d tack them around the spouts."

Janet's thrifty spirit was doubtful. "Don't you need them?"

"Not half so much as the trees do. Come on! Pull them off. We'll have to
have fresh ones this summer, anyway."

We stripped the kitchen tables and the pantry and the milk-room. We got
tacks and a hammer and scissors, and out we went again. We cut a piece for
each tree, just enough to go over each pair of spouts and protect the
pail. When tacked on, it had the appearance of a neat bib, and as the
pattern was a blue and white check, the effect, as one looked down the
road at the twelve trees, was very fresh and pleasing. It seemed to cheer
the people who drove by, too.

But the bibs served their purpose, and the sap dripped cozily into the
pails without any distraction from alien elements. Sap doesn't run in the
rain, they say, but this sap did. Probably Hiram was right, and you can't
tell. I am glad if you can't. The physical mysteries of the universe are
being unveiled so swiftly that one likes to find something that still
keeps its secret--though, indeed, the spiritual mysteries seem in no danger
of such enforcement.

The next day the rain stopped, the floods began to subside, and Jonathan
managed to arrive, though the roads had even less "bottom to 'em" than
before. The sun blazed out, and the sap ran faster, and, after Jonathan
had fully enjoyed them, the blue and white bibs were taken off. Somehow in
the clear March sunshine they looked almost shocking. By the next day we
had syrup enough to try for sugar.

For on sugar my heart was set. Syrup was all very well for the first year,
but now it had to be sugar. Moreover, as I explained to Janet, when it
came to sugar, being absolutely ignorant, I was again in a position to
expect the aid of the fool's Providence.

"How much _do_ you know about it?" asked Janet.

"Oh, just what people say. It seems to be partly like fudge and partly
like molasses candy. You boil it, and then you beat it, and then you pour
it off."

"I've got more to go on than that," said Jonathan. "I came up on the train
with the Judge. He used to see it done."

"You've got to drive Janet over to her train to-night; Hiram can't," I
said.

"All right. There's time enough."

We sat down to early supper, and took turns running out to the kitchen to
"try" the syrup as it boiled down. At least we said we would take turns,
but usually we all three went. Supper seemed distinctly a side issue.

"I'm go