by A. A. Milne
Together they walked around the barn. They were getting used to the barrel-stave snowshoes now, and really did quite well on them. Of course, now and then, one or the other's fastenings would become loose, and they would have to stop and tie them. Laddie got so he could do this for himself.
"It's like when your shoelace comes untied," he said. "Did the Indians' laces come untied, Russ?"
"I guess so. But now come on. We'll go to the house and get some bread and jam."
Russ and Laddie started out bravely enough, and they were half-way to the house when Russ said:
"Oh, let's see if we can get across that big drift!"
This was a large pile of snow, made by the wind into a small hill, and it must have been many feet deep—well over the heads of the two small boys.
"Maybe we might get hurt there," said Laddie.
"No, we won't!" cried Russ. "Come on."
Russ was part way to the top when something happened. All at once one leg sank away down, barrel-stave snowshoe and all, and a moment later he was floundering in the snow, and crying:
"Hey, Laddie, I can't get out. I can't get out. Go and call Daddy or Grandpa! I can't get out!"
"Are you hurt?" asked Laddie.
"No. But my foot is stuck away down under the snow, and I can't pull it out."
"I'll go!" cried Laddie.
He never knew how fast he could travel on the home-made snowshoes until he tried. Up to the side porch he shuffled, and, not stopping to unfasten the pieces of barrel on his feet, he called out:
"Mother, come quick! Russ is upside down and he can't get his leg out!"
Inside the house Mother Bunker and Grandma Ford heard the queer thumping sound on the porch.
"I wonder what that is?" said Grandma Ford.
"Maybe it's our friend that makes the queer noises, making a new one," answered Mrs. Bunker.
Then they heard Laddie calling:
"Oh, come quick! Russ is upside down and his leg is stuck and he can't get it out! Oh, hurry, please!"
"Mercy me!" cried Mrs. Bunker. "Something has happened!"
Out of the door she rushed, with Grandma Ford after her, and when they saw Laddie, with the barrel staves on his shoes, his mother asked:
"What has happened? What have you done to yourself? What are those things on your feet?"
"Snowshoes that Russ made," was the answer. "He's got some on his own feet, but he fell into a snow bank and he can't get out and he's hollerin' like anything!"
"Oh, that's too bad!" cried Grandma Ford. "But if he fell into a snow bank it's so soft he won't be hurt. But I'll get Grandpa to dig him out."
But Daddy Bunker and Grandpa Ford had gone to town in the sled. But Dick, the hired man, was at home, and he came to help Mother Bunker and Grandma Ford.
"I'll get you out, Russ! Don't cry!" shouted Dick, as he ran up with his long rubber boots on. These were so high that he could wade into almost any snowdrift. "Don't cry, Russ!"
"I'm not cryin'," answered Laddie's brother. "I'm only hollerin' so somebody'll come and get me. My foot's stuck!"
And that is just what had happened to him. He had stepped into a soft part of the drift with one foot, and had nearly turned a somersault. Then the long barrel stave, tied fast to his shoe, became caught crossways under the hole in the snow, and Russ couldn't pull his foot out.
He could not stand up, and so had to lie down, and one leg was out of sight down in the hole.
"I'll soon have you out!" cried Dick.
He was as good as his word. Reaching down in, he loosened the barrel-stave snowshoe from Russ's foot, and soon pulled the little boy up straight. Then he carried him to the porch.
"I wouldn't go in deep places with those queer things on my feet any more," said Grandma Ford.
"No, we won't," promised Russ.
So, when the snowshoe was again tied on his foot, he and Laddie shuffled about where the snow was not too deep. They had lots of fun, and the other little Bunkers came out to watch them. Mun Bun wanted a pair of the barrel-stave snowshoes for himself, but his mother said he was too little; but Russ made some for Rose and Vi.
Two days later, when the six little Bunkers got out of bed, they found that the weather had turned warmer, and that it was raining.
"Oh, now the nice snow will be all gone!" cried Rose.
"And we can't make any more snow men and forts," added Russ.
"But you can have fun when it freezes," said his father.
