Follow the Ball

by Ralph Henry Barbour

“Well, it is rather cold weather,” laughed Hal, “but if we build a good fire on shore it’s not so bad.”

The driver grunted doubtfully and the sleigh swung from the turnpike into a narrow lane that wound between pine and spruce. The branches sometimes flicked their faces and spattered dry snow about them. The lake came into sight again close beside them, its darkening surface seeming now like a great sheet of shimmering metal. Then the jingling bells ceased and there, in a small clearing, stood the camp, its modest bulk silhouetted against the ice. A rustic sign overhung a little path that led down to the cabin, and on it the word RESTHERE was printed.

Followed a busy five minutes during which the bags and rolls and packages were carried to the cabin and the driver accepted his modest fee of three dollars, promised faithfully to return for them four days later and climbed back to his seat. There, having pulled three of the robes about him and gathered his reins in hand, he paused to cast a dubious look about the twilit surroundings.

“Mean to stay here all alone?” he asked.

“Sure,” agreed Hal.

“H-m,” said the man. “Well, every fellow to his taste. Too blamed lonesome to suit me, though. Good evenin’. Get ap, Judy!”

The cabin was of boards and battens and weather tight. There was one good-sized room for all purposes save cooking. The kitchen—a kitchenette Bert called it—was tacked on behind. It was just big enough for the stove, the wood box, and the cupboard and a wide shelf along one side that served as a table. The cabin held everything they needed for their four-day sojourn, save food, and that they had brought along in generous quantities. Cot beds, plenty of woolen blankets, kitchen utensils, stoneware dishes, even reading matter in the shape of magazines several months old awaited them. There was a small fire place and, outside, a rampart like pile of cordwood, chestnut, hickory and birch. Hal viewed its snug comfort with a proud proprietory air, while Bert, his hands in the pockets of his capacious knickers, opined that it was “one swell joint,” and Joe, who had never so much as seen a camp before, was reduced to an almost awed admiration.

They “made camp,” as Hal phrased it, and then set about getting supper. There was a pump outside the kitchen door, but it failed, of course, to work, and Bert went off with a pail and a hatchet to get water from the pond. Hal filled the wood box beside the stove and piled fagots in the fireplace while Joe tore the wrappings from the groceries and set out the tea and bread and strawberry jam and potted tongue and butter. Presently the fire was crackling merrily in the stove, Bert came back with the water, blowing on numbed fingers, and Hal unearthed the can opener from the knife box in the cupboard. A quarter of an hour later they were seated around the table in the big room with the hickory and birch logs snapping and blazing beside them. Everything tasted better than it had ever tasted before in any one’s recollection, and Joe made two trips to the kitchen for more bread. Dish washing fell to the lot of Bert, and Hal wiped. Joe drew a canvas chair to the fire, stretched out tired limbs and was nearly asleep when the others finished. Bert wanted to put his skates on and try the ice, and Hal after protesting that it was too dark to have any fun, unenthusiastically agreed to accompany him, but nothing came of it. An early rising, a tiresome journey, the long drive in the cold air and, now, the lulling warmth of the fire were too much for them. Joe went to sleep and snored frankly. Long before nine they were all in bed and hard at it.

They were up before eight, which, used as they all were to being called, coaxed and threatened into wakefulness, was doing pretty well. Breakfast over they donned skates and went out on the lake. It was a gorgeous morning, with a blue sky and golden sunlight. The air was cold but dry, and, while the thermometer which Hal had hung out overnight proclaimed the temperature to be eighteen above, they seemed scarcely to need the heavy clothing they had put on. Bert was an excellent skater, and Hal was almost as good. Hal, indeed, had won several prizes for speed skating. Bert’s inclination ran more to fancy “stunts” and tricks, and this morning he fairly outdid himself. Joe, a mere beginner and a most unpromising one, moved diffidently about and watched, at once admiring and envious. Presently they set out together to follow the shore and explore. It wasn’t long before Joe had fallen behind, but he was fairly content with his progress since, at least, he had managed to keep on his feet; and that was something of a triumph for Joe! He caught up with them when they stopped to climb ashore and investigate the first of the neighboring camps, and lost them again beyond the turn of the lake. They shouted laughing encouragement to him now and then, but they didn’t wait for him, and he came on them next when they rested on the edge of the little bridge that carried the pond road across the mouth of Rat Brook. Old Forge Pond was fed by springs and by dozens of trickling rills that wound down from the encompassing hills, but it had only one outlet, and that was Rat Brook. It, too, was frozen solid on top, although by listening intently they could hear the soft rippling and gurgling of the water beneath. It was about twelve feet broad at its widest and flowed off eastward between birch and alder and witch-hazel to North Pemberton and, eventually, the Chicontomoc River.