"Then I'll coast on the other side of the hill," Johnnie Jones answered.
When he reached the park, however, he found two of the children coasting across the pond as usual. One of them, whose name was Ned, asked Johnnie Jones: "What's the matter with everybody to-day? Where are the other children?"
"I suppose their fathers wouldn't let them come," answered Johnnie Jones; "and you shouldn't coast across the pond. My father just told me that it isn't safe, because the ice is beginning to break."
"Oh! it is perfectly safe," Ned replied, "because we have been over it several times. The coasting is better fun to-day than ever before, and there are no children to block the way. Come and try it."
"I wish I might," Johnnie Jones answered. He sat on his sled and watched the older boys coast safely across, and run gaily back, waving their hands to him.
"Perhaps my father was mistaken." he said after a while. "I think I'll try it just once."
"There is one tolerably large hole," Ned warned him, "but it is on one side, and if you are careful you won't fall in."
"I'll be careful," answered Johnnie Jones; "you sit here and watch me."
He placed himself flat on his sled, and Ned gave him a push. Johnnie Jones was not quite five years old then, two years younger than Ned, and he could not guide his sled very well. When it went near the big hole, he could not turn it away. Then splash! Both Johnnie Jones and the sled plunged into the icy cold water.
The water was not very deep, but as Johnnie Jones struck it head foremost, and as the sled was on top of him, he might have found some trouble in forcing his way out, had it not been for Jack. That faithful friend was close beside his little master, and in just a few seconds had drawn him out of the water.