"How?" asked Laddie.
"You can go skating," was the answer. "There is a pond not far from Grandpa Ford's house, and when it freezes, as it will when the rain stops, you and the others can go skating."
"I can skate a little," announced Russ.
"So can I," said Laddie. "Did we bring any skates?"
"Yes, we packed some from home," replied his mother.
"I want to skate!" exclaimed Mun Bun.
"You can have fun sliding, you and Margy," said Rose. "And I'll pull you over the ice on a sled."
This satisfied the smaller children, and then, as the weather was so bad that they could not go out and play, the six little Bunkers stayed in the house and waited for the rain to be over and the ice to freeze.
They played around the house and up in the attic, and, now and then, Russ and Rose found themselves listening for the queer noise. They didn't call it the "ghost" any longer. It was just the "queer noise."
But they did not hear it, and they rather wanted to, for they thought it would be fun to find out what caused it.
After two days of rain the snow was all gone. The ground was bleak and bare, but the six little Bunkers did not mind that, for they were eager for ice to freeze.
Then, one morning, Daddy Bunker called up the stairs:
"Come on out, everybody! The freeze has come! The pond is frozen over, and we're all going skating!"
"Hurray!" cried Russ. "This will be more fun than snowshoes!"
Little did he guess what was going to happen.
The Ice Boat
"Now you must all eat good breakfasts," said Grandma Ford, as the six little Bunkers came trooping downstairs in answer to their father's call. "Eat plenty of buckwheat cakes and maple syrup, so you will not be cold and hungry when you go out on the ice to skate."
Russ, Laddie and the others needed no second invitation, and soon there was a rattle of knives, forks and spoons that told of hungry children eating heartily.
The house at Great Hedge was warm and cosy, and the smell of the bacon, the buckwheat cakes and the maple syrup would have made almost any one hungry.
"Are we all going out skating?" asked Rose, as she ate her last cake.
"Yes, I'll take you all," said Daddy Bunker. "Dick went over to the pond, and he says the ice is fine. It's smooth and hard."
"Is it strong enough to hold?" asked Mother Bunker. "I don't want any of my six little Bunkers falling through the ice."
"Nor I," added Daddy Bunker. "We'll take good care that they don't. Now wrap up well. I have skates for all but Margy and Mun Bun. I'm afraid they are a bit too small to try to skate yet, but we'll take over sleds for them."
"Russ and I are going to have a race!" boasted Laddie. "And if I win, you've got to guess any riddle I ask you, Russ."
"I will, if you don't make it too hard," said the older boy with a laugh.
As Daddy Bunker had said, there were skates for Russ, Rose, Laddie and Vi, these having been brought from home. Russ and Rose had learned to skate the winter before, and Laddie had made one or two attempts at it. He felt that he could do much better now. Violet, not to be outdone by her twin, was to learn too. Of course, the children could not skate very far, nor very fast, but they could have fun, and, after all, that is what skates are for, mostly.
"Could we take something to eat with us? We may get hungry," said Russ, as they were about to start.
"Bless your hearts! Of course you may!" exclaimed Grandma Ford.
She put up two bags of cookies, and then Da
ddy Bunker, thrusting them into the big pockets of his overcoat, led the children out into the crisp December air.
It was cold, but the wind did not blow very hard, and the six little Bunkers were well wrapped up. Over the frozen ground they went to the pond, which was back of Grandpa Ford's barn. It was a pond where, in the summer, ducks and geese swam, and where the cows went to drink. But now it was covered with a sheet of what seemed to be glass.
"What makes the ice so smooth?" asked Vi, as she leaned down and touched it.
"Because it freezes so hard," answered her father.
"Well, the ground is frozen hard, too," said the little girl. "But it isn't smooth."
"That's because it wasn't smooth before it was frozen," said Mr. Bunker. "When cold comes it freezes things into just the shapes they are at the time. The ground was cut up into ruts and furrows, and it froze that way. The pond of water was smooth, as it always is except when the wind blows up the waves, and it froze smooth."
