“Winnie, Bobsey, if you go near the water without me you march straight home,” I cried.

They promised never to go, but I thought Bobsey protested a little too much.  Away we went down the hill, skirting what was now a good-sized brook.  I knew the trees, from a previous visit; and the maple, when once known, can be picked out anywhere, so genial, mellow, and generous an aspect has it, even when leafless.

The roar of the creek and the gurgle of the brook made genuine March music, and the children looked and acted as if there were nothing left to be desired.  When Junior showed them a tree that appeared to be growing directly out of a flat rock, they expressed a wonder which no museum could have excited.

But scenery, and even rural marvels, could not keep their attention long.  All were intent on sap and sugar, and Junior was speedily at work.  The moment he broke the brittle, juicy bark, the tree’s life-blood began to flow.

“See,” he cried, “they are like cows wanting to be milked.”

As fast as he inserted his little wooden troughs into the trees, we placed pails and pans under them, and began harvesting the first crop from our farm.

This was rather slow work, and to keep Winnie and Bobsey busy I told them they could gather sticks and leaves, pile them up at the foot of a rock on a dry hillside, and we would have a fire.  I meanwhile picked up the dead branches that strewed the ground, and with my axe trimmed them for use in summer, when only a quick blaze would be needed to boil the supper kettle.  To city-bred eyes wood seemed a rare luxury, and although there was enough lying about to supply us for a year, I could not get over the feeling that it must all be cared for.

To children there are few greater delights than that of building a fire in the woods, and on that cloudy, chilly day our blaze against the rock brought solid comfort to us all, even though the smoke did get into our eyes.  Winnie and Bobsey, little bundles of energy that they were, seemed unwearied in feeding the flames, while Merton sought to hide his excitement by imitating Junior’s stolid, business-like ways.

Finding him alone once, I said:  “Merton, don’t you remember saying to me once, ’I’d like to know what there is for a boy to do in this street’?  Don’t you think there’s something for a boy to do on this farm?”

“O papa!” he cried, “I’m just trying to hold in.  So much has happened, and I’ve had such a good time, that it seems as if I had been here a month; then again the hours pass like minutes.  See, the sun is low already.”

“It’s all new and exciting now, Merton, but there will be long hours—­yes, days and weeks—­when you’ll have to act like a man, and to do work because it ought to be done and must be done.”

“The same would be true if we stayed in town,” he said.

Soon I decided that it was time for the younger children to return, for I meant to give my wife all the help I could before bedtime.  We first hauled the wagon back, and then Merton said he would bring what sap had been caught.  Junior had to go home for a time to do his evening “chores,” but he promised to return before dark to help carry in the sap.