THE SLIDE ON SNAKE HILL
Joe and Roger marched down at an early breakfast hour from the
upper regions of the big white house, singing energetically if not
melodiously a pæan of joy:
“‘The frog he would a-wooing go——
Bully for you! Bully for all!
The frog he would a-wooing go——
Bully for all, we say!’”
The boys’ determination to reach the low register of a bullfrog in that
“bully for all” line was very, very funny, especially in Roger’s case,
for his speaking voice was naturally a shrill treble.
Their joy, however, awoke any sleepers there might have been in the
house, and most of them came to their bedroom doors and peered out.
“What’s the matter with you blamed little rascals?” Ned, in a purple
bathrobe, demanded.
“Wouldn’t you boys just as lief sing as to make that noise?” Nat, in a
gray robe, and at his door, questioned.
But he grinned at his small cousins, for it hadn’t been so long ago
that he was just as much of a boy as they were.
“Hello, kids!” cried Tavia, sticking out a tousled head from her room.
“Tell us: What’s the good news?”
Jennie Hapgood peered out for an instant, saw Ned and Nat, and darted
back with an exclamatory “Oh!”
“I—I thought something had happened,” she faintly said, closing her
door all but a crack.
“Something has,” declared Joe.
“What is it, boys?” asked Dorothy, appearing fully dressed from her
room. “The ice?”
“What ice?” demanded Tavia. “Has the iceman come so early? Tell him to
leave a big ten-cent piece.”
“Huh!” grunted Roger, “there’s a whole lot more than a ten-cent piece
outside, and you’d see it if you’d put up your shade. The whole world’s
ice-covered.”
“So it is,” Joe agreed.
“There was rain last evening, you know,” Dorothy said, starting down
the lower flight of stairs briskly. “And then it turned very cold.
Everything is sheathed in ice out-of-doors. Doesn’t the warm air from
the registers feel nice? I _do_ love dry heat, even if it is more
expensive.”
“Bully!” roared Nat, who had darted back to run up the shade at one of
the windows in his room. “Look out, girls! it’s great.”
Every twig on every bush and tree and every fence rail and post were
covered with glistening ice. The sun, just rising red and rosy as
though he had but now come from a vigorous morning bath, threw his rays
in profusion over this fairy world and made a most spectacular scene
for the young people to look out upon. In an hour all of them were out
of doors to enjoy the spectacle in a “close up,” as Tavia called it.
“And we all ought to have spectacles!” she exclaimed a little later.
“This glare is blinding, and we’ll all have blinky, squinty eyes by
night.”
“Automobile goggles—for all hands!” exclaimed Nat. “They’re all smoked
glasses, too. I’ll get ’em,” and he started for the garage.
“But no automobile to-day,” laughed Jennie. “Think of the skidding on
this sheet of ice.” For the ground was sheathed by Jack Frost, as well
as the trees and bushes and fences.
Joe and Roger, well wrapped up, were just starting from the back door
and Dorothy hailed them:
“Where away, my hearties? Ahoy!”
“Aw—we’re just going sliding,” said Roger, stuttering.
“Where?” demanded the determined older sister.
“Snake Hill,” said Joe, shortly. He loved Dorothy; but this having
girls “butting in” all the time frayed his manly patience.
“Take care and don’t get hurt, boys!” called Tavia, roguishly, knowing
well that the sisterly advice was on the tip of Dorothy’s tongue and
that it would infuriate the small boys.
“Aw, you——”
Joe did not get any farther, for Nat in passing gave him a look. But
he shrugged his shoulders and went on with Roger without replying to
Tavia’s advice.
“Oh, what fun!” cried Jennie Hapgood, suddenly. “Couldn’t _we_ go
coasting?”
“Sure we could,” Ned agreed instantly. Lately he seemed to agree with
anything Jennie said and that without question.
“Tobogganing—oh, my!” cried Tavia, quick to seize upon a new scheme for
excitement and fun. Then she turned suddenly serious and added: “If
Dorothy will go. Not otherwise.”
