So they scrambled up, and picked out their socks, and, each seizing a pair in one hand and an alpenstock with a long, sharp spike on the end in the other, they ran off down the zigzag path to the glacier, two or three guides helping the others along. At the foot of the rocky path the four drew up.
"O dear, it's time to put on these horrible old stockings," grumbled
Adela, shaking hers discontentedly.
"'Good old stockings,' you'd much better say," broke in Jasper.
"They're better than a broken neck," observed Tom, just meaning to ask Polly if he could put hers on for her. But he was too slow in getting at it, and Jasper was already kneeling on the rocks and doing that very thing.
"Now I'm all ready," announced Polly, stamping her feet, arrayed in marvellous red-and-white striped affairs. "Thank you, Jasper. Oh, how funny they feel!"
"Shall I help you?" asked Tom, awkwardly enough, of Adela.
"Oh, I don't want them on, and I don't mean to wear them," said Adela, with a sudden twist. "I'm going to throw them away."
"Then you'll just have to stay back," said Jasper, decidedly, "for no one is to be allowed on that glacier who doesn't put on a pair."
"I won't slip—the idea!" grumbled Adela. Yet she stuck out her foot, and Tom, getting down on his knees, suppressed a whistle as he securely tied them on. Then the boys flew into theirs instanter.
"Mine are blue," said Phronsie, as the others filed slowly down the winding path between the rocks, and she pointed to the pair dangling across her arm. "I am so very glad they are blue, Grandpapa."