"No, but honest!" continued Rudolph, "I have just been trained and trained about fire.I know it's an awfully dangerous thing.It's just foolhardy to run any sort of risk with it, and it's wise when you make a fire in the open air like this, to stand on the same side as the wind comes from, even if you haven't any skirts or fluffy hair to catch.""Here's some more wood, grandfather," said Mabel solemnly, dumping an armful down at his side; "I should think you were eighty to hear you talk," and then Mabel had her punishment by being chased down the path and plumped down rather hard in the veriest tangle of brambles and briars.It chanced, however, that her corduroy skirt furnished all the protection needed from the sharp little thorns, so that, like "Brer Rabbit," she called out exultingly, " 'Born and bred in a briar-patch, Brer Rudolph, born and bred in a briar-patch,'" and could have sat there quite comfortably, no one`knows how long, but that she heard the maple sugar go tumbling into the kettle.And then she heard Tattine say, "A cup of water to two pounds, isn't it?" Then she heard the water go splash on top of the maple sugar.Now she could stand it no longer, and, clearing the briars at one bound, was almost back at the camp with another.
By this time the fire was blazing away finely, and the sugar, with the help of an occasional stirring from the long-handled spoon in Rudolph's hand, soon dissolved.Dissolving sometimes seems to be almost a day's journey from boiling, and the children were rather impatient for that stage to be reached.
At last, however, Rudolph announced excitedly, "It boils, it boils! and now Imustn't leave it for a minute.More wood, Mabel! don't be so slow, and, Tattine, hurry Philip up with that ice," but Philip was seen at that moment bringing a large piece of ice in a wheelbarrow, so Tattine was saved that journey, and devoted the time instead to spreading out one of the pieces of wrapping-paper, to keep the ice from the ground, because of the dead leaves and "things" that were likely to cling to it.
"Now break off a good-sized piece, Tattine," Rudolph directed, "and put it on a piece of paper near the fire," but Tattine knew that was the next thing to do, so what was the use of Rudolph's telling her? It happens quite frequently that people who are giving directions 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 Ishould 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.