Dorothy laughed at her openly. “Why not, Tavia?” she demanded. “Are
you afraid to trust the boys unless I’m along? I know they are awful
cut-ups.”
“I feel that Jennie and I should be more carefully chaperoned,” Tavia
declared with serious lips but twinkling eyes.
“Oh! _Oh!_ OH!” in crescendo from Nat, returning in time to hear this.
“Who needs a ‘bag o’ bones’——Excuse me! ‘Chaperon,’ I mean? What’s
afoot?”
Just then he slipped on the glare ice at the foot of the porch steps
and went down with a crash.
“You’re not, old man,” cried Ned as the girls squealed. “I hope you
have your shock-absorbers on. That was a jim-dandy!”
“Did—did it hurt you, Nat?” begged Tavia, with clasped hands.
“Oh-ugh!” grunted Nat, gingerly arising and examining the handful of
goggles he carried to see if they were all right. “Every bone in my
body is broken. Gee! that was some smash.”
“Do it again, dear,” Ned teased. “Your mother didn’t happen to see you
and she’s at the window now.”
“Aw, you go fish!” retorted the younger brother, for his dignity was
hurt if nothing else. “Wish it had been you.”
“So do I,” sighed Ned. “I’d have done it so much more gracefully. You
see, practice in the tango and foxtrot, not to mention other and more
intricate dance steps, _does_ help one. And you never would give proper
attention to your dancing, Sonny.”
“Here!” threatened Nat. “I’ll dance one of my fists off your ear——”
“I shall have to part you boys,” broke in Dorothy. “Threatening each
other with corporal punishment—and before the ladies.”
“Why,” declared Ned, hugging his brother in a bearlike hug as Nat
reached his level on the porch. “He can beat me to death if he likes,
the dear little thing! Come on, ’Thaniel. What do you say to giving the
girls a slide?”
“Heh?” ejaculated Nat. “What do you want to let ’em slide for? Got sick
of ’em so quick? Where are your manners?”
“Oh, Ned!” groaned Tavia. “Don’t you want us hanging around any more?”
“I am surprised at Mr. Edward,” Jennie joined in.
“Gee, Edward,” said Nat, grinning, “but you do put your foot in your
mouth every time you open it.”
Dorothy laughed at them all, but made no comment. Despite her late
seriousness she was jolly enough when she was one of the party. And she
agreed to be one to-day.
It was decided to get out Nat’s old “double-ripper,” see that it was
all right, and at once start for Snake Hill, where the smaller boys had
already gone.
“For this sun is going to melt the ice a good deal by noon. Of course,
it will be only a short cold snap this time of year,” Dorothy said,
with her usual practical sense.
They were some time in setting out, and it was not because the girls
“prinked,” as Tavia pointed out.
“I’d have you know we have been waiting five whole minutes,” she
proclaimed when Ned and Nat drew the long, rusty-ironed, double-ripper
sled out of the barn. “For once you boys cannot complain.”
“Those kids had been trying to use this big sled, I declare,” Nat said.
“And I had to find a couple of new bolts. Don’t want to break down on
the hill and spill you girls.”
“That would be spilling the beans for fair,” Ned put in. “Oh, beg
pardon! Be-ings, I mean. Get aboard, beautiful beings, and we’ll drag
you to the foot of the hill.”
They went on down the back road and into the woods with much merriment.
The foot of Snake Hill was a mile and a half from The Cedars. Part of
the hill was rough and wild, and there was not a farm upon its side
anywhere.
“I wonder where the kids are making their slide?” said Tavia, easily.
“That’s why I am glad we came this way,” Dorothy confessed. “They might
be tempted to slide down on this steep side, instead of going over to
the Washington Village road. _That’s_ smooth.”
“Trust the boys for finding the most dangerous place,” Jennie Hapgood
remarked. “I never saw their like.”
