SNOW AND ICE.
One day Ronald and Henry, Jessie’s brother, took it into their heads to
build a large snow-house in the yard back of the house. It was to be
capacious enough to receive half a dozen boys at once, and so high as to
admit of their standing upright within it. There was plenty of snow all
around, and by working diligently with their shovels about an hour, they
accumulated a pretty large heap. They had beat it down hard with their
shovels, as they piled it up, so that it was quite solid. But after
working harmoniously together, all this time, some differences of
opinion at length began to arise between the two builders. Henry wanted
to pile on more snow, and make the house larger. Ronald insisted that it
was large enough, now. Henry, who was taller than Ronald, declared that
he should not be able to stand up straight in it. Ronald told him not to
be alarmed about that, for in digging out the inside, he meant to go
clean down to the ground, which would make the hut nearly two feet
higher than it appeared to be.
So Ronald carried his point, and Henry yielded somewhat reluctantly.
They worked together again for a while, though not quite so merrily as
before, smoothing and rounding off the pile into a regular shape. But
when this was completed, they again began to dispute. Not that either of
them was of a quarrelsome disposition, but there was an honest
difference of opinion between them, and, as will sometimes happen in
such cases, each was more ready to argue his own side than to listen to
the other. Henry was for throwing a quantity of water upon the heap, by
which means the outside would be turned into solid ice, as the water
froze. He proposed to do this now, and to leave the work of excavation
until another day. But Ronald thought the heap was compact and solid
enough as it was, and it would only be throwing away labor to put water
upon it. He determined to dig it out at once; and having marked a place
for the door, he forthwith began to hollow out the hut, without further
argument. Henry stood leaning upon his shovel, apparently not much
pleased with the independent spirit displayed by Ronald; but he said
little, and offered no further assistance.
[Illustration: [The Snow-House]]
Such was the position of affairs, when footsteps were heard on the other
side of the fence, and Ronald, looking over, spied Jessie, who had
evidently set out for a walk.
“Where are you going, Jessie?” he inquired.
“Down to the pond, to see the ice-boat,” replied Jessie.
“Hold on a minute and I’ll go, too,” said Ronald, throwing down his
shovel, and brushing the snow from his clothes.
“That’s right—I should like company,” replied Jessie. “Wont you come,
too, Henry?”
“I can’t—it’s about time for me to go home,” replied Henry.
“Well, don’t you touch my snow-house, while I’m gone, will you?”
interposed Ronald.
“_Your_ snow-house, I should think!” retorted Henry, in a sneering tone.
“Yes, it is mine, for it’s on mother’s land, and you’ve no right to come
into the yard, if I tell you not to,” replied Ronald.
“It’s your mother’s land, is it? I thought she died in the poor-house,
years ago,” responded Henry, with a bitter look that did not seem to sit
at all naturally upon that open, good-natured face.
“Well, you touch it if you dare, that’s all,” replied Ronald, with an
angry look; and leaping over the fence, he ran to overtake Jessie, who
had walked on, and had heard none of this ill-natured conversation.
To explain Henry’s ungenerous fling about Ronald’s mother, it should be
mentioned that the parents of that boy were poor French Canadian
emigrants, who were suddenly carried off by a fever, in Highburg,
leaving their only child, Ronald, at the age of eight years, homeless
and friendless. He was a singularly bright and lively boy, and Marcus
Page took such a fancy to him, that he induced his mother to adopt the
orphan. Never having received much training, Ronald had many wild and
strange ways, and had fallen into some bad habits, though his
disposition was naturally affectionate, kind-hearted and docile. Marcus,
from the first, exerted a great influence over him, acting the part of
teacher and father to him; and from his success in making a good boy of
this little semi-savage, he earned the name of “the Boy-Tamer.”
[Illustration: [Esquimaux Snow-Huts]]
Ronald’s anger was somewhat cooled off, by the time he overtook Jessie,
although he was not yet in a very pleasant mood. He looked back several
times, to see what Henry was about, but the latter stood leaning upon
the fence, apparently undecided what to do. Jessie asked several
questions about the snow-house, as they walked along. Although Ronald
did not seem inclined to say much about it, he was careful to give her
no intimation of the quarrel that had arisen. She had been recently
reading a volume of Arctic travels, and Ronald’s snow-house reminded her
of the huts of snow in which the Esquimaux live. She explained to him
the manner in which they are built. They are circular in shape, rising
in the form of a dome, and are built wholly of ice and snow. We give a
representation of one nearly completed. The picture also shows a
finished hut, in the distance, and the low and narrow entrance to a
third, in the foreground. It does not seem as though these snow hovels
could be much more comfortable to dwell in than the one which Ronald and
Henry built; but the poor Esquimaux, though living in a climate far
colder than the coldest in the United States, are glad to make their
homes in these rude huts, which seem fit only for boys’ playthings. An
American traveller in those regions says that although these snow-houses
might not be considered exactly comfortable, particularly by those who
had a fondness for dry clothing, and for joints that did not creak with
frost in the morning, yet he confessed he had often slept soundly in
them.
From snow-houses the conversation glided to iceboats, which are sleds or
boats constructed to sail on the ice. One of these had been recently
rigged up by a young man in town, and as it was a novelty, it was the
object of Jessie’s walk to see it. Ronald had already seen it, and
explained its construction to her; and she, in return, told him how in
Arctic expeditions the sledges were sometimes provided with sails, by
which the men were greatly aided in their tedious journeys over vast
fields of ice.
