Mabel Binks had been circling around us, determined to attract Mr. Tucker's attention. He had given her a polite bow but held tightly to my hands and skated on by her. She was a good skater and her red sweater showed off her figure to great advantage. Dum and Dee came racing up to us and we all caught hold of hands and went the length of the lake together.
"Don't we four get on well together, Zebedee?" exclaimed Dee.
"We certainly do," he answered heartily. "Miss Page seems to be just the oil needed to make us, salt, pepper, vinegar, hot Tuckers into a palatable dressing."
"Look here, Zebedee, it is up to you to skate with that despicable thing, Mabel Binks," and Dum looked sternly at her parent.
"I don't see it that way," he answered coolly.
"Well, you see she has gone around claiming you as her Richmond beau who came up to Gresham to see her, and now she says that I won't let you skate with her."
"Too bad, that," he laughed. "Well, honey, you can tell her that you have no influence over me at all. You could not keep me from skating with her nor can you make me do it."
The machinations of Mabel, however, were beyond our ken. She came bearing down on us, all sails spread as it were. We tacked as best we could, but the determined girl turned at that moment and skated backward right into our line. Dee, who was next to me, broke and avoided her, but I got the collision full force and went down with an awful whack, with Mabel's hundred and fifty pounds right on top of me.
"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men,
Gang aft a-gley."
Mabel had meant to occupy the center of the stage herself, and here was I, Page Allison, knocked senseless for a moment by the fall, while Mabel was simply pulled off me by the infuriated Zebedee and left to shift for herself. Dum said she looked awfully silly as she got unaided to her feet. Of course I could see nothing, as I was so dazed by the fall that at first I lay with my eyes closed. In a moment the crowd of skaters had gathered, and Dee told me it was like a dog fight, everybody trying to see at once.