It's a winter morning in the country, the perfect time for pancakes, but George and The Man seem to be out of syrup! The Man tells George that syrup comes from trees, but not growing ON them, growing IN them! You just have to tap the trees. Unfortunately George and Allie cannot get any syrup to come out no matter how hard they tap the trees. Then Mr. Renkins shows them that to tap a tree you need a few tools and a small hole in the tree, and once you do that, a small liquid starts dripping out of the tree. But this liquid is gray and very bitter, not like syrup, because as Mr. Renkins explains, it is sap, and needs to be boiled into syrup.