"Did your grandfather make maple-sugar to sell?"
"Goodness, no! He made it to use. White sugar, you must understand, was not so common in the olden days as it is now. Very little of it was grown in our country; and so, as it had to be brought from the East Indies, Spain, and South America, it was pretty expensive. Grandfather told me once that when he was a boy people used brown sugar or maple-sugar to sweeten their food, and sometimes they even used cheap molasses. White sugar was looked upon as a great luxury."
"I don't think I ever realized that before," said Van thoughtfully.
"Why, even my father remembers when, as a little shaver, he used to have white sugar spread on his bread for a treat."
"Seems queer, doesn't it?" Van mused.
"Yes. But it isn't so queer when you consider that all the sugar-cane now growing in America first had to be brought to the West Indies from Spain, the Canary Islands, or Madeira and then transplanted along the Mississippi delta. Dad says that originally sugar-cane came from Africa or India and that doubtless it was the Crusaders who introduced it into Europe."
"Do you mean to tell me that people never knew about sugar until then?" inquired Van incredulously, halting in the middle of the road.
"The Chinese were practically the only people who did, and they did not use it at all as we do; they just sweetened things with the thin sap."
Van regarded his chum steadily for a moment.
"Say," he demanded at last, "how did you come to know so much, Bobbie?"