But what of it? What did that have to do with her arithmetic, with
anything? She had failed in her examination, hadn't she?
She found a clean white snow-bank under a pine-tree, and, setting her
cup of syrup down in a safe place, began to pat the snow down hard to
make the right bed for the waxing of the syrup. The sun, very hot for
that late March day, brought out strongly the tarry perfume of the big
pine-tree. Near her the sap dripped musically into a bucket, already
half full, hung on a maple-tree. A blue-jay rushed suddenly through the
upper branches of the wood, his screaming and chattering voice sounding
like noisy children at play.
Elizabeth Ann took up her cup and poured some of the thick, hot syrup
out on the hard snow, making loops and curves as she poured. It
stiffened and hardened at once, and she lifted up a great coil of it,
threw her head back, and let it drop into her mouth. Concentrated
sweetness of summer days was in that mouthful, part of it still hot and
aromatic, part of it icy and wet with melting snow. She crunched it all
together with her strong, child's teeth into a delicious, big lump and
sucked on it dreamily, her eyes on the rim of Hemlock Mountain, high
above her there, the snow on it bright golden in the sunlight. Uncle
Henry had promised to take her up to the top as soon as the snow went
off. She wondered what the top of a mountain would be like.
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