human
What are you doing, Dave?
gpt
Doing! Ain't you got eyes, young man? I certainly ain't writing a book or taking a wireless message,
human
But straight, I mean it. What are you doing? You know this business is new to me,
gpt
Haven't you ever seen maple-sugar made?
human
Never.
gpt
Well, bless my soul! Where was you raised?
human
In Colorado.
gpt
Humph! That accounts for it. If you'd been brought up in the East you'd have known.
human
But I was raised in the East, David, and I've never seen maple-sugar made,
gpt
You ain't never--you ain't seen maple-syrup or maple-sugar made, Mr. Bob?
human
No.
gpt
Well, what are we coming to?
human
What you been doing with yourself all your days?
gpt
I've been going to school.
human
And they ain't taught you to make maple-sugar? That's about all schooling is worth nowadays, he affirmed.
gpt
Now I warn't never inside a schoolhouse in my life, but I've known from the time I was knee-high to a grasshopper how to make maple-sugar. I made pounds of it before I was half the age of you two. The boys of this generation don't know nothin'!
human
Well, you may as well learn before you're a minute older, he continued.
gpt
Listen, now. Do you see the little hole in this maple? He pointed up at the gray trunk above his head.
human
We make a little hole like that in every tree as soon as the sap begins to run in the early spring. Then we drive into the hole this small piece of hollow wood--it is like a trough, you see; and the sap runs through it into the buckets we hang beneath. All day and all night it drips in and each morning we go round and empty every pail into the cask we carry on the sledge. The sap, as you see, is thin, because only part of it is sugar; the rest is water. What we have to do is to boil down the liquid until the part that is water goes off in vapor and only the syrup is left. If we're after maple-syrup we let it cool when it gets thick and later bottle it; but if we want sugar we must boil the syrup still more until little crystals form in it.
gpt
How can you tell when it has been boiled enough?
human
Oh, we've made it enough times to know, David replied.
gpt
Some folks stick a thermometer into it and figger how hot it will have to be; they say that's the best way. Others try the syrup in cold water or on snow like you would candy. Generally speaking, I can tell by the feel of it, and by the way it drips from the spoon. Sometimes, though, when I'm in doubt I try it on snow myself. If it gets kinder soft and waxy you can be sure it is getting done. If I was you instead of tracking round emptying buckets I'd go in the sugar-house and see 'em boiling the syrup. They started yesterday, and as I calculate it the mess ought to be pretty well along by now.
human
Bully idea, David! What do you say, Van? asked Bob.
gpt
Shall we trail David or shall we go in and see the sugar made?
human
Sugar! Sugar! Me for the sugar!
gpt
Sugar it is then!