Chapter 3

The dogs ran barking out into the dark. Heather and Beth shrank closer to the fire. "Sarah! Becky!" their father yelled after the dogs, his commanding voice booming off the dark hills surrounding the wood shack. The older dog, Becky, came waddling sheepishly back. Timothy circled around the back of the boiler and stood on a stack of wood to look at the bubbling sap in the tray. "Hey, Dad can I stir it?" he asked reaching for the sap paddle in my father's hands. Dad's eyes twinkled as he pulled he paddle away "Do you think you're ready? Can you handle the paddle of power?!" his voice thundered deeply on the last word. Bethany giggled as Timothy started posing like a muscle man, his winter coat making him look like the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man from the Ghost Buster movie. Heather rolled her eyes, and looked away, a smile tugging at her face.

The air got colder as they sat, sipping sap and chatting. The girls taking turns sitting on the only upright log, more often than not one of them sitting on the others lap to keep warm. Finally the sap was boiled down enough to take out of the tray. Dad hefted the tray over the side of the boiler balancing it on the stump, they carefully poured the hot almost-syrup into plastic milk jugs setting the ones that were half-full in the snow to cool while they finished emptying the tray

to be continued...

Chapter 2

The ground had started to slope down and the girls could see the edge of the pond outlined in the snow. In the summer the cabin reflected clearly in the pond, the hill it sat on putting it at the perfect angle. They were just starting to see the dock when they heard their father call them from the hill behind them "Girls, up here!". His voice echoed in the trees as it bounced off the surrounding hills. Heather cringed and turned, trudging back up the path to where she could ease onto the side of the hill. Bethany had put her knit mittens on and had started tackle the hill straight on.

Grabbing at saplings, the girls grunted and gasped their way, slipping and sliding up the hill in the wet melting snow. Panting and hanging precariously onto a larger sapling Heather turned to give Bethany a hand, "Here...here, take my hand..." Their damp mittens slapped together, their fingers, cold and wet squeaked against the yarn lining. Hugging the bending tree the girls turned to their father, awaiting their orders.

Over the next couple of hours they moved sap from one container to another and then finally to the boiler where they started boiling it down. Their father had a custom sap tray made and as they sat around the fire, avoiding looking out into the darkening woods, he gently moved the liquid from one row to the next. "It's liquid gold!" he said, turning his back to the fire, trying to warm his other side. "Are we going to sell it?" Bethany asked. Their little brother, Timothy, dunked his cup in the sap and sipped at the slightly sweet clear liquid.

"How much could we get for it?" Heather asked, spending the money in her mind before her father answered. "A gallon of Amber Grade A can go for $25, maybe $30, but I'm not sure we'll sell it." he said, smoothing out his moustache he reached his hand up and pushed his floppy black hair out of his face with a sigh. He moved closer to the pan and stirred the liquid, the glow from the fire lighting his face, turning it pink with warmth.

Chapter 1

Their feet crunched across the patch of dry leaves. The tallest girl, Heather, slid her feet along the slick ground gathering the drying leaves across the top of her boots and then kicked them lazily into the air. The dogs and their father and younger brother were up ahead on the path. "I hate walking in, it's always so cold" said Bethany, munching on her Hershey bar. "I'd rather have something warmer to drink than this Mountain Dew" Heather said as she cupped the soda can with her coat sleeves, her pink finger tips sticking out of the cuffs. Tipping her head back she swallowed the last drips from the can and shoved it into her pocket next to the Hershey bar wrapper, she was a faster eater than her sister.

Every Sunday afternoon in early spring was the same. They'd eat a quick lunch after church, making a quick stop at the small country store by the river for Hershey bars and Mountain Dews and then head up to the cabin. It's not that they even went into the cabin, but they usually got close enough to see it.