CHAPTER IX—INTO SPACEFor a glorious hour the girls and boys enjoyed what was to them the best sledding of their lives. They coasted down the hill and dragged their sleds up again, shouting and calling to each other while their cheeks and, it must be admitted, sometimes their noses, too, glowed with the sting of the sharp wind and they had to stamp hard on the frozen ground to keep their toes from freezing.“The best sport ever!” cried Paul.“All to the merry,” came from Chet. “What do you say, girls?” and he turned to Billie and her classmates.What did they say? All shouted at once that such fine sport couldn’t possibly be beaten.“Can’t be beat!” sang out Chet gaily. “Just like old Ma Jackson’s rag carpet.”“Ma Jackson’s rag carpet? What do you mean?” asked Laura.“She couldn’t beat it for fear it would fall apart,” was the sly reply. And then the merry lad had to dodge a hard chunk of snow Laura threw at him.“Burr-r! isn’t it cold?” cried Billie, taking a mitten from one of her hands and blowing on her numbed fingers. “I’d never know what it was to feel cold if it weren’t for my fingers and toes. Teddy! Stop your pushing! What do you want now?”For Teddy had seized her by the shoulders and had sat her firmly down upon his big bobsled.“You’ve let Paul Martinson take you down three times to my once,” he accused her, while he settled himself comfortably behind her on the sled. “And now it’s my turn. Hey, look out there, you fellows—we’re off!”And before the astonished Billie could do more than utter a giggling protest, they were indeed “off,” flying down the ice-glazed hill at a rate that took her breath away.“Some speed, eh?” chortled Teddy in her ear. “This old boat of mine has got ’em all beat. I bet we could race them all to a standstill.”“Why don’t we try?” Billie yelled back at him. “It would be lots of fun. Oh, Teddy, look out!” she shrieked, for they had reached the foot of the hill and Teddy had skimmed so close to the trunk of a tree that Billie afterward declared they had scraped off a piece of bark.“Don’t worry,” Teddy said, reassuringly. “Nothing’s going to happen to you when you’re with your uncle Ted.”At which remark Billie could not help giggling to herself. “Boys did think they were so awfully much!” Then suddenly she cried out:“Teddy, that’s the wrong path! We have never been down it before.”“That’s why I’m trying it,” said Teddy recklessly, as he swung down the strange path that ran at right angles to the one they were on. “The ground slopes, too, so we ought to have some more fun.”Billie said nothing. She would not for the life of her have Teddy guess that she was afraid. They had never been down that path before, because never before had a sled had momentum enough to carry it that far.And the ground was sloping more and more and the sled was going faster and faster with each second. The path was by no means straight, either, and if Teddy had not been pretty good at keeping his head they would most surely have run into something and have had a nasty spill.“Oh, Teddy, can’t we stop?” asked Billie at last, unable to keep her fright all to herself. “We don’t know where this leads to. Can’t you stop, Teddy?”“Not very well,” answered the boy uneasily. “We will surely run on to level ground in a minute. Don’t worry.”But even as he spoke he jerked the sled around a sudden turn in the path and they came, apparently, to the end of the world. With a nasty little scraping sound the sled dived off into nothingness!It all happened so suddenly that Billie did not have even time enough to scream. She had a sickening feeling of falling through space, and then she struck something—something that yielded, luckily, under her weight, and she sank, down, down, down, coming to rest at last in a world where everything was white and slippery and cold—oh,socold.She must have lost consciousness for a minute, for when she came to herself again in this strange new world she heard somebody calling her name wildly and a moment later Santa Claus poked his head over a snowbank and peered down at her.At least, she thought at first it was Santa Claus, because his face was so very red and the snow was clinging to his fuzzy cap in such a funny manner.But in a moment more she realized her mistake, for the red face and the funny hat disappeared and in their place were shoved two legs that she was very sure belonged to Teddy. And in a moment more Teddy himself slid down beside her.