"Would my face freeze smooth?" asked Violet, trying to look down at her nose.
"I hope it doesn't freeze at all," her father told her with a laugh. "But if it did your nose would be all wrinkled, as it is now."
"Then I'm going to smooth it," said Violet, and she did.
Russ could put on his own skates, as could Rose, but Laddie had to have help. Then the three children began gliding about the ice, their father watching them.
"Don't go too far over toward the middle," he warned them. "Dick said he thought it was safe there, but it may not be. Stay near shore."
The children promised that they would, and they had great fun gliding about on the steel runners.
Then Daddy Bunker put the skates on Vi and held her up while he taught her how to take the strokes. It was very wabbly skating, you may be sure.
Finally, however, she began to do very well for such a little girl and for such a short time. But after a while she said she was tired.
"Very well, Vi," said Daddy Bunker, "you sit on one sled and take Mun Bun in your lap. Margy can sit on the smaller sled, and I'll fasten the two together with ropes. Then I can pull both."
And Daddy Bunker did this. Over the ice along the shore he pulled the sleds with the three children on them, while Rose, Russ and Laddie skated about not far away. Finally Laddie called:
"Come on, Russ! Let's have a race! Let's see who can skate all the way across the pond first!"
"Oh, you mustn't skate across the pond!" exclaimed Rose. "Daddy said we must stay near the edge."
"But the ice is smoother out in the middle," said Russ. "It's all humpy and rough here, and you can't skate fast. I want to go out in the middle!"
"So do I," added Laddie. "Come on, Russ. I'll race you, but you ought to give me a head-start 'cause you're older than I am and you can skate better."
"All right, I will," said Russ. "I'll let you go first, Laddie."
"Oh, I'm going to tell Daddy you're going out in the middle and across the lake!" cried Rose. "He said you mustn't!"
"All right, go on and be a tattle-tale if you want to!" exclaimed Russ.
Now, of course, it wasn't nice of him to speak to his sister that way, and it wasn't right for him to go where his father had told him not to go. Of course Rose didn't want to be a tattle-tale, but still it was better to be that than to let her brother do what he intended. So, while Russ and Laddie got ready for their race, Rose skated, as quickly as she could, to the other end of the pond, where her father was giving Violet, Mun Bun and Margy some of Grandma's cookies, which they had brought along.
"Come on, now! One, two, three! Race!" cried Russ, after he had let Laddie get a little start of him.
Away the boys skated, toward the middle of the pond. At first Laddie was ahead, but Russ was the better skater and soon passed him. Russ was near the middle of the pond when suddenly there was a loud crack.
Russ heard it and tried to stop himself and turn back. But he was going quite fast, and before he could slow up the ice in front of him cracked open. He saw a stretch of black water, and then, with a yell, into it splashed poor Russ.
"Oh, he's fallen in! Russ has fallen in!" shouted Laddie, who had seen what had happened. And he suddenly tripped and sat down, sliding slowly along, or he, too, might have gone through the hole in the ice.
It was a good thing Rose had run and told her father what her brothers were going to do, for Mr. Bunker was already half-way to Russ when the ice broke.
"I'll get you! I'll get you!" called Mr. Bunker to Russ. "Rose, you look after the others, and I'll get Russ out. The pond is not very deep, and I'll soon have him out!"
Mr. Bunker ran out on the ice right toward the hole where the black water was. Russ had not fallen in head first, luckily, and now stood with the water about up to his waist.
The ice broke under the weight of Mr. Bunker, and into the water he splashed, but he did not mind. Laddie had quickly crawled away from the vicinity of the hole, and he now went back to where Rose was looking after Margy, Mun Bun and Violet.
"I've got you, Russ!" cried Mr. Bunker, as he caught the scared boy in his arms. And then, wet as both of them were, Mr. Bunker managed to get up on ice that was firm enough to hold him, and hurried to the bank, carrying Russ with him.
"I must get you home as soon as I can, and take off your wet clothes," he said. "You must be terribly cold. Laddie and Rose, take off your skates and follow after me. Bring Mun Bun and Margy, and tell Vi to come. Hurry now. Russ, I told you not to go out in the middle, where the ice might break."
