"We must pitch in, Rush. I want to be on hand when old Wire comes to see if his spiles are set right. Maybe it'll kill him."
"I've tapped pretty nearly two trees to their one," said Jerry to himself, "but I won't boast of it. Here's a remarkably fine tree, right in the sun. I hope they won't make any mistakes."
With that he started his twist of steel into the yielding wood of one of the noblest silver-birches in all that forest, and in a wonderfully short time there was another spile fitted. Whether there would be any need for Mr. Wire to put a sap trough under the end of that spile was quite another question.
The crust was thick, and bore very well, so that the girls had no wading to do in going from one fire to another; and Jim Wire and his father worked like beavers at emptying the sap troughs, and carrying in the almost colorless, sweetish-tasting liquid their trees had yielded them.
"Now, Jim," said Mr. Wire at last, "we'd better take a lot of troughs and follow them fellers. 'Twon't do to waste any sap."
Phin and Rush saw them coming, and at once stopped work. So did Jerry Buntley, for he had some suggestions to make about those spiles. It seemed to him that some of them were bored too small for the quantity of sap which was expected to run through them.
He and the others came up just as the gray-headed old sugar-maker stopped in front of Jerry's first tree, and they got there in time to wink hard at Jim Wire. All three of them stepped around behind Jerry and Mr. Wire.
"You've sot that there spile in jest about right, Mr. Buntley," said Mr. Wire, without changing a muscle of his wrinkled face; "but this kind of maple don't give any sugar at this season of the year. It isn't a winter maple; it's the kind we call an ellum."
"Ah! Oh yes! Strange I didn't notice."
"Doesn't yield anything but brown sugar—common brown sugar. It's all right, though. I declar'!"