Merry voices soon informed Jessie and Ronald that they were in the
vicinity of the pond. Round Hill Pond, it was called, taking its name
from a prominent hill near its borders. It was a beautiful sheet of
water, surrounded on all sides by hilly land, much of which was covered
with forest trees. At this time, there was quite a large gathering of
young men and boys upon its glassy surface. There were parties of merry
skaters, performing their quick and graceful evolutions, or cutting
fantastic figures upon the ice. Some of the skaters had bats and balls,
and others were drawing sleds, on which were seated their little
brothers or sisters. There were also some famous coasts on the pond,
which many of the boys were improving. Starting high up on the steep
sides of the pond, they came down with a railroad speed that sent them
whizzing across the narrow part of the pond; and here, fortunately, was
another icy hill-side, by which they were returned to their first
starting place, in the same way they came. I cannot say what would have
been the consequences of a collision between these two opposite trains
of coasters; but as each side had its own track, and the law of keeping
to the right was enforced by common consent, they got along without
anything more serious than an occasional narrow escape from an accident.
But the great attraction of the pond was the ice-boat. This was a large,
rough sled, shaped somewhat like a flat-iron, and instead of runners,
having three skate irons, two behind and one forward. The forward skate
could be turned, and thus served as a rudder to steer the craft. Near
the centre of the sled there was a mast, capable of supporting a large,
square sail. The sail was dropped, and the ice-boat was at rest, near
the edge of the pond, when Jessie and Ronald arrived. They went down
upon the ice, to have a nearer view of it, and found the young man who
made it getting ready for a sail. Several persons were standing around,
one of whom, a middle-aged man, was endeavoring to convince the youth
that he sailed his craft wrong end first.
“Why, look here, John,” said the man, “doesn’t it stand to reason that
the rudder of a boat ought to be in the stern? Now just answer me that,
will you?”
“Well,” replied the boy, availing himself of the Yankee’s privilege of
answering a question by asking another, “supposing you were making an
ox-sled with a set of double runners, would you put the traverse runners
behind, because you were going to steer with them?”
“That’s nothing to do with it,” replied the other; “of course I wouldn’t
build an ox-sled as I would a sail-boat. But, let me tell you, I’ve seen
these things before to-day. I was out in Iowa, one winter, and crossed
the Mississippi in a sail-sled, a good deal like this, only she had the
two stationary runners in front, and the single one behind. She was
running as a ferry-boat, and she flew across the river like a bird. And
then she’d mind her rudder just as quick as any boat you ever saw; you
could whirl her right about in a moment.”
“So I can my boat,” replied the youth; “and as to that, I don’t believe
it makes any difference whether the steering runner is in front or
behind. Come, jump on, Mr. Grant, and you shall see for yourself,” added
the young man, as he hoisted his sail.
“No, you’ll sail better with one than with two on board, with this
wind,” replied the man.
“Well, Jessie, you’re light—I’ll take you, if you want to have a sail,”
continued the young man.
“No, I thank you, I had rather stand here and see you sail,” replied
Jessie.
“Yes, go, Jessie,” interposed Ronald; “I would, if he asked me.”
John did not take the hint, but setting his sail to the breeze, and
giving his craft a push by means of a boat-hook, he started on his trip
alone. There was a light wind, and the ice-boat, after a few minutes,
got up a pretty good speed, sailing along very handsomely at the rate of
four or five miles an hour, which is a little faster than a good walker
usually travels. The young man frequently changed her course, and
conclusively showed that the craft obeyed her rudder, if it was, as Mr.
Grant asserted, in the wrong end of the boat.
As the sun was nearing the western horizon, Jessie and Ronald did not
wait to see the return of the ice-boat, but started for home after it
had disappeared behind the hills. They had not proceeded far, when they
discovered, with astonishment and awe, that since they had passed
securely over the road, but little more than an hour before, a fearful
snow-slide had taken place at a particular point, burying up the highway
for nearly a dozen rods, to the depth of twenty feet! The road at this
place wound around the foot of a steep hill, upon the side of which the
deep snow had become softened by the afternoon sun, and slipping from
the grasp of its icy moorings, had swept down from the heights above in
an avalanche which must have shaken the solid ground beneath. There was
a farm-house just beyond, and Jessie and Ronald, as soon as their first
surprise was over, began to feel serious apprehensions that it had been
swept away in the rushing tide from the mountain. They accordingly
scaled the immense pile of snow, which was as hard and compact as if it
had been trodden down by the feet of an army, and hurried forward to
ascertain the extent of the disaster. To their great relief, they found
the house safe, but so near had the destructive avalanche come to it,
that a shed attached to the barn was demolished and buried up, and a
wagon standing in it was crushed to pieces. The family which occupied
the house had not yet recovered from their alarm and excitement. At the
time the slide occurred, the mother and her two children were alone in
the house. Hearing an unusual noise, which jarred the building like an
earthquake, she ran to the door, and saw the whole hill-side apparently
sliding down into the road. Comprehending her danger at a glance, she
seized her little girl with one hand, and her babe with the other, and
fled from the house with all possible speed—all of them bareheaded, and
with only such garments as they wore indoors. Fortunately, she soon met
her husband, who at first thought his wife had suddenly become crazy;
but after hearing her story, he took the little girl into his arms, and
they went back to the house. When Jessie and Ronald got there, the man
was trying very earnestly to convince his wife that there was no further
danger, but she kept glancing anxiously at the snow on the hill behind
the house, as if momentarily expecting to see it commence its
destructive march. There was, however, really little danger, now, for
such was the form of the hill above the house, that a slide would not be
likely to occur there, unless in connection with an avalanche on the
more precipitous part of the mountain.
Jessie and Ronald now hurried home, thankful that an unseen Hand had
held back the crashing snow-slip, while they were slowly passing along
its track, unconscious of danger. So intently were their minds engaged
with the fearful scene they had just witnessed, that Ronald did not
notice, as he passed into the yard, that his snow-house was reduced to a
shapeless heap, and its ruins scattered around in every direction.