"I—I'm sorry, Daddy!" shivered Russ. "I won't do it any more."
And I am glad to say he did not.
Of course Mother Bunker and Grandma Ford were excited when Daddy Bunker came racing in, all dripping wet, with Russ, also soaked through, in his arms. But Grandmother Ford and Mother Bunker were used to accidents. Dry clothes were put on, the two shivering ones sat by the fire and drank hot milk, and soon they were all right again.
The hole in the ice froze over in a little while, and the ice became so thick that even the grown men could go out in the middle of the pond. Then there was no danger of the children's tumbling in, and they were told they might play wherever they liked.
Russ and Laddie had another race—one that was finished, and Russ won, so he did not have to guess Laddie's riddle.
"If I had beat you," said Laddie, "I was going to ask you why is an automobile tire like a snake."
"Pooh, that's easy to guess," said Russ. "'Cause it's round and fat."
"Nope," said Laddie. "It's 'cause a snake hisses and so does an auto tire when the air comes out."
"Oh!" said Russ.
They were all in the house, after dinner, when Dick came in to ask Grandpa Ford about something that needed fixing in the barn. The hired man saw the children sitting about with nothing particular to do, and said:
"How would you like to come for a ride in my boat?"
"Where?" asked Russ eagerly.
"On the pond," answered Dick.
"The pond is covered with ice!" said Russ. "Is that a riddle? How can you sail a boat on a pond that is covered with ice?"
"I'm going to sail an ice boat," answered Dick. "Want to come down and see me, and have a ride?"
Another Night Scare
You can easily imagine what the six little Bunkers said when Dick asked this question about his ice boat.
"I want to come!" cried Russ.
"I want a ride!" shouted Laddie.
"Shall we get wet?" asked Rose.
"Oh, no, not in an ice boat," said Grandpa Ford. "I've seen Dick sail one before. An ice boat is like a big skate, you know. It just slides over the ice. You may take some of the little Bunkers for a ride in your ice boat, Dick, if you'll be careful of them."
"I'll be very careful," promised Dick. "Come along!"
With shouts and laughter the six little Bunkers got ready to go down to the pond with Dick, and ride in his ice boat.
I presume that not many of you have seen ic
e boats, so I will tell you a little about them. Those of you who know all about them need not read this part.
As Grandpa Ford had said, an ice boat, in a way, is like a big skate or sled. It slides over the frozen ice of a pond, lake or river instead of sailing through the water, as another boat does. And an ice boat really has something like skates on it, only they are called runners. Perhaps I might say they are more like the runners of a sled.
If you will take two long, strong, heavy pieces of wood and fasten them together like a cross, or as you fasten kite sticks, you will see how the frame of an ice boat is built. On the ends of the shorter cross-piece are fastened the runners that slide over the ice. On the end of the longer cross-piece is another runner, but this one turns about from side to side with a tiller, like the tiller of a boat that goes in water, and by this the ice boat is steered.
Where the two sticks cross the mast is set up, and on this is fastened the sail, and between the sail and the tiller is a sort of shallow box. This is the cabin of the ice boat, where the people sit when they are sailing over the frozen pond.
"My ice boat is only a small home-made one," said Dick, "and I can't take you all at one time. But I'll give you each some turns, and I hope you'll like it."
Down to the edge of the pond went the six little Bunkers with Dick. Grandpa Ford and Daddy Bunker went, too, to see the ice boat.
Dick's ice boat was large enough to hold him and two little Bunkers at a time, and first he said he would take Russ and Mun Bun, for Russ could hold on to his little brother.
"I have to manage the sail and steer the boat," explained the hired man, "and sometimes we go pretty fast. Then you have to hold on as tight as you can. But you'll not spill out, for the ice is smooth."
Russ and Mun Bun took their places on some pieces of old carpet that Dick had put in the cabin of his boat. It was not like the cabin of any other boat, for it was open on all sides. Really all it could be called was a shallow box.