After school Jan and Ted, taking their skates, went to the pond. There they found many of their little friends.
"How's the ice?" asked Teddy of Harry Kent.
"Slippery as glass," was the answer.
"Then I'll fall down!" exclaimed Jan.
And she did, almost as soon as she stood up on her skates. But Ted and Harry held her between them and before long she could strike out a little. Then she remembered some of the directions her father had given her when he taught her to skate the year before, and Jan was soon doing fairly well. Ted was a pretty good skater for a boy of his age.
"You're doing fine, Curlytop!" called Harry Morris, one of the big boys who had pulled Ted and Jan up the hill on his sled the previous night. He had come to see how thick the ice was. "You're doing fine. But why don't you hitch up your goat and make him pull you on the ice?"
"Oh, Ted, we could do that!" cried Janet, as the big boy passed on.
"Do what?"
"Harness Nicknack to a sled and make him give us a ride. Maybe he could pull us over the snow as well as on the ice."
"We'll try it!" cried Teddy.