" 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.
"Trickle out of a tree!" exclaimed astonished Tattine.
"Why, yes, don't you know that's the way they make maple sugar? In the spring,
about April, when the sap begins to run up into the maple-trees, and often
while the snow is still on the ground, they what they call tap the tree; they
drive a sort of little spout right into the tree and soon the sap begins to
ooze out and drop into buckets that are placed to catch it.
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