“Hello,” she greeted him with a smile. “I thought you were Santa Claus. Why weren’t you?”Teddy stared at her for a minute, anxiously.“I say,” he cried, taking one of her hands and rubbing it gently. “I guess that loop the loop of ours knocked you silly.”“I’m always silly,” was Billie’s amazing reply, as she sat up and began feeling herself all over carefully. “But it certainly did knock me!”“Are you all right?” demanded Teddy, watching her as she stretched out first one leg and then the other. “You didn’t break anything, did you?”“Nothing but my dignity,” she answered, with a giggle that brought an answering grin from the boy. “Teddy,” she demanded, turning to him suddenly, “what did happen, anyway?”“I’m sure I don’t know, except that we came to the end of that path and jumped off,” answered Teddy, feeling gingerly of his forehead on which Billie could see that a large purple lump was beginning to swell. “If I had had a chance to see what was coming I could have rolled off the sled and pulled you with me. But that turn in the road brought us right on top of it. It’s a sort of precipice, I guess,” he went on to explain, while Billie eyed with sympathy the swelling lump on his forehead. “It’s about fifteen feet high, I think, and if there hadn’t been snow on the ground we surely would have got hurt.”“If there hadn’t been snow on the ground, we wouldn’t have been sledding,” Billie pointed out, adding, so unexpectedly as to make Teddy jump: “Who hit you?”“Wh—what?” he gasped. Then seeing that her eyes were fixed on the bump that he was still fingering gingerly, Teddy’s face grew redder than it already was, if such a thing were possible, and his hand fell quickly to his side. “Oh, that!” he said, loftily, as if it were nothing at all. “I guess the runner of the sled gave me a whack just as we dumped over. It doesn’t hurt, though. Not a bit.”“I bet it does, too,” said Billie, as the boy pulled his cap down tight over the tell-tale spot. “Where is the sled, Teddy?” she added.“Out there, somewhere, sticking in a drift,” answered the boy. “I didn’t have time to pull it out because I thought you had been killed or something and I had to come to look for you.”“Thanks,” she laughed at him. Then her face became suddenly serious, and she struggled to her feet, trying to brush off the snow that seemed to cover her from head to foot. “How are we going to get out of this, Teddy?” she asked, looking at him seriously.“Ask me an easy one,” he returned, his good-looking face extremely anxious and puzzled. “The snow is awfully deep, and I don’t believe we could ever get up to that path again. It would take us a couple of hours to go around, and besides, I’m not sure just how to go.”“In other words,” said Billie, trying her best to speak gayly while her heart sank at this unusually long speech of Teddy’s, “we’re lost, aren’t we?”“I guess it amounts to that,” Teddy answered soberly, and for a long minute they just stood staring at each other.Then Billie gave herself an impatient little shake.“Help me out of this,” she said, as she tried to push through the heavy snow that seemed to press in upon her from every side. “I’d like to have a look around, anyway.”She found that even with Teddy’s help it was no easy task to clamber out of the snowdrift that she had fallen into, and both she and the boy were panting with exertion when they had finally managed to get out into the open.Even there they stood up to their waists in the clinging snow, and Billie, looking desolately out over the white expanse, began to realize that she was very, very cold.“There’s the sled,” said Teddy, pointing to two runners sticking out of the snow and marking the spot where the sled had struck. “Wait here and I’ll get it.”Billie watched him as he struggled through the drifts, and suddenly she was aware of an overwhelming desire to sit down where she was and cry.“But that wouldn’t do any good,” she told herself sharply, “even if this place does look more lonely than a desert. If we don’t get where it’s warm pretty soon we’ll turn into icicles ourselves, I guess.”The wind had become stronger and more biting, and Billie’s teeth had begun to chatter. She was glad when Teddy floundered back to her, the rope of his sled looped over one arm. He slipped the other arm through hers protectingly.“We’ll find a way out of this soon,” he said, comfortingly. “You just watch your uncle Teddy.”Billie tried to laugh but she could not, her teeth were chattering so.“You said that before,” she told him hysterically. “And we—we—went over the cliff!”
