rising from hollow places, each one resembling the eye of a bird.
Buckets, tubs and many useful things are made of the straight variety,
and for lasts it is considered better than any other kind of wood. The
curled and the bird's-eye are largely used for furniture."

"But isn't it a shame," said Clara, "to spoil the maple-sugar by making
the trees into chairs and things?"

"You would not think so," replied her governess, "if you needed the
'chairs and things' more than you need the sugar. But the supply of
trees seems to be sufficient for both purposes."

"Does the sugar come right out of the tree when people tap on it with a
hammer?" asked Edith, whose ideas of sugar-making were rather crude.

"You blessed baby!" cried Malcolm, with a shout of laughter. Let's take
our hammers and go after some maple-sugar right away."

"No, Edie," said Miss Harson as she took her much-loved little pupil on
her lap; "we'll stay at home and learn just how the sugar is made. To
_tap_ a tree, dear, means to make cuts in the trunk for the sap to flow
out, and in the sugar-maple this sap is more like water than sugar. From
the middle of February to the second week in March, according to the
warmth or the coldness of the locality, is the time for tapping the
trees; and when the holes are bored, spouts of elder or sumac from which
the pith has been taken are put into them at one end, while the other
goes down to the bucket which receives the sap. 'Several holes are so
bored that their spouts shall lead to the same bucket, and high enough
to allow the bucket to hang two or three feet from the ground, to
prevent leaves and dirt from being blown in.' The next thing is to boil