"Why, Susie, don't you see? We'll be out with all the rest before long. We haven't been on our skates since we were at the rink last winter. I don't feel more'n half sure I could stand up on mine."
"No, nor I: that's a fact. We must have some practice first, or they'll think we're just learning."
They felt very wise about it, but they had no notion whatever that precisely such an idea had occurred to Vosh Stebbins. His mother had not minded his getting home pretty late on the two or three evenings when she knew he was educating his feet and ankles before showing Susie Hudson and her brother what a country boy could do on good ice.
"Your father," she said to him, "was the best skater in the valley, and you ort to be. Get your skates filed, Lavawjer." And she told him a great deal about ice and skating before she felt satisfied that he knew what might some day be required of him as being her son and the smartest boy in Benton Valley.
So it came to pass, the day after the hunt, while Penelope and her brother and Vosh and all the other boys and girls were safely shut up in the village school-house, the boy and girl from the city were out upon the ice. They even took pains to keep at the upper end of the pond and on the river above it, so that not one critical pair of eyes should discover what they were about. It was a complete success, as far as secrecy was concerned, and nearly so in other respects. The first trial could not be too long, but it compelled Port to remark when they set out for home,—
"How stiff and lame I am!"
"Port," replied Susie, "I can't but just walk."
"We must try it again right off," said Port, "or it won't do. If we can manage it to get down there two or three times more"—
"Without any one seeing us"—
"We can skate as well as we ever could: shouldn't wonder if it surprised 'em."