"There'll be lots of skating if this keeps on," said Noodle.
"Indeed there will," said his brother Toodle.
And the reason there was no skating just then was because there had been a little warm spell, and the ice on the beaver pond had melted, cracking all up, and was floating about in chunks, like little boats. But they were cold little boats, and the beavers did not like to swim among them.
Crackie was not going to school that day, as she had the sniffle-snuffles and her nose was all red and her eyes ached and filled with water, and she had to have a piece of red flannel around her throat. Oh, well, you know how it is when you have the sniffle-snuffles, don't you? So there's no use in me stopping any longer over that part. I may as well get on with the story.
"I wish it would snow," said Toodle, as he stumbled over a humpy place in the woods through which he and his brother were going just then to get to the school, which had been moved to a hollow stump, instead of being in the boat, as before.
Professor Rat, the principal, said it was getting too cold to have school in the boat any longer so he and the lady bug teacher, and the janitor, and the blackboards and the bell, all moved into the hollow stump—not the one where the bear lived, though. No, indeed! I guess not!
Of course the bell and blackboards didn't move themselves from the boat-school into the school stump. No, the janitor and Professor Rat did that, and the lady bug teacher looked on and said:
"Oh, dear! Isn't it dreadful hard work to move a school?"
"Why do you wish it to snow?" asked Noodle of Toodle, after a while.
"So we could go sleigh riding and build a snow house—"