When Roy saw that Uncle Henry was in the shop getting the troughs and pails ready for the spring sap running, he made up his mind to ask if he couldn't go to the maple orchard with the men. He had heard them tell so much about the happy days among the big maples that he had wanted to go for a long while, and it seemed to Roy that he must be large enough this year to take his turn at the sap gathering. He asked Uncle Henry about it first.

"Can't I go to the sugar camp this year?"

Uncle Henry looked up from the buckets he was counting.

"Maybe you can! I'm ready enough to take you along for a week. But I want to tell you right here how it isn't all fun up there in the sugar camp. You hear us talking about the best side of those days, and we don't say anything about the backaches and such as that!"

Roy was a little surprised to hear Uncle Henry speak like that, but he was too brave to change his mind about going.

"There must be a lot of fun," he said, "and it's manly to do hard things."

Uncle Henry nodded.

"So 'tis! That's more real fun than playing at easy ones! If your folks are willing, get ready to start for the sugaring with me to-morrow morning. The yoke your father used when he was a boy is hanging up in the shop, and I guess your shoulders have grown broad enough to hold it on!" laughed Uncle Henry.

The very next morning they started for the sugar camp far up on the side of the mountain, and long before noontime they had built a fire in the log shack, and Roy was out in the woods helping Uncle Henry tap the maple trees.

Every minute after that was a busy one. The nights were crisp with frost, and the days were full of spring sunshine. For hours and hours each day Roy trudged through the snow wearing on his shoulders the yoke which had a pail hanging from either end, and after each trip into the woods he would turn two brimming pails of sap into the big kettle boiling over the fire.

Sometimes his legs ached, and he got tired tramping through the snow, and one pair of mittens grew quite useless for the holes worn in them. But he did not give up one bit of his share of the work.

For a whole week the sap ran freely, and then came the time for Roy to leave the men and go home.

"I'm going to miss you a whole lot!" declared Uncle Henry.

Roy laughed happily. He was going down the mountain on the ox team which was piled high with barrels of rich brown syrup.

"I'd like to stay!" he said. "I've learned about what you said before I came: that it's more real fun doing hard things than 'tis to play at easy ones!"

–Written for Dew Drops by Ruby Holmes Martyn.

NEIGHBORS

Bobby made the snow man. He had made snow men in the country, and he knew how. He always made them by the gate, next to the big syringa bush. He used to cut a stick from a tree for the snow man to hold, and he generally placed a long chicken feather in its cap.

But in a city yard that was not even all your own yard, it was different. Recently Bobby's father had come into town to live.

In the same street lived Joey Rodman, who was about Bobby's age. The afternoon that Bobby made the snow man Joey kept throwing stones. Bobby tried not to mind. There was lots of snow in the yard, and he made the snow man unusually large. The other children helped him, but Joey kept calling out and throwing things, and at last he knocked off the head of the snow man just as Bobby had put in two bits of coal for the eyes.

Bobby could not stand that. He ran after Joey, and Joey dodged and began to call him names. Joey's sister, Sadie, who cared for the six children, heard the noise in the yard below.

"Do you think it's your yard?" she called out to Bobby. "It is just as much Joey's yard as it is yours!"

Then Bobby's mother opened her window. "Come in, Bobby!" she said; and when Bobby left the snow man and climbed upstairs, she said, "Son, we mustn't quarrel with our neighbors, you know."

"But Joey threw stones—"

"Never mind," said mother. "We won't talk about that. Perhaps we'll get to be friends with Joey after a while. And you remember about coals of fire."

That was mother's rule. Bobby knew that text about coals of fire so well!

"But I don't see how you could ever make coals of fire out of a snow man, mother!" he said. And then mother laughed, and he laughed, too.

After a while, Joey and the other children ran out into the street to play. Bobby went down and finished the snow man with no one to trouble him. He put on the head again, and placed an old broom under its arm. He put it in very tight, so that no one could take it out easily.

Joey's sister, Sadie, was bringing things out to the roof of the two-story extension. It was a tin roof, and sloped a bit. Suddenly her foot slipped, and she lost her balance. She clutched at a clothesline, but it snapped. Down she came, and Bobby stood speechless with fright.

But the snow man—the heroic snow man—was there to save her. Standing firm and erect, he received the shock of Sadie's fall. It was too much for his head. He lost that first, and then, as he went all to pieces, he made a pillow for Sadie. Bobby ran forward.

"Oh, oh, I never will say a word against that boy!" she said, sitting up in the snow. "His snow man has saved me!" Bobby's mother came running downstairs and out into the yard.

"You poor child!" she said. "But I don't believe there's a bone broken. Come right in and I'll give you a cup of hot tea."

Sadie came, and Bobby followed. Behind him came Joey, and the two boys lingered round while the tea was made. Sadie drank it, and smiled at Bobby's mother.

"We're neighbors. I always like my neighbors, and I want to help them if I can," said Bobby's mother.

"Well, you can count me as a neighbor who likes you," said Sadie. "Come along, Joey—and mind you behave to Bobby like a good neighbor, too."

Bobby climbed into his mother's lap after they had gone upstairs. "Coals of snow are all right," he whispered in her ear.

–Selected.

The thing that goes the farthest Toward making life worth while, That costs the least and does the most, Is just a pleasant smile."

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Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 09, March 1, 1914

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Various Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 09, March 1, 1914

REAL FUN

NEIGHBORS

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