"We'll take good care, Mr. Carlton," Van replied, giving a final tug
at his long rubber boots.

"You may not lose yourself, Van," Bob chuckled, "but I am morally
certain you'll lose your boots. You will just walk off and leave
them in some snow-drift or mud puddle and never miss them. They are
big enough for an elephant. Where did you get them, anyway?"

"They're an old pair David lent me; your father said I'd better wear
them."

"He's dead right, too. The snow is still deep in spots, and it is
thawing everywhere. It is not the boots I'm quarreling with; it's
their size. I guess, though, you can get on somehow. We want to cut
across the road and make for that hill over to the right. That's
where the sugar-house is; it stands in the middle of an orchard of
maples which were planted by my grandfather. Of course we have other
maple trees scattered about the farm and David taps those, too; but
most of our sugar comes from this orchard."

"Did your grandfather make maple-sugar to sell?"

"Goodness, no! He made it to use. White sugar, you must understand,
was not so common in the olden days as it is now. Very little of it
was grown in our country; and so, as it had to be brought from the
East Indies, Spain, and South America, it was pretty expensive.
Grandfather told me once that when he was a boy people used brown
sugar or maple-sugar to sweeten their food, and sometimes they even
used cheap molasses. White sugar was looked upon as a great luxury."