“Your snow-house, I should think!” retorted Henry, in a sneering tone.
“Yes, it is mine, for it’s on mother’s land, and you’ve no right to come into the yard, if I tell you not to,” replied Ronald.
“It’s your mother’s land, is it? I thought she died in the poor-house, years ago,” responded Henry, with a bitter look that did not seem to sit at all naturally upon that open, good-natured face.
“Well, you touch it if you dare, that’s all,” replied Ronald, with an angry look; and leaping over the fence, he ran to overtake Jessie, who had walked on, and had heard none of this ill-natured conversation.
To explain Henry’s ungenerous fling about Ronald’s mother, it should be mentioned that the parents of that boy were poor French Canadian emigrants, who were suddenly carried off by a fever, in Highburg, leaving their only child, Ronald, at the age of eight years, homeless and friendless. He was a singularly bright and lively boy, and Marcus Page took such a fancy to him, that he induced his mother to adopt the orphan. Never having received much training, Ronald had many wild and strange ways, and had fallen into some bad habits, though his disposition was naturally affectionate, kind-hearted and docile. Marcus, from the first, exerted a great influence over him, acting the part of teacher and father to him; and from his success in making a good boy of this little semi-savage, he earned the name of “the Boy-Tamer.”
Ronald’s anger was somewhat cooled off, by the time he overtook Jessie, although he was not yet in a very pleasant mood. He looked back several times, to see what Henry was about, but the latter stood leaning upon the fence, apparently undecided what to do. Jessie asked several questions about the snow-house, as they walked along. Although Ronald did not seem inclined to say much about it, he was careful to give her no intimation of the quarrel that had arisen. She had been recently reading a volume of Arctic travels, and Ronald’s snow-house reminded her of the huts of snow in which the Esquimaux live. She explained to him the manner in which they are built. They are circular in shape, rising in the form of a dome, and are built wholly of ice and snow. We give a representation of one nearly completed. The picture also shows a finished hut, in the distance, and the low and narrow entrance to a third, in the foreground. It does not seem as though these snow hovels could be much more comfortable to dwell in than the one which Ronald and Henry built; but the poor Esquimaux, though living in a climate far colder than the coldest in the United States, are glad to make their homes in these rude huts, which seem fit only for boys’ playthings. An American traveller in those regions says that although these snow-houses might not be considered exactly comfortable, particularly by those who had a fondness for dry clothing, and for joints that did not creak with frost in the morning, yet he confessed he had often slept soundly in them.
From snow-houses the conversation glided to iceboats, which are sleds or boats constructed to sail on the ice. One of these had been recently rigged up by a young man in town, and as it was a novelty, it was the object of Jessie’s walk to see it. Ronald had already seen it, and explained its construction to her; and she, in return, told him how in Arctic expeditions the sledges were sometimes provided with sails, by which the men were greatly aided in their tedious journeys over vast fields of ice.
Merry voices soon informed Jessie and Ronald that they were in the vicinity of the pond. Round Hill Pond, it was called, taking its name from a prominent hill near its borders. It was a beautiful sheet of water, surrounded on all sides by hilly land, much of which was covered with forest trees. At this time, there was quite a large gathering of young men and boys upon its glassy surface. There were parties of merry skaters, performing their quick and graceful evolutions, or cutting fantastic figures upon the ice. Some of the skaters had bats and balls, and others were drawing sleds, on which were seated their little brothers or sisters. There were also some famous coasts on the pond, which many of the boys were improving. Starting high up on the steep sides of the pond, they came down with a railroad speed that sent them whizzing across the narrow part of the pond; and here, fortunately, was another icy hill-side, by which they were returned to their first starting place, in the same way they came. I cannot say what would have been the consequences of a collision between these two opposite trains of coasters; but as each side had its own track, and the law of keeping to the right was enforced by common consent, they got along without anything more serious than an occasional narrow escape from an accident.
But the great attraction of the pond was the ice-boat. This was a large, rough sled, shaped somewhat like a flat-iron, and instead of runners, having three skate irons, two behind and one forward. The forward skate could be turned, and thus served as a rudder to steer the craft. Near the centre of the sled there was a mast, capable of supporting a large, square sail. The sail was dropped, and the ice-boat was at rest, near the edge of the pond, when Jessie and Ronald arrived. They went down upon the ice, to have a nearer view of it, and found the young man who made it getting ready for a sail. Several persons were standing around, one of whom, a middle-aged man, was endeavoring to convince the youth that he sailed his craft wrong end first.