“That’s because you only have an older brother,” said Dorothy, wisely.
“He was past his reckless age while you were still in pinafores and
pigtails.”
“Reckless age!” scoffed Tavia. “When does a boy or a man ever cease to
be reckless?”
“Right-oh!” agreed Nat, looking back along the towline of the sled.
“See how he forever puts himself within the danger zone of pretty
girls. Gee! but Ned and I are a reckless team! What say, Neddie?”
“I say do your share of the pulling,” returned his brother. “Those
girls are no feather-weights, and this is up hill.”
“Oh, to be so insulted!” murmured Tavia. “To accuse us of bearing
extra flesh about with us when we all follow Lovely Lucy Larriper’s
directions, given in the _Evening Bazoo_. Not a pound of the
superfluous do we carry.”
“Dorothy’s getting chunky,” announced Nat, wickedly.
“You’re another!” cried Tavia, standing up for her chum. “Her lovely
curves are to be praised—oh!”
At that moment the young men ran the runners on one side of the sled
over an ice-covered stump, and the girls all joined in Tavia’s scream.
If there had not been handholds they would all three have been
ignominiously dumped off.
“Pardon, ladies! Watch your step!” Ned said. “And don’t get us confused
with your ‘beauty-talks’ business. Besides, it isn’t really modest. I
always blush myself when I inadvertently turn over to the woman’s page
of the evening paper. It is a delicate place for mere man to tread.”
“Hooray!” ejaculated his brother, making a false step himself just
then. “Wish I had creepers on. _This_ is a mighty delicate place for a
fellow to tread, too, my boy.”
In fact, they soon had to order the girls off the sled. The way was
becoming too steep and the side of the hill was just as slick as the
highway had been.
With much laughter and not a few terrified “squawks,” to quote Tavia,
the girls scrambled up the slope after the boys and the sled. Suddenly
piercing screams came from above them.
“Those rascals!” ejaculated Ned.
“Oh! they _are_ sliding on this side,” cried Dorothy. “Stop them, Ned!
Please, Nat!”
“What do you expect us to do?” demanded the latter. “Run out and catch
’em with our bare hands?”
They had come to a break in the path now and could see out over the
sloping pasture in which the boys had been sliding for an hour. Their
sled had worked a plain path down the hill; but at the foot of it was
an abrupt drop over the side of a gully. Dorothy Dale—and her cousins,
too—knew that gully very well. There was a cave in it, and in and about
that cave they had once had some very exciting adventures.
Joe and Roger had selected the smoothest part of the pasture to coast
in, it was true; but the party of young folk just arrived could see
that it was a very dangerous place as well. At the foot of the slide
was a little bank overhanging the gully. The smaller boys had been
stopping their sled right on the brink, and with a jolt, for the
watchers could see Joe’s heelprints in the ground where the ice had
been broken away.
They could hear the boys screaming out a school song at the top of the
hill. Ned and Nat roared a command to Joe and Roger to halt in their
mad career; but the two smaller boys were making so much noise that it
was evident their cousins’ shout was not heard by them.
They came down, Joe sitting ahead on the sled with his brother hanging
on behind, the feet of the boy sitting in front thrust out to halt the
sled. But if the sled should jump over the barrier, the two reckless
boys would fall twenty feet to the bottom of the gully.
“Stop them, do!” groaned Jennie Hapgood, who was a timid girl.
It was Dorothy who looked again at the little mound on the edge of
gully’s bank. The frost had got into the earth there, for it had been
freezing weather for several days before the ice storm of the previous
night. Now the sun was shining full on the spot, and she could see
where the boys’ feet, colliding with that lump of earth on the verge of
the declivity, had knocked off the ice and bared the earth completely.
There was, too, a long crack along the edge of the slight precipice.
“Oh, boys!” she called to Ned and Nat, who were struggling up the hill
once more, “stop them, do! You must! That bank is crumbling away. If
they come smashing down upon it again they may go over the brink, sled
and all!”