Her eyes were all red still, and
her throat sore from the big lump in it.
And now she would live it all over again as she told the Putney cousins.
For of course they must be told. She had always told Aunt Frances
everything that happened in school. It happened that Aunt Abigail had
been taking a nap when she got home from school, and so she had come out
to the sap-house, where Cousin Ann and Uncle Henry were making syrup, to
have it over with as soon as possible. She went up to the little slab
house now, dragging her feet and hanging her head, and opened the door.
Cousin Ann, in a very short old skirt and a man's coat and high rubber
boots, was just poking some more wood into the big fire which blazed
furiously under the broad, flat pan where the sap was boiling. The
rough, brown hut was filled with white steam and that sweetest of all
odors, hot maple syrup. Cousin Ann turned her head, her face very red
with the heat of the fire, and nodded at the child.
"Hello, Betsy, you're just in time. I've saved out a cupful of hot syrup
for you, all ready to wax."
Betsy hardly heard this, although she had been wild about waxed sugar on
snow ever since her very first taste of it. "Cousin Ann," she said
unhappily, "the Superintendent visited our school this afternoon."
"Did he!" said Cousin Ann, dipping a thermometer into the boiling syrup.
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