tant annual event in the lives of all settlers. This was no less
than sugar-making. Curiously enough, the Collinsons had few
sugar-maples on their farm, so they used to go to their nearest
neighbour's, where a certain number of trees were yearly set aside for
them. This neighbour was more than ten miles distant as the bird
flies, and the journey there, the sugar-making among fresh surroundings
and with fresh companionship, and the triumphant return through the
woods that were just beginning to awaken, were all looked forward to
throughout the winter.

This year it was arranged that one of the twins, Dick, Stephanie, and
two of the farm-hands, should go; William Charles was chosen at first,
but he yielded to Roger's evident disappointment, and said he would
stay at home. "Though I 'm sure," he said to himself placidly, "that I
should take just as much care of Stephanie as he could. However, if he
wants to go, I would just as soon stay at home, for it is hard work
they will get and plenty of it." And stay he did, with complete
satisfaction.

The others started on their journey one chill morning in early March,
before day had dawned. In the first sleigh were Stephanie, Dick,
Roger, and one of the farm-hands driving the pair of horses. The other
and more roughly built sleigh followed them, loaded with all the
appliances necessary for the sugar-making--three great cast-iron
kettles, a couple of heavy troughs cut out of pine-logs, and so
forth--in charge of the second man.

Stephanie never in her life forgot that drive through the great woods;
there had been heavy snow, which filled up all the hollows between
stumps and natural roughnesses that generally made the rude trail a
path of torment; the snow had been followed by sharp, incessant frost,
so the going was good. At first so impressive was the hush of the
cold, dim world into which they drove, that only the jingle of harness
and the squeal and bump of the clumsy runners broke the silence. But
as the pale March day dawned in a flood of blue and primrose-yellow,
crystal-clear and chill behind the trees, subdued talking and laughter
startled the solitudes as the sleighs passed. The skies, as the sun
rose higher, were of a deep translucent blue, and the breeze had an
edge as of steel. Nothing seemed at first sight to give promise of
spring. But an observant eye would have seen that the smaller branches
and twigs of the trees had lost their winter hue of dull