THE LOST OXEN It was now approaching time to tap the maples again; but owing to the disaster which had befallen our effort to make maple syrup for profit the previous spring, neither Addison nor myself felt much inclination to undertake it.

The matter was talked over at the breakfast table one morning and noting our lukewarmness on the subject, the old Squire remarked that as the sugar lot had been tapped steadily every spring for twenty years or more, it would be quite as well perhaps to give the maples a rest for one season.
That same morning, too, Tom Edwards came over in haste to tell us, with a very sober face, that their oxen had disappeared mysteriously, and ask us to join in the search to find them.

They were a yoke of "sparked" oxen--red and white in contrasting patches.

Each had wide-spread horns and a "star" in his face.

Bright and Broad were their names, and they were eight years old.
Neighbor Jotham Edwards was one of those simpleminded, hard-working farmers who ought to prosper but who never do.