What a lot of measuring and sawing and fitting and finishing it takes to make a few pails!
Shaggy Bear helped as much as he could. But bears are such clumsy things!
Finally one day Father Thrift said to Shaggy: “Now everything is ready. We have our spouts with which to draw the sap from the trees. And we have the wooden pails and some earthen crocks I made from clay last summer, in which to gather it.
“There is a large iron kettle we will use for boiling the sap down into sirup and sugar.
“To-morrow we will tap our trees.”
“Why to-morrow?” asked the bear. “That seems too long to wait. Why not to-day?”
“Because,” replied Father Thrift, “everything depends on time. There isn’t time enough left to-day. To-morrow we will start work real early. And to get up early to-morrow we must get to bed early to-night.”
“I don’t see how I shall be able to sleep at all,” grumbled the bear.
But in a few moments he was fast asleep where he sat.