Last Washington's Birthday we boys had planned to have no end of fun, skating on the pond, and snapping crackers at folks, and playing shinney. But when Hal and I got up in the morning, everything was dull gray; and when breakfast was over, it was snowing as if the witches were emptying all their feather-beds at once up in the sky.
Hal looked out of the window, and turned away, and shut his lips. Then I looked out, and—well, I'm not very old, and small of my age—and I cried. At that grandfather put down his paper.
"Hoity-toity!" said he; "what's all this about?"
We told him.
"Well," said grandfather, "this snow will make first-rate coasting, and while you're waiting for enough of it to come, I'll tell you a story."
So here is the story. You ought to have heard Grandfather Otis tell it, though, with his funny twinkles and wrinkles to set it off; but because you couldn't, I'm going to tell it my own way, in regular story-book style:
Early one Twenty-second of February, more than fifty years ago, my grandfather and my two great-uncles, Stephen and Samuel, were out looking for something to have fun with. "Trouble was," says grandfather, "there was ice enough, but we hadn't a pair of skates to our feet." Pretty soon, while they were standing around on the door-step, a man came along leading a horse and sleigh, and hitched it to the fence. The man's name was Mr. Nutt.
"Good-morning," said the boys, wondering to themselves what made him walk and lead the horse, instead of riding. Catch a boy doing it!
"Mornin'," said Mr. Nutt. "Father to home, boys?"
"Yes, sir," said they.