“May I, mother?” he appealed to Mrs. Miller, who had been listening with a smile on her face.
“Oh, Neddie! I don’t believe the ice is safe!” she said.
“Pooh!” scoffed Ned. “It’s more than two feet thick, right in the channel. You just ought to see the big chunks they’re cutting out for next summer.”
“But Newton’s so far,” objected his mother. “You wouldn’t get back until long after dark.”
“Why, mother!” exclaimed Ned, quite out of patience. “It’s only fourteen miles and we can skate that in an hour and a half easy.”
“I’m so afraid you’ll run into an air-hole, or something, Neddie,” pleaded his mother, unwilling to pull down her flag.
“There isn’t a bit of danger,” assured Ned, eagerly. “Lots of the fellows have been down and back, and there’s a regular path.”
“Who, for instance?” suddenly chipped in his father. “‘Lots of fellows,’ I find, is sometimes rather indefinite.”
“Lou Ravens and ‘Duke’ Burke did it just the other afternoon,” promptly responded Ned.