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 Daddy 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.
[Illustration: BEFORE RUSS COULD SLOW UP, THE ICE IN FRONT OF HIM
CRACKED OPEN.
_Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's._ --_Page 188_]
"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?"