Every minute after that was a busy one. The nights were crisp with frost, and the days were full of spring sunshine. For hours and hours each day Roy trudged through the snow wearing on his shoulders the yoke which had a pail hanging from either end, and after each trip into the woods he would turn two brimming pails of sap into the big kettle boiling over the fire.
After each trip into the woods Roy would turn two
brimming pails of sap into the big kettle.
Sometimes his legs ached, and he got tired tramping through the snow, and one pair of mittens grew quite useless for the holes worn in them. But he did not give up one bit of his share of the work.
For a whole week the sap ran freely, and then came the time for Roy to leave the men and go home.
"I'm going to miss you a whole lot!" declared Uncle Henry.
Roy laughed happily. He was going down the mountain on the ox team which was piled high with barrels of rich brown syrup.
"I'd like to stay!" he said. "I've learned about what you said before I came: that it's more real fun doing hard things than 'tis to play at easy ones!"
—Written for Dew Drops by Ruby Holmes Martyn.