ds, or petticoats, if you belong to the petticoat
family.`

"Now," panted Tattine, for it was her turn to be breathless with
running, "I'll break the sugar if you two will make the fire, but
Rudolph's to light it and he's the only one who is to lean over it
and put the wood on when it's needed. Mamma says there is to be a very
strict rule about that, because skirts and fluffy hair like mine and
Mabel's are very dangerous about a fire," and then Tattine proceeded
to roll the maple sugar in the brown paper so as to have two or three
thicknesses about it, and then, laying it upon a flat stone, began to
pound and break it with the hammer.

"Yes," said Rudolph, on his knees on the ground, and making balls of
newspaper for the foundation of the fire; "it's lucky for Mabel and me
that fire is one thing about which we can be trusted."

"I shouldn't wonder if it's the only thing," laughed Tattine, whereupon
Mabel toppled her over on the grass by way of punishment.

"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
journ