"I will, if you don't make it too hard," said the older boy with a laugh.
As Daddy Bunker had said, there were skates for Russ, Rose, Laddie and Vi, these having been brought from home. Russ and Rose had learned to skate the winter before, and Laddie had made one or two attempts at it. He felt that he could do much better now. Violet, not to be outdone by her twin, was to learn too. Of course, the children could not skate very far, nor very fast, but they could have fun, and, after all, that is what skates are for, mostly.
"Could we take something to eat with us? We may get hungry," said Russ, as they were about to start.
"Bless your hearts! Of course you may!" exclaimed Grandma Ford.
She put up two bags of cookies, and then Daddy Bunker, thrusting them into the big pockets of his overcoat, led the children out into the crisp December air.
It was cold, but the wind did not blow very hard, and the six little Bunkers were well wrapped up. Over the frozen ground they went to the pond, which was back of Grandpa Ford's barn. It was a pond where, in the summer, ducks and geese swam, and where the cows went to drink. But now it was covered with a sheet of what seemed to be glass.
"What makes the ice so smooth?" asked Vi, as she leaned down and touched it.
"Because it freezes so hard," answered her father.
"Well, the ground is frozen hard, too," said the little girl. "But it isn't smooth."
"That's because it wasn't smooth before it was frozen," said Mr. Bunker. "When cold comes it freezes things into just the shapes they are at the time. The ground was cut up into ruts and furrows, and it froze that way. The pond of water was smooth, as it always is except when the wind blows up the waves, and it froze smooth."