"Oh, that is too bad! But don't you feel that you did right?" "I'll tell you better when it comes time to engage a teacher for next year." "Oh, dear! Maybe they'll put in a new school committee at the July school meeting. They ought to." "The Elder and his comrades in crime have been in office for eight or ten years, I understand. They are fairly glued there, and it will take a good deal to oust them. You see, they have nothing to do with the building of the new school." "But if that school is finished and ready for occupancy next fall, you ought to be at the head of it. It won't be fair to put you out," Janice said, with gravity. "We'll hope for the best," and Nelson Haley laughed as usual. "But if I lose my job and have to beg my bread from door to door, I hope you will remember, Janice, that I told you so." "You are perfectly ridiculous," declared the girl. "Aren't you ever serious two minutes at a time?" "Pooh! what's the good of being 'solemncholly'? Take things as they come--that's _my_ motto." Still, Janice believed that the young man was really becoming more deeply interested in the Poketown school and its problems that he was willing to admit, even to her. She had heard that the Middletown architect who was planning the school had consulted Nelson Haley several times upon important points, and that the teacher was the most active of all the five special committeemen. They reached the sugar camp before the middle of the forenoon, although the roads at that season were very heavy. Winter had by no means departed, although a raucous-voiced jay or two had come up from the swamp and scoured the open wood as though already in search of spring quarters. The Hammett sugar camp consisted of an open shed in which to boil the sap and an old cabin--perhaps one of the first built in these New Hampshire grants--in which dinner was to be cooked and eaten. Miss Blossom Hammett was already busy over the pots, and pans, and bake oven in the cabin; while her sister, the thin Miss Pussy, overseered the sap-boiling operations. It was a regular "bee", for beside the twins' hired hands, there were several of their neighbors, and the visitors from Poketown were expected to make themselves useful, too, the boys and Nelson Haley especially. Janice joined the sap gatherers, for she was strong and liked exercise. They carried buckets to collect the sap that had already run into the shiny two-quart cups which were used to collect it. First an incision was made through the bark and into the wood of the tree. Into this incision was thrust a whittled plug that had a shallow gutter cut in its upper side, and notches from which the bail of the two-quart cup hung. Into the cup the sap dripped rapidly--especially about midday, when the sun was warmest.