ON THE ICE AND THROUGH
When the thermometer on the north side of School Hall registers four
degrees below zero at noon it means cold weather; and that is just
what the thermometer did on Saturday. In sheltered angles where the
sun shone it was not so bad, but on the way across the campus, where
the wind blew unobstructed, fellows in knickerbockers moved rapidly,
Jack Frost in pursuit and pinching their calves sharply. By half past
three, what time the hockey game with Cedar Grove School was scheduled
to commence, the mercury had dropped another point and the audience
about the rink consisted of exactly six boys, among them Dick and Sid
Welch, and one girl. Of course the girl was Harry. I doubt if there
was another girl for miles up or down the river who would have braved
the cold that afternoon for the sake of sport and patriotism.
The rink is some three hundred yards down the shore from the
boat-house. Years before a ferry plied between this point and the
opposite town of Coleville, but with the completion of the new
bridge below Silver Cove the enterprise, like many similar ones in
the vicinity, had ceased to be profitable. Ultimately the boat had
disappeared and only the ferry house and landing remained. But that was
last year; now even those were gone, the lumber--such of it as was fit
for the purpose--having been used in the construction of the barrier
around the rink. Many of the old joists and planks, however, were too
rotten to hold nails and these had been left piled up on the beach.
Sid, struck by a brilliant idea, had looted the pile, and by the time
the game had begun a big bonfire was blazing merrily. The handful of
spectators divided their attention between the fire and the contest
until the first half was over, with the score three goals for Ferry
Hill and one for Cedar Grove. Then every one, players, spectators,
substitutes, and referee--who was Chub--gathered as near the flames as
safety permitted and alternately turned faces and backs to the warmth.
“You’re a wonder, Sid,” declared Roy. “If I had half your brain--!” He
shook his head eloquently, at a loss for words.
“Oh, Sid’s a great fellow for scheming how to be comfortable,” said
Billy Warren, who played right center for Ferry Hill. “Did you ever
hear about the contrivance he rigged up on his bed the first year he
was here?”
Every one replied that he had, except Harry; and Harry demanded to be
told.
“Well,” said Warren, “Sid used to go to sleep with two blankets over
him and the comforter over the foot of the bed, you know. Then along
toward morning it would get cold and Sid would want the comforter, but
he was too sleepy to reach down and get it.”
“That’s right,” interrupted Chub, whose bed was next to Sid’s in the
Junior Dormitory. “I used to find him all curled up in a ball in the
morning with his teeth chattering like--like--”
“I didn’t!” declared Sid.
“Shut up, Sid, you know you did,” said Warren. “Well, so what does Sid
do but get a piece of clothes-line and tie an end to each corner of the
comforter. Then when he woke up and found he was freezing to death all
he had to do was to take hold of the rope and pull the comforter up.
Oh, he’s a wonder, Sid is!”
“Just the same, it worked all right,” said Sid with a grin, as the
laugh went around. “And I wish I had that comforter now.”
“I don’t see how you could get much more on,” said Dick, as he viewed
Sid’s rotund appearance. “You look like a bale of sweaters now.”
“I’ve only got two on,” was the reply. “I was going to borrow Chub’s,
but he went and wore it himself.”
“How dare you, Chub?” laughed Roy. “You ought to have more
consideration for others.”
“Thunder!” replied Chub good-naturedly, “Sid would borrow everything I
have if I’d let him. As it is he wears more of my things than his own.
Last week I tried to find a pair of stockings and couldn’t; Sid had the
whole lot in his locker.”
“They had holes in them,” answered Sid gravely.
“They certainly had when you got through with them,” laughed Chub.
“Come on, fellows; time’s up.”
The two teams went back to the ice, peeling off sweaters and gloves,
and presently the game was on again. It was the first contest of the
year and the play was pretty ragged. But there were exciting moments,
as when Harris, who played point on the home team, got away with the
puck for a long race down the rink, passed to Fernald in front of
the Cedar Grove goal, captured the disk again on the quick return and
smashed it past goal-tender’s knees for a score. Toward the latter
part of the period the visitors weakened and Ferry Hill’s tally grew
rapidly, until at the final call of time the score stood 12-4 in
favor of the home players. Cheers were exchanged and the Cedar Grove
fellows hurried away toward the station. The others went back to the
replenished fire and leisurely donned their sweaters. Dick, who had a
moment before wandered away toward the edge of the river, called to Roy.
“What’s that thing over there?” he asked.
“What thing? Where?”
“Across the river. It looks like a boat, but I don’t see how any one
can sail a boat when there isn’t any water.”
“Oh,” answered Roy, joining him, “that’s an ice-boat, you silly galoot.
Haven’t you ever seen one before?”
“No, but I’ve seen pictures of them. I didn’t recognize it, though.
Say, that’s pretty slick, isn’t it? Look at the way it scoots around
over there! How the dickens is it made?”
“Oh, you make a frame-work of timbers kind of three-cornered like and
stick a skate or a runner at each corner, and put a mast in with a sail
or two, and have another runner at the back with a tiller for steering,
and there you are.”
“You don’t say? Well, that’s the most--er--enlightening explanation I
ever heard, Roy; lucid’s no name for it!”
“Well, it’s the best I can do,” Roy laughed. “If you want further
particulars I advise you to run over and take a look. I’m no
boat-builder.”
