Hen sheepishly desists, and scrambles to his feet.
“Cracky! That’s a reg’ler old belly-bumper, ain’t it!” he exclaims joyously.
He refers to the delicious culvert. You assent. The culvert is a consummation of bliss to which words even more expressive than Hen’s may not do justice.
Up the slope, in the procession along its edge, you and he trudge; and down again, in the procession along its middle, you fly. Over and over and over you do it, and the snow fills sleeve and neck and boot-leg.
Occasionally, with much noise but little real speed, adown the track comes a girl, or two girls. The majority of them, however, use a track of their own—a shorter, slower track, off at one side. Poor things, condemned by fate to their own company and that of the smallest, timidest urchins, they pretend to have exciting times.
They sit up straight, girls do, the ethics of society seeming to deny them the privilege of “belly-buster,” and on high sleds—nothing can be more ignominious than a “girl’s sled”—scraping and screaming, showing glimpses of red flannel petticoats as they prod with their heels, acting much like frightened hens scuttling through a yard they plough to their goal.
For a girl to essay the big hill appears to be “no end of” an undertaking. First she—or, probably they, inasmuch as girls usually adventure in pairs, to encourage each other; first they, then, squat on their flimsy sled, girl fashion (another reproach this: “girl fashion”), and titter and shriek; and the one on behind urges by “hitching” with her feet in the peculiar girl way, and the one on before holds back with her feet and says:
“Wait!”
They wait for bob and sled to precede, until with frantic unanimity of action they seize upon a favorable interim betwixt coasters, and with trepidation are off.