CHAPTER IX—INTO SPACEFor a glorious hour the girls and boys enjoyed what was to them the best sledding of their lives. They coasted down the hill and dragged their sleds up again, shouting and calling to each other while their cheeks and, it must be admitted, sometimes their noses, too, glowed with the sting of the sharp wind and they had to stamp hard on the frozen ground to keep their toes from freezing.“The best sport ever!” cried Paul.“All to the merry,” came from Chet. “What do you say, girls?” and he turned to Billie and her classmates.What did they say? All shouted at once that such fine sport couldn’t possibly be beaten.“Can’t be beat!” sang out Chet gaily. “Just like old Ma Jackson’s rag carpet.”“Ma Jackson’s rag carpet? What do you mean?” asked Laura.“She couldn’t beat it for fear it would fall apart,” was the sly reply. And then the merry lad had to dodge a hard chunk of snow Laura threw at him.“Burr-r! isn’t it cold?” cried Billie, taking a mitten from one of her hands and blowing on her numbed fingers. “I’d never know what it was to feel cold if it weren’t for my fingers and toes. Teddy! Stop your pushing! What do you want now?”For Teddy had seized her by the shoulders and had sat her firmly down upon his big bobsled.“You’ve let Paul Martinson take you down three times to my once,” he accused her, while he settled himself comfortably behind her on the sled. “And now it’s my turn. Hey, look out there, you fellows—we’re off!”And before the astonished Billie could do more than utter a giggling protest, they were indeed “off,” flying down the ice-glazed hill at a rate that took her breath away.“Some speed, eh?” chortled Teddy in her ear. “This old boat of mine has got ’em all beat. I bet we could race them all to a standstill.”“Why don’t we try?” Billie yelled back at him. “It would be lots of fun. Oh, Teddy, look out!” she shrieked, for they had reached the foot of the hill and Teddy had skimmed so close to the trunk of a tree that Billie afterward declared they had scraped off a piece of bark.“Don’t worry,” Teddy said, reassuringly. “Nothing’s going to happen to you when you’re with your uncle Ted.”At which remark Billie could not help giggling to herself. “Boys did think they were so awfully much!” Then suddenly she cried out:“Teddy, that’s the wrong path! We have never been down it before.”“That’s why I’m trying it,” said Teddy recklessly, as he swung down the strange path that ran at right angles to the one they were on. “The ground slopes, too, so we ought to have some more fun.”Billie said nothing. She would not for the life of her have Teddy guess that she was afraid. They had never been down that path before, because never before had a sled had momentum enough to carry it that far.And the ground was sloping more and more and the sled was going faster and faster with each second. The path was by no means straight, either, and if Teddy had not been pretty good at keeping his head they would most surely have run into something and have had a nasty spill.“Oh, Teddy, can’t we stop?” asked Billie at last, unable to keep her fright all to herself. “We don’t know where this leads to. Can’t you stop, Teddy?”“Not very well,” answered the boy uneasily. “We will surely run on to level ground in a minute. Don’t worry.”But even as he spoke he jerked the sled around a sudden turn in the path and they came, apparently, to the end of the world. With a nasty little scraping sound the sled dived off into nothingness!It all happened so suddenly that Billie did not have even time enough to scream. She had a sickening feeling of falling through space, and then she struck something—something that yielded, luckily, under her weight, and she sank, down, down, down, coming to rest at last in a world where everything was white and slippery and cold—oh,socold.She must have lost consciousness for a minute, for when she came to herself again in this strange new world she heard somebody calling her name wildly and a moment later Santa Claus poked his head over a snowbank and peered down at her.At least, she thought at first it was Santa Claus, because his face was so very red and the snow was clinging to his fuzzy cap in such a funny manner.But in a moment more she realized her mistake, for the red face and the funny hat disappeared and in their place were shoved two legs that she was very sure belonged to Teddy. And in a moment more Teddy himself slid down beside her.“Hello,” she greeted him with a smile. “I thought you were Santa Claus. Why weren’t you?”Teddy stared at her for a minute, anxiously.“I say,” he cried, taking one of her hands and rubbing it gently. “I guess that loop the loop of ours knocked you silly.”