Eleanor hurried up to Forbes and said, as though to confirm his argument:
“Yes, it is clouding over, isn’t it? Mammy says it is going to snow and urged me to carry this umbrella. I can always trust Mammy’s ‘bones,’ she ended as she held forth the broom to the bewildered man, who looked from her face to it as though questioning her sanity.”
Then Eleanor wakened.
“Oh, why—I thought—why, how did I get this?”
“Let me relieve you of your strange burden, Eleanor. Still want an umbrella? I’ll fetch one if you say so, but you may find the broom more useful, on second thought. Let’s take it along to clear away the light snow which fell last night. Come on, people! If we expect to get up an appetite for Mammy’s luncheon at two o’clock, we’d best make a move toward the river,” cried Hadyn, leading the way with the broom shouldered like a musket, and Jean in full prance beside him.
It was a merry party which gathered upon the crystal surface of the river that morning. For many days Jack Frost had been busy, and had done his wonderful work most effectively, completing it during the previous night by a light coating of diamond-dust, which glistened and sparkled in the clear sunshine, or swirled up in fantastic spirals as the skaters whirled away through it. The boathouse at the river’s edge served as a shelter for the chilled ones, and, far-sighted woman! Mammy had sent Charles down there with a great basket of sandwiches, and a heaterful of steaming chocolate. Somehow nature had made a big mistake when she fashioned Mammy: she should have formed a man, a white man, and cast his lot among the great commerical lights of his day.
The chocolate heater had to be replenished more than once, and the manner in which the sandwiches vanished was almost miraculous.
Eleanor, Constance and Jean were as much at home upon their skates as upon the soles of their feet, and Hadyn had skated ever since he could move without assistance; but Forbes had acquired the art during a winter spent in Northern Europe, and at a date not so remote as to have lessened the novelty of the experience. He had brought with him from Holland a pair of skates of truly remarkable design, and it was upon these “ice boats,” as Hadyn instantly dubbed them, that he was now demonstrating the extraordinary agility of the Dutch skaters.
“Stand off! Make way!” cried Hadyn, as Forbes, one arm about Eleanor’s waist and the other holding her hand aloft in what he fondly believed to be a perfect imitation of the Dutch peasants’ graceful poise and motion, bore down upon the party, his long, upturned skates and still longer legs causing Eleanor to cast skittish glances in their direction as she swung along beside him.
“Great! How do you do it, old man?” asked Hadyn as Eleanor was almost hurled into his arms, Forbes’ momentum carrying him on and past them like a runaway motor-car.