s
to stand to reason. That's the answer, and the sum has to be figured out
somehow in accordance with it. Like one time, when I was about sixteen
years old, and in the possession of positive and definite information
about the way the earth went around the sun and all, I was arguing with
one of these old codgers that think they know it all, one of these
men that think it is so smart to tell you: "Sonny, when you get older,
you'll know more 'n you do now--I hope." Well, he was trying to tell me
that the day lengthened at one end before it did at the other. I did my
best to dispel the foolish notion from his mind, and explained to him
how it simply could not be, but no, sir! he stood me down. Finally,
since pure reasoning was wasted on him, I took the almanac off the nail
it hung by, and--I bedog my riggin's if the old skidama link wasn't
right after all. Sundown keeps coming a minute later every day, while,
for quite a while there, sun-up sticks at the same old time, 7:30 A.M.
Did you ever hear of anything so foolish?

"Very early, while it is yet dark," the alarm clock of old Dame Nature
begins to buzz. It may snow and blow, and winter may seem to have
settled in in earnest, but deep down in the earth, the root-tips, where
lie the brains of vegetables, are gaping and stretching, and ho-humming,
and wishing they could snooze a little longer. When it thaws in the
afternoon and freezes up at sunset as tight as bricks, they tell me
that out in the sugar-camp there are great doings. I don't know about
it myself, but I have heard tell of boring a hole in the maple-tree,
and sticking in a spout, and setting a bucket to catch the drip, and
collecting the sap, and boiling down, and sugaring off. I have heard
tell of taffy-pullings, and how Joe Hendricks stuck a whole gob of
maple-wax in Sally Miller's hair, and how she got even with him by
rubbing his face with soot. It is only hearsay with me, but I'll tell
you what I have done: I have eaten real maple sugar, and nearly pulled
out every tooth I had in my head with maple-wax, and I have even gone so
far as to have maple syrup on pancakes. It's good, too. The maple syrup
came on the table in a sort of a glass flagon with a metal lid to it,
and it was considered the height of bad manners to lick off the last
drop of syrup that hung on the nose of the flagon. And yet it must not
be allowed to drip on the table-cloth. It is a pity we can't get any
more maple syrup nowadays, but I don