The Story of Sugar | Page 9

Sara Ware Bassett
"Now pull yourself together!" he
commanded. "Where's your nerve? Brace up or I'll rattle the daylights

out of you."
"I can't go another step."
"You've got to. Start on ahead. Don't crawl that way--walk! Faster!
Faster than that, do you hear? I'm just behind you, and I shall step on
your heels if you lag. Keep it up. Go on."
Panting, Bob obeyed.
Suddenly he gave a cry.
"What's the matter?" demanded Van.
"There! There on the tree!" He pointed before him with trembling hand.
"Your sweater!"
Van pushed past him.
"Sure as fate! My sweater! Blamed if it isn't."
They both laughed weakly.
"Then we've found the trail!" Bob almost sobbed the words.
"We sure have! And hark, don't you hear voices? It's David, as I'm
alive; and your father!"
Aid had indeed come.
"Father!" Bob shouted the word and then laughed again--this time a bit
hysterically.
"The rescuing party's right here!" called Mr. Carlton.
He said it lightly, but as he came up and joined them Van saw that his
face was drawn and his eyes suspiciously bright.
"David has the sledge just at the foot of the hill," he remarked,

appearing not to notice the boy's fatigue. "I guess you'd just as soon
ride the rest of the way."
He slipped an arm around Bob.
"It's not much farther, son. Move right along as fast as you can. Hurry,
boy. Your mother's pretty worried. Thank goodness we found you in
time."
CHAPTER III
SUGARING OFF
The next morning, incredible as it seemed, Bob and Van were none the
worse for their mountain trip, and Mr. Carlton, who had worried no
little about them, and who was still feeling the effects of his hours of
anxiety, remarked somewhat wrathfully:
"You two fellows come to the surface like a pair of corks! Any one
would think that being lost on a mountain was an every-day occurrence
with you. That is the difference between sixteen and forty-six, I
suppose. My poor old nerves rebel at being jolted in such casual
fashion."
Bob smiled.
"We're fit as two fighting cocks to-day, Father," he declared. "In fact,
this very minute we're going out to help David collect sap. They are
going to boil a lot of it down to-day."
"I imagined as much when I saw the smoke rising from the sugar-house
chimney. Well, you seem to have your morning's work mapped out.
Just don't get lost again, for I have no mind to go scouring the country a
second time to find you."
"We'll take good care, Mr. Carlton," Van replied, giving a final tug at
his long rubber boots.

"You may not lose yourself, Van," Bob chuckled, "but I am morally
certain you'll lose your boots. You will just walk off and leave them in
some snow-drift or mud puddle and never miss them. They are big
enough for an elephant. Where did you get them, anyway?"
"They're an old pair David lent me; your father said I'd better wear
them."
"He's dead right, too. The snow is still deep in spots, and it is thawing
everywhere. It is not the boots I'm quarreling with; it's their size. I
guess, though, you can get on somehow. We want to cut across the road
and make for that hill over to the right. That's where the sugar-house is;
it stands in the middle of an orchard of maples which were planted by
my grandfather. Of course we have other maple trees scattered about
the farm and David taps those, too; but most of our sugar comes from
this orchard."
"Did your grandfather make maple-sugar to sell?"
"Goodness, no! He made it to use. White sugar, you must understand,
was not so common in the olden days as it is now. Very little of it was
grown in our country; and so, as it had to be brought from the East
Indies, Spain, and South America, it was pretty expensive. Grandfather
told me once that when he was a boy people used brown sugar or
maple-sugar to sweeten their food, and sometimes they even used
cheap molasses. White sugar was looked upon as a great luxury."
"I don't think I ever realized that before," said Van thoughtfully.
"Why, even my father remembers when, as a little shaver, he used to
have white sugar spread on his bread for a treat."
"Seems queer, doesn't it?" Van mused.
"Yes. But it isn't so queer when you consider that all the sugar-cane
now growing in America first had to be brought to the West Indies
from Spain, the Canary Islands, or Madeira and then transplanted along
the Mississippi delta. Dad says that originally sugar-cane came from

Africa or India and that doubtless it was the Crusaders who introduced
it into Europe."
"Do you mean to tell me that people
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