"That's the end of the skating for this winter," said Jerry McDonald,
mournfully.
"It'd have lasted three weeks longer," growled Put Giddings, "if it
hadn't been for Captain Myers and his old steamer." And Pat Farrel
added:
"What for did he come alongshore and smash the best ice there was left?
It's foine big pieces he made of it, but they're no good for skatin'."
Either old Captain Myers was a man with no heart for fun of that kind,
or he thought there had been enough of it that winter, for he had driven
the hard nose of his steamer right through the smooth surface of the
cove below toward the spot where he made his landings in the summer, and
there was no such thing as saying too much for the style in which he had
smashed the ice. There was just a narrow strip left right close to the
beach, and there was no good skating to be had on that.
"There's lots of it," said Jerry, "but it won't freeze to bear again.
It'd be rougher'n ploughed ground if it did."
"Some of the chunks are big ones," remarked Put. "That's the way the
icebergs get away from the north pole. They break away in the spring,
and they float down south and melt."
"'Dade," exclaimed Pat Farrel, "an' don't I wish owld Myers was on wan
of thim icebergs!" But Put went right along in spite of the
interruption:
"And if a white bear gets caught on an iceberg, he gets floated away
with and drowned, unless the menagerie men send out an expedition and
save him."
"Those icebergs out there wouldn't float a dog," said Bill Thatcher. But
Pat Farrel came to Put's help:
"Wouldn't they, now? That big wan, close inshore, would carry any wan of
us."
"No, it wouldn't."
"Yes, it would."
They were right in the middle of the argument about that cake of ice,
when Put Giddings, who had gone to the edge of the solid strip to study
the matter, gave a little run and a sliding jump. He hardly knew why he
did it, but it landed him right in the middle of that cake of ice, and
the shove he gave it sent it several feet away from its moorings.
"Here I am, boys! What do you think of this for an iceberg?"
"Wid a young bear on it," said Pat.
"Keep your balance," shouted Bill Thatcher. "How'll you ever get
ashore?" And Mum Robbins remarked:
"It's just like Put. He's always doing something."
"Don't she rock, though!" said Put, bravely. "Wish I had something to
steer with."
"What for?" asked Pat. "Did you ever see an iceberg wid a rudder?"
"Put," said Mum Robbins, "you're a-floating. There'll have to be an
expedition sent after you."
"And save him, and put him in a menaygerie," said Pat. "It's a foine
bear he'd make."
"If he doesn't stand still in the middle of it, he'll tip it over,"
began Bill Thatcher. But Put had been studying his own chances, and he
shouted:
"Boys, just one of you go and get a fence rail. I'll come ashore and let
some of you try it. It's the biggest cake around here."
"Are you getting scared?"
"Does it teter much?"
There were a good many remarks made, but quite a squad of boys set off
after a fence rail, while Bill Thatcher called out:
"Stand still right there in the middle. It wouldn't take much to tip her
over."
"Rock her," said Pat Farrel. "Mebbe you kud rock her right back to the
shore."
"When an iceberg gets loose," said Bill Thatcher, "it just floats away.
It doesn't go back to the pole and freeze on again."
"Boys," exclaimed Put, "they'll have to bring a good long rail. The
water's getting wider and wider."
So it was, and somehow it had a look of being colder and colder, and it
looked both wider and colder to the boy on the iceberg than it did to
any of the other young bears alongshore.
The cake was a wide one, and it was floating pretty well, but Put
Griddings should not have taken Pat Farrel's advice about rocking it.
There was a sudden dull cracking sound right under the unsteady feet of
Put Giddings. In a second or so more there were four or five small cakes
of ice on that spot of water instead of one big piece, and right in
among them was the cap of an unlucky boy, and from under the cap there
came a loud and astonished yell.
"The iceberg's busted!"
"Put's broke in!"
"Hurry up that rail!"
There were shouts enough, and there would have been a panic if it had
not been for Jerry McDonald.
"Swim, Put," he shouted. "Catch the end of my tippet. It's the longest
kind of a tippet. Catch."
[Illustration]
Put himself was quite cool about the matter, now he had yelled. In fact,
almost anybody can keep cool in such ice-water as that was. The distance
was not great, but the tippet was thrown out three times before the
swimmer caught the end of it.
"Now, Bill," said Jerry, "we've got him. Grab me round the waist, and
look out you don't slip. He's a-coming!"
So he was, for all the world as if he was a big fish and they had hooked
him; but just as he came near the solid ice, and Bill and Jerry began to
strain harder than ever, the rescued "bear" suddenly arose in the water
until he stood half out of it.
"Pull!" shouted Jerry, with his nose in the air, and an anxious look on
his face. "We've 'most got him."
"They've got him, boys!" yelled a youngster who was hurrying up with a
fence rail twice as long as himself, but Put Giddings was as cool as
ever.
It was easy enough to get out and start for home; but it was very mean
of Pat Farrel to remark, "Put, me b'y, ye'd betther dance all the way."
"B-b-boys," replied Put, "if you w-w-want to know how a b-b-bear feels
on an iceberg, just try one of those other c-c-cakes."
He started on what was as near a run as it was to a dance, but it was
plain he had received no worse harm than a wetting, and that crowd of
boys was by no means satisfied.
