“But I started out alone to meet Rob, and, first thing I knew, my feet went up in the air, as if they had balloons on, and down I came, whack! right on the back of my head! I tell you, I saw Roman candles and rockets, but Rob helped me up, and only laughed a little, though I must have looked dreadfully funny, and then he took my hand, and told me how to work my feet, and I got along splendidly, till I felt sure my first flop was only an accident, and that I could go alone well enough. So I let go of Rob’s hand, and kept up about two minutes, and was just crowing to myself when everything seemed to give way at once, and the ice flew up and hit all my knees and elbows, and there I was in a heap, with my skates locked together as if they were a padlock. Rob sorted me out, and tried not to laugh, till I told him to go ahead, and then he just roared! He said if I’d only been lighted, I’d have made such a gorgeous pin-wheel!
“Perhaps you’ll think I’d had enough—I thought I had then myself, but just before we started for home I believed I really had got the hang of it this time, so I let go again. I struck out all right, and went ahead for two or three yards, and Rob and Pep had just begun to clap their hands and hurrah when before I knew what had happened I was sure I felt my backbone coming out of the top of my head, and there I was again, sitting down as flat as a pancake, and feeling a good deal flatter! I didn’t try any more after that, but just took off my skates and came home.”
Mrs. Leslie could not help smiling at this graphic account of Johnny’s first attempt at skating, but when she tucked him up and gave him his last kiss, she said,—
“Johnny, do you know of what your adventures to-day have made me think? A verse in the Bible—‘Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.’ Nearly all our falls come from being very sure we can stand, and from refusing the offered help.”
“Pep didn’t fall once,” said Johnny, thoughtfully, “though it was his first skate, too, and he’s younger than I am. Yes, I see what you mean, mamma, and I hope I’ll remember it at the right time—but I’m so apt not to remember till afterward!”
“That is why we are taught to ask that God’s grace ‘may always prevent’—that is, go before to smooth the way—‘and follow us,’” replied his mother, as she stooped to give him another last kiss.
Johnny applied his lesson to his next attempt at skating, and came home triumphant, saying,—
“We didn’t fall once, mamma, either of us, and Rob let us go a little way alone, but he skated backward, just in front of us, and caught us every time we staggered much.”