“That’s what I’ll do,” answered Dick, tightening the straps of his
skates. “Come along!”
“Are you crazy? Want me to freeze myself?”
“Freeze nothing! It’ll warm you up. Come on; it won’t take but a minute
or two.” Roy hesitated. Then:
“All right,” he consented, “I’ll go you. Only it isn’t likely that the
boat’s going to stay there and wait for us.”
“Bet you I can catch her if she doesn’t have too big a start,” said
Dick.
“Oh, sure!” scoffed Roy. “She only makes about thirty miles an hour!”
“Get out!”
“That’s right, though,” answered Roy. “They say some of them can do
pretty near a mile a minute in a good wind. I don’t know about that one
there, though; don’t think I ever saw her before; she’s got a red hull,
hasn’t she?”
“Yes, if you call that thing a hull,” replied Dick. “Are there any more
around here?”
“Two or three, I think.”
“Well, then, maybe I’ll let this one go if it tries to get away,” Dick
said. “Are you ready?”
Roy said that he was, but at that moment Chub hailed them.
“Where you fellows going?” he shouted.
“Across the river,” answered Roy. “Dick wants to study ice-boats. Want
to come?”
Chub and Harry and Sid joined them, the latter begging them to wait
until he could get his skates on.
“All right, slow poke,” answered Roy. “How about you, Harry? It’ll be
beastly cold out in the middle there.”
“Oh, I’m nice and warm,” answered Harry. “What did you say about an
ice-boat?”
“Dick never saw one before and he wants to go over and make the
acquaintance of that one over there. Whose is it, Harry? Do you know?”
“Yes, it belongs to Joe Thurston, Grace Thurston’s brother. He goes to
Hammond. She’s in my class at Madame Lambert’s.”
“Who, the ice-boat?” asked Chub.
“No, Mister Smarty, Grace Thurston. Anyhow, I said ‘it.’”
“You said ‘she!’”
“I said ‘it!’”
“Ladies! Ladies!” remonstrated Roy. “No disturbance, I beg of you!
Remember there’s a gentleman present.”
“Where?” asked Chub, looking carefully around.
“Here,” grunted Sid, tugging at a strap.
“For that lie, Sid,” answered Chub severely, “we will go and leave you.
Come on, fellows.”
“Wait, wait please!” begged Sid. “I can’t get the buckle in the right
hole. My fingers are frozen stiff. You might help a chap, Chub.”
“All right, I will if you’ll tell the truth. Are you a gentleman, Sid?”
“No,” answered Sid diplomatically. “It’s that fourth hole, Chub. That’s
it. Thanks.” He got up, hobbled to the edge of the ice and skated away.
“Neither are you, Chub!” he shouted tauntingly. Chub instantly gave
chase, leaving the other three to follow more leisurely. Across the
frozen river and a little further down-stream the ice-boat was skimming
up and down near shore, luffing, filling and turning in the brisk wind
as though trying her sails.
“That’s just about what she’s doing, I guess,” said Roy as they skated,
three abreast, a hundred yards or so behind the flying forms of Sid and
Chub. “Those sails are brand-new, I think. She’s coming around again.
If we were nearer now you could get a good view of her, Dick.”
“I’m going to try, anyhow,” answered Dick, as he dug his blades in the
black ice and sped away from them.
“Shall we try it, too?” asked Roy. Harry nodded her head.
“I’ll race you,” she cried, and, suiting action to word, darted off
after Dick. She had obtained a good lead before Roy had gathered his
wits together, and he realized that to attempt to overtake that flying
form was quite useless for him. He was a good skater, but Harry had
held the school supremacy for several years and had, as she had stated
to Dick, even beaten Hammond’s best talent the winter before. But Harry
had found more than her match at last, for, try as she could and did,
she could not gain an inch on Dick, who was putting in his best licks
in an endeavor to head off the ice-boat as it passed up-stream close
to the farther shore. In a trice Roy was left to himself. He saw that
he could not hope to intercept the boat even if the others did, and
so kept on diagonally across the river toward the ice-houses below
Coleville. Sid and Chub were still busy with their own affairs, the
former leading the latter a difficult chase, turning and doubling and
thus far avoiding capture. The wind swept across the ice with stinging
buffets against legs and face, and Roy rubbed his ears vigorously to
keep them from freezing. Presently he drew near where they had been
cutting ice and found that to continue on toward the shore and the
path of the returning boat he would either have to cross the cuttings
or skate for some distance up or down the river to get around them.
New ice had formed in the lanes and it looked fairly thick. Roy slowed
down and examined it. Then he struck at it with the heel of one skate,
found that it didn’t break, and skated quickly across. It was a narrow
lane down which the cakes of ice had been floated to the house and he
was soon over it. Then came thick ice again. He looked up the river.
The boat was still before the wind and had passed Dick while that
youth was some distance away. Now he had paused, apparently undecided
whether to remain there or to join the others down-stream. Harry had
already given up the chase and headed toward the ice-houses. Sid and
Chub were still chasing madly about in mid-stream. Roy shouted and
the wind carried his voice so well that both Harry and Dick heard and
waved to him. Then a wide expanse of new ice confronted him and as he
skated unhesitatingly on to it he noted the different sound which it
gave forth under his blades. And then, without the least warning, the
surface gave beneath him like paper and he was fighting for breath with
the green water ringing in his ears and clutching at his heart with icy
fingers.