“I’m always silly,” was Billie’s amazing reply, as she sat up and began feeling herself all over carefully. “But it certainly did knock me!”“Are you all right?” demanded Teddy, watching her as she stretched out first one leg and then the other. “You didn’t break anything, did you?”“Nothing but my dignity,” she answered, with a giggle that brought an answering grin from the boy. “Teddy,” she demanded, turning to him suddenly, “what did happen, anyway?”“I’m sure I don’t know, except that we came to the end of that path and jumped off,” answered Teddy, feeling gingerly of his forehead on which Billie could see that a large purple lump was beginning to swell. “If I had had a chance to see what was coming I could have rolled off the sled and pulled you with me. But that turn in the road brought us right on top of it. It’s a sort of precipice, I guess,” he went on to explain, while Billie eyed with sympathy the swelling lump on his forehead. “It’s about fifteen feet high, I think, and if there hadn’t been snow on the ground we surely would have got hurt.”“If there hadn’t been snow on the ground, we wouldn’t have been sledding,” Billie pointed out, adding, so unexpectedly as to make Teddy jump: “Who hit you?”“Wh—what?” he gasped. Then seeing that her eyes were fixed on the bump that he was still fingering gingerly, Teddy’s face grew redder than it already was, if such a thing were possible, and his hand fell quickly to his side. “Oh, that!” he said, loftily, as if it were nothing at all. “I guess the runner of the sled gave me a whack just as we dumped over. It doesn’t hurt, though. Not a bit.”“I bet it does, too,” said Billie, as the boy pulled his cap down tight over the tell-tale spot. “Where is the sled, Teddy?” she added.“Out there, somewhere, sticking in a drift,” answered the boy. “I didn’t have time to pull it out because I thought you had been killed or something and I had to come to look for you.”“Thanks,” she laughed at him. Then her face became suddenly serious, and she struggled to her feet, trying to brush off the snow that seemed to cover her from head to foot. “How are we going to get out of this, Teddy?” she asked, looking at him seriously.“Ask me an easy one,” he returned, his good-looking face extremely anxious and puzzled. “The snow is awfully deep, and I don’t believe we could ever get up to that path again. It would take us a couple of hours to go around, and besides, I’m not sure just how to go.”“In other words,” said Billie, trying her best to speak gayly while her heart sank at this unusually long speech of Teddy’s, “we’re lost, aren’t we?”“I guess it amounts to that,” Teddy answered soberly, and for a long minute they just stood staring at each other.Then Billie gave herself an impatient little shake.“Help me out of this,” she said, as she tried to push through the heavy snow that seemed to press in upon her from every side. “I’d like to have a look around, anyway.”She found that even with Teddy’s help it was no easy task to clamber out of the snowdrift that she had fallen into, and both she and the boy were panting with exertion when they had finally managed to get out into the open.Even there they stood up to their waists in the clinging snow, and Billie, looking desolately out over the white expanse, began to realize that she was very, very cold.“There’s the sled,” said Teddy, pointing to two runners sticking out of the snow and marking the spot where the sled had struck. “Wait here and I’ll get it.”Billie watched him as he struggled through the drifts, and suddenly she was aware of an overwhelming desire to sit down where she was and cry.“But that wouldn’t do any good,” she told herself sharply, “even if this place does look more lonely than a desert. If we don’t get where it’s warm pretty soon we’ll turn into icicles ourselves, I guess.”The wind had become stronger and more biting, and Billie’s teeth had begun to chatter. She was glad when Teddy floundered back to her, the rope of his sled looped over one arm. He slipped the other arm through hers protectingly.“We’ll find a way out of this soon,” he said, comfortingly. “You just watch your uncle Teddy.”Billie tried to laugh but she could not, her teeth were chattering so.“You said that before,” she told him hysterically. “And we—we—went over the cliff!”
For a glorious hour the girls and boys enjoyed what was to them the best sledding of their lives. They coasted down the hill and dragged their sleds up again, shouting and calling to each other while their cheeks and, it must be admitted, sometimes their noses, too, glowed with the sting of the sharp wind and they had to stamp hard on the frozen ground to keep their toes from freezing.
