"What are you doing, Dave?" asked Van curiously. "Doing! Ain't you got eyes, young man? I certainly ain't writing a book or taking a wireless message," he answered without turning his head. "But straight, I mean it. What are you doing? You know this business is new to me," explained Van. "Haven't you ever seen maple-sugar made?" David's tone was full of surprise. "Never." "Well, bless my soul! Where was you raised?" "In Colorado." "Humph! That accounts for it. If you'd been brought up in the East you'd have known." "But I was raised in the East, David, and I've never seen maple-sugar made," piped Bob, instantly overthrowing the old farmer's philosophy. "You ain't never--you ain't seen maple-syrup or maple-sugar made, Mr. Bob?" queried David aghast. "No." "Well, what are we coming to?" The farmhand surveyed the boys disdainfully. "What you been doing with yourself all your days?" he gasped at last. "I've been going to school." "And they ain't taught you to make maple-sugar? That's about all schooling is worth nowadays," he affirmed. "Now I warn't never inside a schoolhouse in my life, but I've known from the time I was knee-high to a grasshopper how to make maple-sugar. I made pounds of it before I was half the age of you two. The boys of this generation don't know nothin'!" He sniffed contemptuously. "Well, you may as well learn before you're a minute older," he continued. "Listen, now. Do you see the little hole in this maple?" He pointed up at the gray trunk above his head. "We make a little hole like that in every tree as soon as the sap begins to run in the