“Sounds mighty good to me,” said Pee Wee, with whom the memory of Meena and her breakfast of buckwheat cakes and maple syrup still lingered.
“You can take out the hot sugar in big spoons and let it cool on a pan of snow,” continued Skeets, drawing out the details as he saw that his friends’ mouths were watering in anticipation, “and when you get the first taste of it you never want to stop eating.”
“I wonder if there’s a sugar camp anywhere around here,” said Pee Wee with great animation.
“I know of one that’s about three miles away,” said Sparrow. “What do you say to our making up a party and going out there to-morrow if Doc Raymond will let us go out of bounds?”
There was a general chorus of gleeful assent.
“What we ought to do,” said Skeets, “is to have a couple of fellows go out there to-day and make arrangements. We want to take up a collection and fix it up with the farmer’s wife to have hot biscuits and other things ready for us. I tell you what, fellows, hot biscuits and fresh butter and hot thick maple sugar just out of the boiler—”
“Don’t say another word,” cried Pee Wee frantically, “or I’ll never, never be able to wait till to-morrow.”
They took stock of their resources and collected several dollars between them, enough they thought to cover the expense. Bobby and Fred were appointed as a committee of two to go out to the camp that afternoon so that everything would be in readiness on the morrow.
Dr. Raymond’s permission was readily obtained, and the chums set out on their three mile walk. They had no trouble in finding the camp and the farmer’s wife, a bright, cheery person, was very ready to entertain the party and promised to have an abundant lunch provided for them.
The boys would have dearly liked to inspect the camp, but they had promised their chums that they would not do so until all could see it together, and they kept loyally to their word.