CHAPTER VII
JACK FROST
IF YOU’VE never had an Equator sweep down on you, of course you cannot understand in the least how frightened Billy was. Even the Equine Ox grew gray with fear when the Equator was angry, and the Equine Ox was seldom disturbed by anything but indigestion in his four stomachs.
As for Billy, he had never been really frightened before, excepting the time he fell into a tar barrel, and looking back upon it, that experience now seemed a very tame affair.
He shrank back and waited for the worst. To his surprise it did not happen. For just as the Equator was rushing toward him, just as he was trying to say Jack Robinson, and say it so quickly that his life would be spared an instant or two before he was turned to ashes, he heard a voice say:
“Hello, ’Quate! Loose, I see!”
Instantly the Equator, who had been white-hot, turned a sort of sickly yellow, then faded to dull red, and finally to a bluish green. In the meantime he had stopped sweeping down on Billy and was motionless, save for a tremor that ran through his circular frame.
Between Billy and the Equator stood a wiry little fellow dressed all in fluffy white, with a white cap to match. In his hand he held what seemed to be a very straight icicle, which glittered with all the hues of the rainbow.