For the first time since sugar season had begun, the whole family was working together again. Red Maple was at the evaporator, finishing the syrup. As each batch reached the proper concentration, he drained it into a pipe that directed it to a press filter which Sugar Bush worked. Maple Leaf helped Red on the boiler, while Winter was in charge of bottling the finished syrup.
The process was a little uncoordinated at first, but things quickly smoothed out as everypony got accustomed to the routine.
For lunch, Sugar made fresh bread, cooked right in the firebox.
After everypony else had finished eating, Red got out the ladle and dipped it into the finishing tank. “I reckon we’ve all earned this.”
He carefully carried it out to the north side of the saphouse, and drizzled it on the last shadowed patches of snow, where it almost immediately cooled into a taffy.
Maple Leaf grabbed the first piece, and chewed on it eagerly. The very center was still warm. “Sugar on snow’s the best part of syrup-making,” he decided.
“Even after you had to do all that work to get just a little bit?” Winter Berry asked.
“Yeah.” He glanced back at the saphouse. “It’s good when it’s in a bottle, but it’s not this good.”
Red and Sugar stayed back, watching their foals. “Makes you feel young again, doesn’t it?” she said brightly.
“Hmm.” He nuzzled her neck. “I reckon it does, just a bit.”
“You was thinking about sticking your own muzzle in the snow and eating some, too. Maple, don’t hog it all. Let your Dad have some.”
“You, too,” Red Maple said. “You ain’t eating enough. That’ll keep your strength up.”
Maple Leaf took the ladle from his father. “I’ll get some more,” he offered, and went back into the saphouse.
• • •
“How many more cans do we have to finish?” Winter Berry asked. “‘Cause we’re down to the last two shelves of bottles.”
“Fifteen,” Maple said. “I counted them when I brought the last one in.”
“That’s not going to be enough bottles.”
“When we run out, we can use canning jars,” Sugar Bush suggested.
“Should I go get them?”
“Are we going to stay up all night making syrup?”
Red Maple shrugged. “The fire’s hot, and it wouldn’t be the first time.” Then he glanced over at Sugar. “I reckon you ought to get some sleep, though. Me and the foals can handle it in here.”
“I think—” Sugar winced and put a hoof to her belly. “Ooh, that's a big one.”
“Are you. . . .” Red glanced for a moment at the boiler, still busily reducing sap.
“I—yes.”
“We're—okay. Okay. Maple, take the lantern. Go to Bar Berry. You know where she lives, right?”
He nodded soberly.
“Go. Go now.” Red turned to Winter. “Water. Get a pail, I'll put it in with the syrup. Then some straw. Over in that corner. Then blankets.”
“Got it.” She grabbed one of the empty sap buckets and galloped out to the well.
“You don't have to fuss, dear. Just attend to the syrup.”
“I don't—”
“I've done this before.” Sugar winced as another contraction seized her.
“How long have you been feeling the contractions?”
“Since lunch,” she admitted. “I thought that I could wait until we were done.”
“You shoulda said something.”
Winter Berry came charging back into the shack with a full bucket in her mouth and a blast of cold wind behind her. She glanced over at her mother, who had already stretched out on the floor.
Red took the bucket and lowered it into the evaporator. “Don't pay her no mind. Straw, hay. Now.”
“Where—”
“There's a couple bales—oof—by the garden, for the carrots.”
“Then blankets.”
“Got it.” Winter rushed back out of the saphouse.
“I don't think she's ready.”
“She'll have to be. Unless Bar Berry makes it in time.” Red twisted the paddle through the syrup and then swore under his breath as it started to foam up. “Ought to just dump this batch, and—over in that corner, Winter. It’s got the most space, and the least draft.”
Winter nodded and hastily laid down a bed of straw, covering it with the sheet they’d been using to keep the dust off the empty syrup bottles.
She helped her mother to the makeshift bed, then galloped out the door to get blankets.
“It's not going to be too much longer.”
“If you hadn't been working out in the forest. Hauling buckets, and—what was I thinking?”
“Foals come when they come,” she said, pausing for a moment to take a deep breath. “And the three of you woulda been run ragged, trying to carry my weight too.”
“Ain't what I wanted, I coulda—you don't deserve this. You deserve better.”
“This is what I want.” She put her hoof down and grunted, a deep, animalistic sound.
“Winter!” Red Maple bellowed through the door. “Hurry!”
She came skidding back into the saphouse, blankets draped over her back, and hurried over to her mother's side.
She rolled one up and put it under Sugar's head, covered her with another, and then got the bucket of water out of the boiler. She winced at the hot bail in her lips, but said nothing.
“Wish I'd thought to wrap my tail,” Sugar Bush muttered.
“I can—” Winter Berry's voice trailed off. “That's . . . eww. I'm never having a foal.”
“How far along is it?”
“Just, um?” She tried to look without seeing too much, which was of course impossible. “Legs and I think a muzzle?”
“How do you feel?”
“Just—huff—fine.”
“As soon as the caul tears, it might start breathing, or trying to,” Red Maple said. “Make sure its nostrils are clear.”
“Okay.”
“And you might have to pull, if—”
“Nopony's gonna pull a . . . foal out of me. I . . . can finish . . . the job myself.”
There was nothing he knew how to do that would help, so Red Maple fell silent and focused his energy back on the syrup, keeping one ear cocked towards the door and the other to his wife.
“You’re doing good, Mom.” Winter said. “Its head’s all the way out, now.”
• • •
Maple Leaf and Bar Berry arrived just in time to see the newborn foal take its first breath.
“It’s a filly,” Winter Berry announced. “I think.”
“Nuh-uh, it’s a colt,” Maple insisted. “Look.”
“That’s the umbilical cord,” Bar Berry said dryly. “Winter, I’ve got linen cloths in my saddlebags. Can you dry her off and wrap her up? It’s probably too cold for her down on the floor. Sugar, how are you feeling?”
“I’m fine. Just gotta rest a bit, okay?” She dropped her head back to the blanket. “She fought like a colt. She’s gonna be a strong one.”
“I’ve got some chamomile.” Bar Berry reached into her saddlebags. “Do you feel up to chewing some to help relax you?”
“Please.”
Red looked to his son. “Maple, you were paying attention to how the drain and filter works, right?”
He nodded.
“Take and empty the final tank and run it through the filters, then bottle it.”
Red turned and went outside, a ladle in his teeth. Down at the bottom of the transfer tank was a small pool of sap that the pump couldn’t reach, and he dipped the ladle in it.
He sat on his haunches in front of his new daughter, now wrapped up in a blanket.
She studied him with her big amber eyes as he brought the sap up to her lips.
He carefully tipped it, bringing a few drops to the edge. She pressed forward, then jerked back as the cold metal touched her muzzle.
“Just one little sip.”
She bravely leaned forward, and licked a drop off the edge.
“That's my girl.” Red Maple blew against her brushy forelock. “Now you've got the sap in your blood, too.” He lifted her carefully and set her against Sugar Bush's belly.