With renewed vigor they attacked the melted sugar—they stirred and stirred. Even Vera lent a hand, and the stuff boiled and boiled but thickened very slowly and when set out to cool hardened as before.
"Keep stirring! Indeed, I think if we stirred it from now until doomsday it would stay just sugar," declared Laura.
"I'm sure I remember the recipe just as Kizzie told it," said the disappointed Alene who, as head cook, felt responsible for the disaster. "I'll run up to the sewing-room and ask Mrs. Major what she thinks is wrong."
"Oh, girls, guess where the trouble was! In the stirring, after all," she said, returning a few minutes later, breathless from her hurried trip.
"No!"
"It can't be!"
"We didn't stop a minute!"
"But we shouldn't have commenced! All we have to do is to let it alone until it thickens!"
"My poor broken arm feels worse than ever," grumbled Hermione.
"'Love's labors lost,'" said Ivy, and Vera declared that she had suspected they were overdoing it!