“What ice?” demanded Tavia. “Has the iceman come so early? Tell him to leave a big ten-cent piece.”
“Huh!” grunted Roger, “there’s a whole lot more than a ten-cent piece outside, and you’d see it if you’d put up your shade. The whole world’s ice-covered.”
“So it is,” Joe agreed.
“There was rain last evening, you know,” Dorothy said, starting down the lower flight of stairs briskly. “And then it turned very cold. Everything is sheathed in ice out-of-doors. Doesn’t the warm air from the registers feel nice? I do love dry heat, even if it is more expensive.”
“Bully!” roared Nat, who had darted back to run up the shade at one of the windows in his room. “Look out, girls! it’s great.”
Every twig on every bush and tree and every fence rail and post were covered with glistening ice. The sun, just rising red and rosy as though he had but now come from a vigorous morning bath, threw his rays in profusion over this fairy world and made a most spectacular scene for the young people to look out upon. In an hour all of them were out of doors to enjoy the spectacle in a “close up,” as Tavia called it.
“And we all ought to have spectacles!” she exclaimed a little later. “This glare is blinding, and we’ll all have blinky, squinty eyes by night.”
“Automobile goggles—for all hands!” exclaimed Nat. “They’re all smoked glasses, too. I’ll get ’em,” and he started for the garage.
“But no automobile to-day,” laughed Jennie. “Think of the skidding on this sheet of ice.” For the ground was sheathed by Jack Frost, as well as the trees and bushes and fences.
Joe and Roger, well wrapped up, were just starting from the back door and Dorothy hailed them: