was telling
them all about maple-sugar. For of course you knew all the time that
what Cuffy had found was not a spring at all--but a sugar-maple tree,
which Farmer Green had tapped so that he might gather the sap and boil
it until it turned to maple-sugar. If Cuffy had gone further down the
mountainside he would have found a great many other trees, each--like
the one he discovered--with a tin bucket hanging on it to catch the
sweet sap.

"So you see there are many things for little bears to learn," Mr. Bear
said, when he had finished. "And the one _big_ lesson you must learn is
to keep away from men. Farmer Green visits those trees every day to
gather the sap. So you must not go down there again."

A cold shiver went up and down Cuffy's back at these words. Farmer
Green! Cuffy had heard a great deal about Farmer Green and he certainly
did not want to meet him all alone and far from home. But as soon as the
tickle of that shiver stopped, Cuffy forgot all about his fright.

"This maple-sugar--does it taste as good as the sweet sap?" he asked his
father.

"Yes, my son--a hundred times better!" Mr. Bear replied. "I ate some
once And I shall never forget it."

_A hundred times better!_ After he had gone to bed that night the words
kept ringing in Cuffy's ears. _A hundred times better! A hundred times
better!... A hundred_--And now Cuffy was fast asleep and--I am sorry to
say it--sucking one of his paws for all the world as if it was a piece
of Farmer Green's maple-sugar.

V

CUFFY AND THE MAPLE-SUGAR

Another day had come and all the morning long Cuffy Bear and his sister
Silkie played and played as hard as they could. They played that they
were making maple-sugar. And they pretended to hang buckets on all the
trees near Mr. Bear's house. There were no maple trees about Cuffy's
home--only pine and hemlock and spruce--but if you are just _pretending_
to make maple-sugar any sort of tree will do.

While they were playing Cuffy kept wishing for some _real_ maple-sugar.
After all, the little cakes of snow that he and Silkie made and _called_
maple-sugar seemed very tasteless, no matter how much Cuffy pretended.
And later, when Silkie was taking her nap, and Cuffy had no one to play
with, he became so angry with the make-believe sugar that he struck the
little pats of snow as hard as he could and spoiled them. And then,
after one look toward the door of his father's house--to make sure that
his mother did not