Daddy Takes Us Skating | Page 4

look!" cried Hal.
For the bottle was broken into several pieces, and standing up on the
board on which it had been set, was a solid, clear piece of ice, just the
shape of the glass bottle itself.
"Oh, somebody broke our bottle!" cried Mab. "Now we can't hear the
secret!"

CHAPTER III
THE NEW SKATES
Daddy Blake laughed when Mab said that.
"Yes, the bottle is broken," he said, "but it was the ice that broke it."
"How could it?" Hal wanted to know.
"I told you last night," said Daddy Blake, when the children were at
breakfast table a little later, "that heat made things get larger, and that
cold made them get smaller. That was true, but sometimes, as you see

now, freezing cold makes water get larger. That is when it is cold
enough to make ice.
"As long as there was only water in the bottle it was all right, the glass
was not broken. But in the night it got colder and colder. All the
warmth was drawn off into the cold air. Then the water froze, and
swelled up. The ice tried to push the cork out of the bottle, just as you
would try to push up the lid of a box if you were shut up inside one."
"I guess the wires over the cork wouldn't let the ice push it out," spoke
Hal.
"That's it," Daddy Blake answered. "And so, as the ice could not lift out
the cork, it swelled to the sides, instead of to the top, and pushing out as
hard as it could, it broke the bottle. The glass fell away, and left a little
statue of ice, just the shape of the bottle, standing in its place.
"How wonderful!" cried Mab, her blue eyes open wide.
"Yes, the freezing of ice is very wonderful," Daddy Blake said, as he
passed Hal his third slice of bread and jam. "If the cracks in a great
rock became filled with water, and the water froze, the swelling of the
ice would split the great, strong stone.
"There is scarcely anything that can stand against the swelling of
freezing ice. If you filled a big, hollow cannon ball with water, and let
it freeze, the ice would burst the iron."
"It burst our milk bottle once, I know," said Aunt Lolly.
"Yes," spoke Daddy Blake. "That is why, on cold mornings, the
milkman raises the tin top on the bottle. That gives the frozen milk a
chance to swell up out of the top, and saves the bottle from cracking."
"One morning last winter," said Mamma Blake, "when we had milk
bottles with the pasteboard tops, the milk froze and there was a round
bit of frozen milk sticking up out of the bottle, with the round
pasteboard cover on top, like a hat."

"And that's what saved the bottle from breaking," said Daddy Blake, "If
I had not wired down the cork of our bottle the water would have
pushed itself up, after it was frozen, and would have stuck out of the
bottle neck, like a round icicle."
"But what about our secret?" asked Hal. "Is it cold enough for you to
tell us about it?"
"I think so," answered Daddy Blake, with a queer little twinkle in his
eyes. "As long as the water in the bottle was frozen, the pond will soon
be covered with ice," he said. "And we need ice to make use of the
secret."
"Oh, I just wonder what it is?" cried Mab, clapping her hands.
"I think I can guess," spoke Hal.
Daddy Blake went out in the hall, and came back with two paper
bundles. He placed one at Mab's place, and gave the other to Hal.
"I want something, so I can cut the string!" Hal cried, and he laid his
package down on the floor, while he searched through his pockets for
his knife.
Just then Roly-Poly came into the breakfast room, barking. He saw
Hal's package on the floor, and, thinking, I suppose, that it must be
meant for him to play with, the little poodle dog at once began to drag
it away. Though, as the ground was frozen, I don't know how he was
going to bury it, if that was what he intended to do.
"Hi there, Roly!" cried Hal. "Come back with that, if you please, sir!"
"Bow-wow!" barked the little poodle dog, and I suppose he was saying:
"Oh, can't I have it a little while?"
By this time Mab had her package open.
"Oh!" she cried. "It's skates! Ice skates! Oh, I've always wanted a pair!"

"Ha! That's what I thought they were, when Daddy talked so much
about ice and freezing," said Hal.
He had managed, in the meanwhile, to