“Gee, Joe, aren’t you ever going to learn to skate?”
“I don’t believe so,” replied Joe dolefully.
“Well, you never will until you do believe it,” said Hal decidedly. “You’ve got to have confidence, Joe. Just—just forget yourself a minute, you dumb-bell; forget that you’re skating and strike out as though you wanted to get somewhere and didn’t know you had skates on at all! Just—just let your skates do it!”
That may have been excellent advice, but Joe didn’t act on it. Discouragedly he returned to the dying fire. Bert viewed him with disfavor.
“You’re scared,” he said. “That’s your main trouble. You’re afraid you’ll fall.”
“So would you be if you were black-and-blue all over,” replied Joe spiritedly. “I don’t mind falling now and then; anyway, I ain’t afraid; but I don’t like to fall all the time!”
Hal laughed. “Why don’t you try tying a pillow behind you, Joe?”
Joe echoed the laugh, though faintly. “I guess it would have to be a—what do you call it?—bolster!”
“We aren’t going to get any fish to-day,” said Bert, “and I’m getting frozen. Let’s pull up the lines and go in.” Hal agreed, and, when the lines were up, he and Bert started toward camp. “Aren’t you coming, Joe?” Hal called.