For several days afterwards it was a matter of congratulation among the boys belonging to the Junior Department that they were given an opportunity to hear such treats through the coming winter season.
Of course, there were other meetings, of a purely religious nature—meetings usually led by strong, vigorous Y. M. C. A. leaders who knew exactly how to talk to boys and influence them for good. These meetings were usually well attended, and often prompted some wayward lad to “get a grip on himself” as Harry Bartlett expressed it, and turn over a new leaf.
“It was a lucky thing for us Mr. Holwell thought up this scheme of his,” Leslie was saying on Saturday morning, as with several other fellows he shied stones on to the new ice that had formed over the big pond where the first skating was always done, to see if it was likely soon to bear a fellow’s weight.
So eager were the boys of Cliffwood to get on their skates that hardly a season went by without a number of minor casualties, when the thin ice gave way, and precipitated the daring leader into the pond.
Once, several years back, a boy had actually been drowned here, but that event was by degrees being forgotten, and some of the fellows once more began to evince the old-time rashness about taking chances.
“Hardly a day passes,” Andy Hale went on to say, “but what some new fellows tell me they are thinking of handing in their names, with the intention of joining the Boys’ Club.”
“First come, first served,” chimed in Peg Fosdick. “Our number has to be limited, because the house can’t hold a great many more than belong now. That’s what I tell everybody.”
“I’ve got a good notion to try that ice!” Fred Bonnicastle told them as he sat on a friendly log and commenced to fit his skates.
Possibly Fred was more passionately fond of skating than any fellow in Cliffwood. He would walk five miles willingly for a chance to spin around, and for several years now had been the first to try the new ice.
“Better go a little slow about that, Freddy,” cautioned Leslie. “Of course, we all know new ice can stand a heap more than when it gets punk and rotten from thaws; but even then unless you skip along pretty fast you’re apt to break through.”