Daddy Takes Us Skating | Page 6

going skating?" asked Mab, as she and her brother started for school, a little later that morning.
"As soon as I can find a frozen pond," said Daddy Blake with a smile.
Well wrapped up, and wearing warm gloves, Hal and Mab went to their lessons. It was so cold that wintry day, though there was no snow, that they ran instead of walking. Running made them warm.
"Is my nose red?" asked Mab, when they were near the school.
"Oh, it's awful red!" cried Hal. "Is mine?"
"As red as a boiled lobster!" laughed Mab. "Let's run faster!"
So they ran, and soon they were in a glow of warmth.
"Oh!" cried Mab, as she and her brother entered the school-yard, "we forgot to ask Daddy why we get warm when we run."
When the two children reached their house, after lessons were over for the day, they found their father waiting for them. He had his skates over his shoulder, dangling from a strap, and he had Hal's and Mab's in his hand.
"Come, we are going to look for the frozen pond!" he said.
Then Hal and Mab forgot all about asking why they became warm when they ran. They cried out joyfully:
"Oh, Daddy is going to take us skating! Daddy is going to take us skating!"
Across the fields they went, and in a little while they came to a place where was a pond, in which they used to fish during the summer. But now as they looked down on the water, from the top of a small hill, they saw that the pond was all frozen over. A sheet of ice covered it from edge to edge.
"Oh, now we can skate!" cried Hal in delight, "Now we can try our new skates."

CHAPTER V
POOR ROLY-POLY
"Come on!" cried Mab, as she started to run down the slope of the hill toward the frozen pond. "Come on, Hal!"
"Hold on!" called Daddy Blake. "Wait a minute, Mab! Don't go on the ice yet!"
Mab stopped at once. So did Hal, who had just begun to run. You see the children had gotten into the habit of stopping when their uncle called: "Wait a minute and I'll give you a penny," so it was not hard for them to do so when their father called.
"Why can't I go on the ice?" asked Mab,
"I must first see how thick it is," answered Daddy Blake.
"What difference does that make?" Hal wanted to know.
"Oh, a whole lot," said Mr. Blake. "If the ice is too thin you will break through, and go into the cold water. We must be very careful, I will see if it is thick enough."
Mab waited for her father and Hal to come to where she was standing. Roly-Poly did not wait, however. Down he rushed to the frozen pond.
"Oh, come back! Come back!" cried Mab. "You'll go through the ice, Roly!"
But Roly-Poly paid no attention. Out on the slippery ice he ran, and then he turned around and, looking at Daddy Blake and the two children, he barked as loudly as he could.
Roly-Poly was a queer dog that way. Sometimes he would mind Mab, and then, again, he would not.
"I guess the ice is thick enough to hold up Roly," said Mr. Blake. "It doesn't need to be very strong for that, as Roly is so little."
"How thick must it be to hold us up?" Hal wanted to know.
"Well, on a small pond, ice an inch thick might hold up a little boy or girl," explained Mr. Blake. "But not very many children at a time. On a large pond the ice should be from six to eight inches thick to hold up a crowd of skaters."
"Oh, does ice ever get as thick as that?" asked Hal.
"Oh, yes, and much thicker. On big lakes it gets over two feet thick in cold weather," Mr. Blake said. "Then it will hold up a whole regiment of soldiers, and cannon too. Ice is very strong when once it is well frozen. But always be sure it is thick enough before going on."
"How are you going to tell?" asked Mab.
"By cutting a little hole through the ice," her father told her. "You can look at the edges of the hole and tell how thick the ice is. We will try it and see."
With the big blade of his knife, Mr. Blake cut and chipped a hole in the ice, a little way from shore. Hal and Mab stayed on the ground watching their father, but Roly-Poly ran all about, barking as hard as he could.
"I guess he is looking for something to bury in a hole," spoke Hal. But Roly could not dig in the hard ice, and the ground was also frozen too solidly for him to scratch. So all the little poodle dog could do was to bark.
"There we are!"