"Yes, my son--a hundred times better!" Mr. Bear replied. "I ate some
once And I shall never forget it."

_A hundred times better!_ After he had gone to bed that night the words
kept ringing in Cuffy's ears. _A hundred times better! A hundred times
better!... A hundred_--And now Cuffy was fast asleep and--I am sorry to
say it--sucking one of his paws for all the world as if it was a piece
of Farmer Green's maple-sugar.




V

CUFFY AND THE MAPLE-SUGAR


Another day had come and all the morning long Cuffy Bear and his sister
Silkie played and played as hard as they could. They played that they
were making maple-sugar. And they pretended to hang buckets on all the
trees near Mr. Bear's house. There were no maple trees about Cuffy's
home--only pine and hemlock and spruce--but if you are just _pretending_
to make maple-sugar any sort of tree will do.

While they were playing Cuffy kept wishing for some _real_ maple-sugar.
After all, the little cakes of snow that he and Silkie made and _called_
maple-sugar seemed very tasteless, no matter how much Cuffy pretended.
And later, when Silkie was taking her nap, and Cuffy had no one to play
with, he became so angry with the make-believe sugar that he struck the
little pats of snow as hard as he could and spoiled them. And then,