She turned back to stoke the fire, and Elizabeth Ann, in a daze, found herself walking out of the door.  It fell shut after her, and there she was under the clear, pale-blue sky, with the sun just hovering over the rim of Hemlock Mountain.  She looked up at the big mountains, all blue and silver with shadows and snow, and wondered what in the world Cousin Ann had meant.  Of course Hemlock Mountain would stand there just the same.  But what of it?  What did that have to do with her arithmetic, with anything?  She had failed in her examination, hadn’t she?

She found a clean white snow-bank under a pine-tree, and, setting her cup of syrup down in a safe place, began to pat the snow down hard to make the right bed for the waxing of the syrup.  The sun, very hot for that late March day, brought out strongly the tarry perfume of the big pine-tree.  Near her the sap dripped musically into a bucket, already half full, hung on a maple-tree.  A blue-jay rushed suddenly through the upper branches of the wood, his screaming and chattering voice sounding like noisy children at play.

Elizabeth Ann took up her cup and poured some of the thick, hot syrup out on the hard snow, making loops and curves as she poured.  It stiffened and hardened at once, and she lifted up a great coil of it, threw her head back, and let it drop into her mouth.  Concentrated sweetness of summer days was in that mouthful, part of it still hot and aromatic, part of it icy and wet with melting snow.  She crunched it all together with her strong, child’s teeth into a delicious, big lump and sucked on it dreamily, her eyes on the rim of Hemlock Mountain, high above her there, the snow on it bright golden in the sunlight.  Uncle Henry had promised to take her up to the top as soon as the snow went off.  She wondered what the top of a mountain would be like.  Uncle Henry had said the main thing was that you could see so much of the world at once.  He said it was too queer the way your own house and big barn and great fields looked like little toy things that weren’t of any account.  It was because you could see so much more than just the ...

She heard an imploring whine, and a cold nose was thrust into her hand!  Why, there was old Shep begging for his share of waxed sugar.  He loved it, though it did stick to his teeth so!  She poured out another lot and gave half of it to Shep.  It immediately stuck his jaws together tight, and he began pawing at his mouth and shaking his head till Betsy had to laugh.  Then he managed to pull his jaws apart and chewed loudly and visibly, tossing his head, opening his mouth wide till Betsy could see the sticky, brown candy draped in melting festoons all over his big white teeth and red gullet.  Then with a gulp he had swallowed it all down and was whining for more, striking softly at the little girl’s skirt with his forepaw.  “Oh, you eat it too fast!” cried Betsy, but she shared her next lot with him too.  The sun had gone down