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They poured the syrup into Mother’s big brass kettle on the cook-stove Then Alan the chores while Father fetched the rest of the syrup from the woods

After supper, the syrup was ready to sugar off Mother ladled it into six-quartevery pan held a big cake of solid olden-brown cakes and stored them on the top pantry shelves

Day after day the sap was running, and every ather and boil it; every night Mother sugared it off They ar they could use next year Then the last boiling of syrup was not sugared off; it was stored in jugs down cellar, and that was the year’s syrup

When Alice came home from school she s wintergreen berries!”

She thought it wasn’t fair that she had to go to school while Alreen berries She said:

“Boys have all the fun”

She made Al Trout River, beyond the sheep pasture

So on Saturdays they went together to paw over those slopes When Almanzo found a red cluster he yelled, and when Alice found one she squealed, and sometimes they divided, and sometimes they didn’t But they went on their hands and knees all over those south slopes, and they ate wintergreen berries all afternoon

Alreen leaves, and Alice cra bottle Mother filled the bottle hisky and set it away That was her wintergreen flavoring for cakes and cookies

Every day the snoasa little The cedars and spruces shook it off, and it fell in blobs fro the walls of barns and house the snoas pitted ater falling fro

The earth showed in wet, dark patches here and there The patches spread Only the trodden paths were still white, and a little snow res and woodpiles Then the winter ter had come

Onehoy The New York potato-buyers were in town!

Royal ran to help hitch the teaet bushel baskets from the woodshed They rolled the them with potatoes as fast as they could They filled two baskets before Father drove the wagon to the kitchen porch

Then the race began Father and Royal hurried the baskets upstairs and duon, and Almanzo and Alice hurried to fill more baskets faster than they were carried away

Almanzo tried to fill more baskets than Alice, but he couldn’t She worked so fast that she was turning back to the bin while her hoopskirts were still whirling the other way When she pushed back her curls, her hands left shed at her dirty face, and she laughed at him