"Now, Mabel," continued the drum-major, "will you please bring some more wood,
and will you please put your mind on it and keep bringing it? These little
twigs that make the best fire burn out in a twinkling, please notice," but
Mabel did not hurry so very much for the next armful; since she could see for
herself there was no great need for haste. Rudolph was simply getting excited,
but then the making of maple-wax is such a very responsible undertaking, he
could not be blamed for that. You need to stop its boiling at precisely the
right moment, else it suddenly reaches the point where, when you cool it, it
grows brittle like "taffy," and then good-bye to maple-wax for that kettleful.
So Rudolph, every half-minute, kept dripping little streams of the boiling
sugar from the spoon upon the piece of ice, and Tattine and Mabel kept testing
it with their fingers and tongues, until both at last exclaimed in one and the
same breatlg, "It's done! it's done! Lift it off the fire quickly; it's just
right." Just right means when the sugar hardens in a few seconds, or in a
little more than half a minute, into a delicious consistency like--well, just
like maple-wax, for there is nothing else in the world that I know of with
which to compare it. Then the children seated themselves around the great cake
of ice, and Rudolph, with the kettle on the ground beside him, tipped against
a log of wood at just the right angle, continued to be master of ceremonies,
and dipped spoonful after spoonful of the syrup, and let it trickle over the
ice in queer fantastic shapes or in little, tbin round discs like
griddle-cakes. The children ate and ate, and fortunately it seems for some
reason, to be the most harmless sweet that can be indulged in by little
people.

"Well, I've had enough," remarked Rudolph at the expiration of say a quarter
of an hour, "but isn't it wonderful that anything so delicious can just
trickle out of a tree?" his unmannerly little tongue the while making the
circuit of his lips in search of any lingering traces of sweetness.