, I should think, as sugaring down," laughed
Mabel, with her right hand placed significantly where stomachs are
supposed to be.
"And now I am going to run up to the house," explained Tattine, getting
stiffly up from a rather cramped position, "for three or four plates, and
Kudolph, you break off some pieces of ice the right size for them, and
we will make a little plateful from what is left for each one up at the
house, else I should say we were three little greedies. And Mabel, while
I am gone you commence to clear up."
"Well, you are rather cool, Tattine," said Mabel, but she obediently set
to work to gather things together.
As you and I cannot be a bit of help in that direction, and have many of
a clearing-up of our own to do, I propose that we lose not a minute in
running away from that little camp, particularly as we have not had so
much as a taste of the delicious wax they've been making.

CHAPTER III

. A SET OF SETTERS
It was a great bird-year at Oakdene. Never had there been so many. The
same dear old Phoebe-birds were back, building under the eaves of
both the front and back piazzas. The robins, as usual, were everywhere.
The Maryland yellow-throats were nesting in great numbers in the
young growth of woods on the hill of the ravine, and ringing out their
hammer-like note in the merriest manner; a note that no one understood
until Dr. Van Dyke told us, in his beautiful little poem, that it is
"witchery, witchery, witchery," and now we wonder that we could have
been so stupid as not to have discovered it was exactly that, long ago.
But the glory of the summer were the orioles and the scarlet tanagers;
the orioles with their marvellous notes, and the tanagers in their scarlet
golfing coats glinting