Just inside the door stood a tub full of something brown. One sniff told
Cuffy that it was maple-sugar and he began to gulp great mouthfuls of
it. Yes! his father was right. It certainly was a hundred times sweeter
than the sap.

In the middle of the room was a big pan which gave off clouds of steam.
Cuffy wanted to see it. And with his mouth full of sugar he walked up to
the pan and looked into it. He saw a golden liquid, and Cuffy felt that
he simply _must_ taste that too. So he dipped both his front paws right
into the bubbling syrup.




VI

CUFFY MEETS A MAN


And then how Cuffy Bear did roar--just one second after he had stuck his
paws into the steaming pan. You see--he was so greedy that he had never
once stopped to think that the syrup was boiling hot.

Now, usually if you pick up anything hot you can drop it at once. But it
is not so with hot maple syrup. Cuffy's paws were covered with the
sticky brown stuff. He rubbed them upon his trousers, and he roared
again when he saw what he had done.

Then Cuffy had a happy thought. He would go out and shove his paws into
a snowbank. That would surely cool them. So out of the sugar-house he