human
You two fellows come to the surface like a pair of corks! Any one would think that being lost on a mountain was an every-day occurrence with you. That is the difference between sixteen and forty-six, I suppose. My poor old nerves rebel at being jolted in such casual fashion.
gpt
We're fit as two fighting cocks to-day, Father, he declared.
human
In fact, this very minute we're going out to help David collect sap. They are going to boil a lot of it down to-day.
gpt
I imagined as much when I saw the smoke rising from the sugar-house chimney. Well, you seem to have your morning's work mapped out. Just don't get lost again, for I have no mind to go scouring the country a second time to find you.
human
We'll take good care, Mr. Carlton,
gpt
You may not lose yourself, Van, Bob chuckled,
human
They're an old pair David lent me; your father said I'd better wear them.
gpt
He's dead right, too. The snow is still deep in spots, and it is thawing everywhere. It is not the boots I'm quarreling with; it's their size. I guess, though, you can get on somehow. We want to cut across the road and make for that hill over to the right. That's where the sugar-house is; it stands in the middle of an orchard of maples which were planted by my grandfather. Of course we have other maple trees scattered about the farm and David taps those, too; but most of our sugar comes from this orchard.
human
Did your grandfather make maple-sugar to sell?
gpt
Goodness, no! He made it to use. White sugar, you must understand, was not so common in the olden days as it is now. Very little of it was grown in our country; and so, as it had to be brought from the East Indies, Spain, and South America, it was pretty expensive. Grandfather told me once that when he was a boy people used brown sugar or maple-sugar to sweeten their food, and sometimes they even used cheap molasses. White sugar was looked upon as a great luxury.
human
I don't think I ever realized that before,
gpt
Why, even my father remembers when, as a little shaver, he used to have white sugar spread on his bread for a treat.
human
Seems queer, doesn't it?
gpt
Yes. But it isn't so queer when you consider that all the sugar-cane now growing in America first had to be brought to the West Indies from Spain, the Canary Islands, or Madeira and then transplanted along the Mississippi delta. Dad says that originally sugar-cane came from Africa or India and that doubtless it was the Crusaders who introduced it into Europe.
human
Do you mean to tell me that people never knew about sugar until then?
gpt
The Chinese were practically the only people who did, and they did not use it at all as we do; they just sweetened things with the thin sap.
human
Say, he demanded at last,
gpt
What? Oh, about sugar? I don't know much. I just happen to remember a few scraps Father has told me from time to time. He's in the sugar business, you know.
human
Really? No, I didn't know. You never said anything about it. Cane-sugar?
gpt
Yes.
human
That's odd.
gpt
Why?
human
Oh, because my father is in the sugar business too. Don't you recall my telling your father so? Yes, my dad makes beet sugar.
gpt
Then that's how my father happened to know your father! exclaimed Bob quickly.
human
I suppose they're business friends. I've been wondering why Father kept watching you. Probably he sees in you some resemblance to your father. Do you look like him?
gpt
I hardly know. Some people think I do. My mother says so, was Van's indifferent response.
human
But say, tell me more about sugar. You'd think with my father right in the business I'd know something about it; but I don't. Do they get sugar from anything beside beets, and sugar-cane, and maple sap?
gpt
Oh, my, yes. There's sugar in ever so many other things: in grapes, and milk, and the date palm, and in maize; but it is from the beet and cane that the most sugar can be extracted.
human
You're quite a lecturer, Bobbie, he said.
gpt
Wait until I get back home and astonish my father with all this knowledge. I'll make his eyes stick out.
human
Hold onto me, Bob, he cried.
gpt
I can't move. While I've been standing here listening to your words of wisdom I've been sinking deeper and deeper into your old yellow mud until now I can't stir. I can't--upon my word. My feet are in perfectly solid. You can laugh if you want to, but you've just got to pull me out, that's all. Help! Help! To the rescue. I shall disappear in another minute. David will never see his rubber boots again.
human
Of course you can get your feet out,
gpt
Cross my heart I can't. Honest, Bobbie, protested Van.
human
I've got into a quicksand or a quagmire or something. Look at me. I'm up to my knees now, and if you don't hurry you'll see nothing of me but my collar. I saved your life yesterday; you might do the same for me to-day.
gpt
Pull! Pull! he cried to Van.
human
Why don't you pull?
gpt
I am pulling, Van answered.
human
But it does no good. I can't budge my feet. I never saw such mud in all my life. It must be yards deep. It sucks my boots right off. You'll have to help me.
gpt
Not I! I know too well what would happen. It would be like Kipling's story of the Elephant's Child. Don't you remember, when the crocodile let go the nose of the little elephant how he suddenly sat down _plop_. I've no notion of being pulled into this mud hole when your rubber boots come to the surface. You'll have to get yourself out.
human
You old heathen! It is not a straight game to fit me out with a pair of hip rubber boots miles too large for me and then sit and howl when you see me losing my life in them. Well, you needn't come into the mire if you don't want to, but you can at least be gentleman enough to pass me the end of that pole that is lying beside you,
gpt
I'll do that.
human
Here! he cried.
gpt
Catch hold of this and pull.