"Seems as if my feet were further away from me than they were twenty years ago."
"Joe," said Billy, "let's help. We can strap 'em for him."
"That's good, boys. Pull tight. Tighter. Let me stamp a little. There—one hole tighter. Now buckle."
And so they went on, till Uncle Josh's skates were strapped, as Joe Pearce said, "so they couldn't wiggle."
"That's all right," said Uncle Josh. "Now, you boys, just skate away, anywhere, and I'll enjoy myself."
They hardly liked to leave him, but off they went, for the boys to whom they wanted to show their new skates were away over on the other side of the pond.
"I don't know if this ice is twenty feet thick," muttered Uncle Josh, as he pulled his feet under him, "but it looks twenty miles slippery. Ice on this pond always freezes with the slippery side up. Steady, now. There! I'm glad I've got the sled to sit down on."
It was well it was a good strong sled, with thick ice under it, for Uncle Josh sat down pretty hard, and he was a fat, jolly, heavy sort of man.
He sat right still and laughed for a whole minute, and then he tried it again.
This time he succeeded in standing up, and he was just saying to himself, "I wish Jemima Sanders had come along to see me skate," when one of his feet began to slip away from him.