It was, and
clear in its rays stood Dannie, stripping yard after yard of fine
line through his fingers, and carefully examining it. Jimmy came
and stood beside her as she wondered.
"Why, the domn son of the Rainbow," he cried, "if he ain't
testing his fish lines!"
The next day Mary Malone was rejoicing when the men returned from
trapping, and gathering and cleaning the sugar-water troughs.
There had been a robin at the well.
"Kape your eye on, Mary" advised Jimmy. "If she ain't watched
close from this time on, she'll be settin' hins in snowdrifts,
and pouring biling water on the daffodils to sprout them."
On the first of March, five killdeers flew over in a flock, and a
half hour later one straggler crying piteously followed in their
wake.
"Oh, the mane things!" almost sobbed Mary. "Why don't they wait
for it?"
She stood by a big kettle of boiling syrup at the sugar camp,
almost helpless in Jimmy's boots and Dannie's great coat. Jimmy
cut and carried wood, and Dannie hauled sap. All the woods were
stirred by the smell of the curling smoke and the odor of the
boiling sap, fine as the fragrance of flowers. Bright-eyed deer
mice peeped at her from under old logs, the chickadees,
nuthatches, and jays started an investigating committee to learn
if anything interesting to them was occurring.
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