"Well, I should think you would," said Earl, "and it's easy done there aint nothin' easier, when you know the right way to set to work about it; and there's a fine lot of sugar trees on the old farm I recollect of them sugar trees as long ago as when I was a boy I've helped to work them afore now, but there's a good many years since has made me a leetle older; but the first thing you want is a man and a team, to go about and empty the buckets the buckets must be emptied every day and then carry it down to the house."
"Yes, I know," said Fleda; "but what is the first thing to be done to the trees?"
"Why, la! 'tain't much to do to the trees all you've got to do is to take an axe and chip a bit out, and stick a chip a leetle way into the cut for to dreen the sap, and set a trough under, and then go on to the next one, and so on; you may make one or two cuts in the south side of the tree, and one or two cuts in the north side, if the tree's big enough, and if it aint, only make one or two cuts in the south side of the tree; and for the sap to run good, it had ought to be that kind o' weather when it freezes in the day and thaws by night; I would say! when it friz in the night and thaws in the day; the sap runs more bountifully in that kind o' weather."
It needed little from Fleda to keep Mr. Douglass at the maple- trees till supper was ended; and then, as it was already sundown, he went to harness the sleigh.
It was a comfortable one, and the horses, if not very handsome nor bright-curried, were well fed and had good heart to their work. A two-mile drive was before them, and with no troublesome tongues or eyes to claim her attention, Fleda enjoyed it fully. In the soft clear winter twilight, when heaven and earth mingle so gently, and the stars look forth brighter and cheerfuller than ever at another time, they slid along over the fine roads, too swiftly, towards home; and Fleda's thoughts as easily and swiftly slipped away from Mr. Douglass, and maple-sugar, and Philetus, and an unfilled woodyard, and an empty flour-barrel, and revelled in the pure ether. A dark rising ground covered with wood sometimes rose between her and the western horizon; and then a long stretch of snow, only less pure, would leave free view of its unearthly white light, dimmed by no exhalation, a gentle, mute, but not the less eloquent, witness to earth of what heaven must be.
But the sleigh stopped at the gate, and Fleda's musings came home.
"Good night!" said Earl, in reply to their thanks and adieus; " 'taint anything to thank a body for let me know when you're a-goin' into the sugar-making, and I'll come and help you."
"How sweet a pleasant message may make an unmusical tongue!" said Fleda, as she and Hugh made their way up to the house.
"We had a stupid enough afternoon," said Hugh.
"But the ride home was worth it all!"