ent kinds of pie and cake, and red apples and cider,
to the girls he liked the least. He shunned Cynthia, and when he was
accidentally near her, and she asked him if he would get her a glass of
cider, he rudely told her--like a goose as he was--that she had better
ask Ephraim. That seemed to him very smart; but he got more and more
miserable, and began to feel that he was making himself ridiculous.

Girls have a great deal more good sense in such matters than boys.
Cynthia went to John, at length, and asked him simply what the matter
was. John blushed, and said that nothing was the matter. Cynthia said
that it wouldn't do for two people always to be together at a party; and
so they made up, and John obtained permission to "see" Cynthia home.

It was after half-past nine when the great festivities at the Deacon's
broke up, and John walked home with Cynthia over the shining crust
and under the stars. It was mostly a silent walk, for this was also an
occasion when it is difficult to find anything fit to say. And John was
thinking all the way how he should bid Cynthia good-night; whether
it would do and whether it wouldn't do, this not being a game, and
no forfeits attaching to it. When they reached the gate, there was
an awkward little pause. John said the stars were uncommonly bright.
Cynthia did not deny it, but waited a minute and then turned abruptly
away, with "Good-night, John!"

"Good-night, Cynthia!"

And the party was over, and Cynthia was gone, and John went home in a
kind of dissatisfaction with himself.

It was long before he could go to sleep for thinking of the new world
opened to him, and imagining how he would act under a hundred different
circumstances, and what he would say, and what Cynthia would say; but a
dream at length came, and led him away to a great city and a brilliant
house; and while he was there, he heard a loud rapping on the under
floor, and saw that it was daylight.

XIV. THE SUGAR CAMP

I think there is no part of farming the boy enjoys more than the making
of maple sugar; it is better than "blackberrying," and nearly as good as
fishing. And one reason he likes this work is, that somebody else does
the most of it. It is a sort of work in which he can appear to be very
active, and yet not do much.

And it exactly suits the temperament of a real boy to be very busy about
nothing. If the power, for instance, that is expended in play by a
boy between the ages of eight and fourte