"Look how the ice is packed in the cove," said Bill Thatcher, "and the
pieces are big ones too."
"They wouldn't hold a fellow up."
"Yes, they would."
"See how Put's chunk carried him until he danced through it."
"Boys," said Jerry, "don't you know? There's seven times as much of a
chunk of ice under the water as there is above it? Maybe it's eight
times."
"Well," replied Mum Robbins, "if you should try to cross the cove on
that pack of cakes, there'd be seven times as much of you in the water
as there would be anywhere else."
"Now I guess not. If a fellow ran fast enough, and if he didn't stop two
seconds on any one cake, he could get across."
"S'posing he should slip up?"
"He'd have to look out for that, and he'd have to jump pretty lively;
but he could do it."
The excitement over Put Giddings and his iceberg had left that lot of
lake-shore boys in a bad state of mind, and they were drifting toward
the cove all the while they were talking. The ice there was indeed
packed pretty well. Not as closely as in an ice-house, perhaps, but
still it had a very substantial appearance, considering what it really
was. It seemed a great pity, too, not to get a little more fun out of
what had been the best skating ground on all that end of the lake.
Still, the remaining mischief was really done by Pat Farrel, small as he
was, for he broke in on the talk of the larger boys with:
"Crass that ice, is it? I kud do it in a minute if me fut was well. Yer
afraid to thry it. That's all."
There was always some place or other lame or bruised about Pat Farrel,
for the good reason that he could not see or think of any rash
undertaking he was not at once ready to try.
Pat kept on talking, and the more he said about it, the more the taller
boys began to feel that it was their duty to try it.
Mum Robbins was a little the best runner, but it was well known that
Bill Thatcher could outjump him, and the other boys were quite contented
to let those two make the experiment.
They went back three or four rods from the edge of the "pack" to get a
good start, and then Pat Farrel shouted, "Now, b'ys, jump!"
[Illustration: "EVERY CAKE THEY TROD UPON DANCED AND WOBBLED."]
They started, and they were almost surprised, as were all the
lookers-on, to find how easy a piece of work it was at first. Their
footfalls hardly stirred the cakes of ice from their places, and the
small boys began to hurrah. All that, however, was near shore, where the
cakes were wedged and jammed together in a sort of close raft that
helped support itself, but there was something not quite so nice a
little further out toward the middle of the cove. Everything grew looser
and looser the further the two young adventurers went, and in a few
seconds more they were actually forced to jump a wide crack. Then all
the "race track" under them became full of cracks, and every cake they
trod upon danced and wobbled, and they were not half so sure of their
footing.
Mum Robbins was winning the race, for he was three-quarters of the way
over, when he heard a loud cry behind him, and a great chorus of louder
cries on the shore. He did not dare to pause an instant, for he was
getting out of breath, and it would not do to use any cake for more than
one footstep. It was an awful half-minute, but the moment he reached
solid ice he turned and looked. "Where's Bill Thatcher?"
Not running or jumping, and yet there he was, every inch of him. Bill
had alighted on the edge of a cake which was still tetering from the
effects of being trodden upon by Mum Robbins, and it had at once slipped
from under him. His foot went through into the water, and before he knew
it he was lying flat on his back. The next thing he was really sure of
was that he was also lying on three separate cakes of ice, and that they
wobbled dreadfully with every movement he made.
Bill yelled in spite of himself when the water rose above the cracks,
and crept through to his skin. Here was a second panic among the
many-sized mob alongshore. One shouted one thing and one another, and
two small boys began to cry, but Pat Farrel was equal to the occasion.
"What for did he do that? Now, b'ys, we've got to go for some boords.
There's a hape of 'em in front of owld Van Meter's fence. 'Tisn't far to
bring 'em. We'll have him out o' that."
The work of transporting the best half of Deacon Van Meter's fencing
boards was done in a sort of frenzy, and Aunt Hannah Van Meter came
rushing out of the house to see about it.
"Drowning? Mum Robbins, did you say Bill Thatcher was drowning? I'll run
down to the village and tell his mother."
"Ye'd betther take howld and kerry a big boord wid us," replied Pat
Farrel, sturdily, and Aunt Hannah exclaimed:
"Me? Carry a board? That's what I'll do, then."
"Don't let his mother know he's dhrowned till afther we've saved him,"
said Pat. "Then she won't care."
All that time, short as it was, poor Bill lay there on his unsteady
raft, and felt more and more sorry he had been such a fool, while every
ten seconds somebody on the shore shouted to him: "Lie still, Bill.
They're a-coming."
The boards did come, and three of them, side by side, on the ice, made a
bridge over which it would have been almost entirely safe to walk.
"Roll over, Bill," called the crowd on shore, and Bill did roll. Any
part of it that was not rolled over was passed in a very cautious kind
of creeping.
The shore was reached at last, but the first thing Bill heard, when he
stood upon his feet, was from Pat Farrel.
"You've baten Mum Robbins entirely. He just run right acrass. You're the
ownly wan that dared to shtop and lie down."
"He'll catch his death of cold," said Aunt Hannah. "Hurry home, William.
Your mother'll give you something warm."
Bill took Aunt Hannah's advice. There were two boys who were glad to
spend that afternoon by the fire getting the chill out of their bones.
But who says there wasn't any fun the day Captain Myers's steamboat
broke up the ice on Long Lake?