The fat Sugar Lady now came forward, and with a quick jerk of her skirts, showing her slippered feet, made an old-fashioned courtesy.

“Isn’t she dear!” cried one and another, as they gazed admiringly at the quaint figure all dressed in white, which sparkled like frost on the window pane. Dainty bunches of rosebuds adorned her bonnet, and altogether she was a sweet picture.

“My dears,” she cried, well aware of the admiration she excited.

“I know I am sweet as well as you do, but lest I become over-proud I will show you my real self growing, which really isn’t anything to look at.”

As she talked she untied her bonnet strings and untwisted one of the curls that bobbed about her snowy neck. The audience was startled to hear a squeak like the dying gasp of a rubber balloon.

As the squeak lingeringly died away, Sugar grew thinner and taller, and presently there she was turned into a long yellow sugar cane.

A shout of laughter greeted this transformation, as Sugar Cane made an elaborate bow, beaming upon them as though delighted to see them.

“Allow me to make you acquainted with Mrs. Sugar’s better half,” he said.

“Butter half, you mean,” shouted Vinegar.

“Throw in a little flour and a few eggs and we’ll have a birthday cake.”

“Which I would be delighted to do had I those useful ingredients.”

“Ingredients?” said Cinnamon, thinking hard. “Will Little Salt, who is now peeping in the dictionary again, kindly let us know the meaning of that word?”

“It means a part of something,” replied Salt, much dismayed that she had again been caught studying the big book when she should have been listening.

“Yes, a part of something; sugar, eggs and flour are a part of the cake. Now let us hear about this queer tall yellow stick.”

“Very well, Sir. I come from a wild plant from India, Mexico, South America, and most tropical countries. They are here, and here, and here, and here,” and in the twinkling of an eye he had walked about the globe and left his footprint in each place.

“I am also found in the red beet and yellow carrot. Perhaps it will be hard to believe, but this yellow cane, which is as sweet as honey, is placed between two large hard rollers until all the juice is squeezed out.

“This juice is boiled down, and when thick is poured off.”

“Tut, tut, tut,” gurgled the Molasses Jug; “don’t step on my toes.”

“Don’t worry,” laughed Sugar Cane. “I’m not going to tell any more of your story. I had to tell that much to get at what settles to the bottom, which is my sweet wife.

“It is first brown sugar. That is purified by filtration, and when clear white takes the various names of loaf sugar, lump sugar, and refined sugar, according to the degree of purification.

“Refined sugar is the pulverised confectioners’ sugar and is used in candies.

“Granulated sugar is made by stirring while the strong syrup crystallises and forms small grains or crystals.

“While I know I am not very pretty, yet the children in the warm countries love me dearly. They clamour for a piece of sugar cane to suck, just as the children here beg for candy sticks. Some of the poor little ones have nothing to eat all day long but a stick of sugar cane, and nowhere to sleep but on a door step. They run around in bare feet and with scarcely any clothes!”

“Here! Here!” came the smothered tones of Mrs. Sugar. “You have told the whole story. I think you shouldn’t wind up by making everybody weep. Blow yourself up and let me come forth once more, please.”

Then Sugar Cane began to dwindle as a gust of wind blew through his pipes. Shorter and fatter he grew, till behold, there was dear Mrs. Sugar, smiling down at them as she again tied her bonnet strings.

“I never did see such a man. So dismal as he grows sometimes. What if the children do only have sugar cane all day. It’s good and makes them fat, and a jollier lot I never saw. They love to go barefooted; and as for clothes, who wants any where the weather is boiling hot all the time?

“Don’t waste any tears on him any of you. Let’s hear from Molasses. She will send your tears flying as high as a kite.”

At this summons the Molasses Jug now appeared. Her gown was a beautiful shade of golden brown, with touches of sunshiny yellow here and there. She really wasn’t a jug, but looked like one from the fact that she kept her arm crooked up just like a jug handle.