Daddy Takes Us Skating

by Howard Roger Garis

"Poor Roly!" sighed Mab. "I wish we had him now!"

"But he's gone," said Hal. "Well never see him again," and he looked at Charlie's knife down in the ice. "What made it do that, Daddy?" he asked. "What made it sink down?"

"The knife was warmer than the ice, and melted a hole in it," explained Mr. Blake. "The knife was warm from being in Charlie's pocket.

"I read once about some men who went up to the North Pole," he continued. "They had with them a barrel of molasses, but it was so cold at the North Pole that the molasses was frozen solid. When the men wanted any to sweeten their coffee they would have to chop out chunks with a hatchet. They had very little sugar and so used molasses.

"Once one of the men, after chopping some frozen molasses for breakfast, forgot what he was doing, and left the hatchet on top of the solid, frosty sweet stuff in the barrel. The next time he wanted the hatchet to chop with he could not find it. The hatchet had melted its way down through the frozen molasses, until it came to the bottom of the barrel, inside, and there it stayed until all the sweet stuff was chopped out in the spring."

The children laughed at this funny story, and a little later they began skating around. They had races among themselves. Hal raced with Charlie, and once he won, and once Charlie did. But Mab, who raced with Mary, won both times. Mab was becoming a good skater, you see.

And such fun as it was eating lunch in the log cabin. The little building kept off the cold wind, and Daddy Blake built a fire on the old hearth. Hot chocolate was made; and how everyone did enjoy it!

After lunch they all went skating again. As they glided around a little point of land, that stuck out in the lake, Hal, who was skating on ahead, cried out, in a surprised voice:

"Oh, look at the men and horses on the ice! What are they doing?"

"Cutting ice," said Daddy Blake. "Come, we will go over and see how it is done," and away they all skated to where the men were gathering the harvest of ice, just as farmers gather in their harvest of hay and grain.