“No—no—’t won’t run to-night. Too [pg 030] cold. ’T won’t run any to-night. You can sleep all right.”
This was pleasant to hear. There was a moon, to be sure, but it was growing colder, and at the idea of crawling along that road in the middle of the night even my enthusiasm shivered a little.
So I made my rounds at nine, in the white moonlight, and went to sleep.
I was awakened the next morning to a consciousness of flooding sunshine and Hiram’s voice outside my window.
“Got anything I can empty sap into? I’ve got everything all filled up.”
“Sap! Why, it isn’t running yet, is it?”
“Pails were flowin’ over when I came out.”
“Flowing over! They said the sap wouldn’t run last night.”
“I guest there don’t nobody know when sap’ll run and when it won’t,” said Hiram peacefully, as he tramped off to the barn.
In a few minutes I was outdoors. Sure enough, Hiram had everything full—old boilers, feed-pails, water-pails. But we found some three-gallon milk-cans and used them. A farm is like a city. There are always things [pg 031] enough in it for all purposes. It is only a question of using its resources.