“The doctor’s a brick, isn’t he?” remarked Fred, as they went down the hall.
“You bet he is,” agreed Sparrow. “He’s the real goods.”
“He’s all wool and a yard wide,” was Bobby’s tribute to the head of Rockledge School.
A week passed swiftly by and then another, and by that time Winter had come in earnest. There had as yet been no snow, but the weather had become intensely cold and the lake was beginning to freeze over. At first, the ice looked like a gigantic spider’s web shooting out in shimmering threads until the entire surface was covered with a crystal coating. Then the ice began to thicken at the shores, and it was evident that with the continuance of the cold weather it would soon be possible to skate from one end of the lake to the other.
Skates were gotten out and polished and sharpened. Some of the boys busied themselves with making ice sails, which they could hold in their hands and which would carry them like the wind along the glassy surface without the expenditure of any effort of their own, save what was required to hold the sails. This contrivance had a special appeal to Pee Wee, who was a profound believer in any device that would save labor. He was far too lazy however to make one for himself and had written home asking his folks to buy and send him one. To the other boys’ suggestion that it be especially reinforced or made of sheet iron, he turned a deaf and scornful ear.
But before the ice was quite hard enough to be trusted, the snow took a hand. Up to then there had been nothing but a few flurries that did scarcely more than whiten the ground. But one afternoon, as the boys came out of their last recitations, they saw that the skies were lowering and that a steady snowstorm was in progress.
Ordinarily this would have been welcomed, but just now the boys had their minds set on skating, so that the sight of the whirling flakes was something of a disappointment.
“There goes our skating up the flue,” commented Shiner, as he looked on the ground on which there was already an inch of snow. “The lake will be no good, if it’s all covered with snow.”
“And by the time the snow’s ready to melt, the ice will melt too,” mourned Sparrow.
“And I just got a notice from the express company this morning that my ice sail was there,” complained Pee Wee.