“The best sport ever!” cried Paul.
“All to the merry,” came from Chet. “What do you say, girls?” and he turned to Billie and her classmates.
What did they say? All shouted at once that such fine sport couldn’t possibly be beaten.
“Can’t be beat!” sang out Chet gaily. “Just like old Ma Jackson’s rag carpet.”
“Ma Jackson’s rag carpet? What do you mean?” asked Laura.
“She couldn’t beat it for fear it would fall apart,” was the sly reply. And then the merry lad had to dodge a hard chunk of snow Laura threw at him.
“Burr-r! isn’t it cold?” cried Billie, taking a mitten from one of her hands and blowing on her numbed fingers. “I’d never know what it was to feel cold if it weren’t for my fingers and toes. Teddy! Stop your pushing! What do you want now?”
For Teddy had seized her by the shoulders and had sat her firmly down upon his big bobsled.
“You’ve let Paul Martinson take you down three times to my once,” he accused her, while he settled himself comfortably behind her on the sled. “And now it’s my turn. Hey, look out there, you fellows—we’re off!”
And before the astonished Billie could do more than utter a giggling protest, they were indeed “off,” flying down the ice-glazed hill at a rate that took her breath away.
“Some speed, eh?” chortled Teddy in her ear. “This old boat of mine has got ’em all beat. I bet we could race them all to a standstill.”
“Why don’t we try?” Billie yelled back at him. “It would be lots of fun. Oh, Teddy, look out!” she shrieked, for they had reached the foot of the hill and Teddy had skimmed so close to the trunk of a tree that Billie afterward declared they had scraped off a piece of bark.
“Don’t worry,” Teddy said, reassuringly. “Nothing’s going to happen to you when you’re with your uncle Ted.”
At which remark Billie could not help giggling to herself. “Boys did think they were so awfully much!” Then suddenly she cried out:
“Teddy, that’s the wrong path! We have never been down it before.”
“That’s why I’m trying it,” said Teddy recklessly, as he swung down the strange path that ran at right angles to the one they were on. “The ground slopes, too, so we ought to have some more fun.”
Billie said nothing. She would not for the life of her have Teddy guess that she was afraid. They had never been down that path before, because never before had a sled had momentum enough to carry it that far.
And the ground was sloping more and more and the sled was going faster and faster with each second. The path was by no means straight, either, and if Teddy had not been pretty good at keeping his head they would most surely have run into something and have had a nasty spill.
“Oh, Teddy, can’t we stop?” asked Billie at last, unable to keep her fright all to herself. “We don’t know where this leads to. Can’t you stop, Teddy?”
“Not very well,” answered the boy uneasily. “We will surely run on to level ground in a minute. Don’t worry.”
But even as he spoke he jerked the sled around a sudden turn in the path and they came, apparently, to the end of the world. With a nasty little scraping sound the sled dived off into nothingness!
It all happened so suddenly that Billie did not have even time enough to scream. She had a sickening feeling of falling through space, and then she struck something—something that yielded, luckily, under her weight, and she sank, down, down, down, coming to rest at last in a world where everything was white and slippery and cold—oh,socold.
She must have lost consciousness for a minute, for when she came to herself again in this strange new world she heard somebody calling her name wildly and a moment later Santa Claus poked his head over a snowbank and peered down at her.
At least, she thought at first it was Santa Claus, because his face was so very red and the snow was clinging to his fuzzy cap in such a funny manner.
But in a moment more she realized her mistake, for the red face and the funny hat disappeared and in their place were shoved two legs that she was very sure belonged to Teddy. And in a moment more Teddy himself slid down beside her.
“Hello,” she greeted him with a smile. “I thought you were Santa Claus. Why weren’t you?”
Teddy stared at her for a minute, anxiously.
“I say,” he cried, taking one of her hands and rubbing it gently. “I guess that loop the loop of ours knocked you silly.”
“I’m always silly,” was Billie’s amazing reply, as she sat up and began feeling herself all over carefully. “But it certainly did knock me!”
“Are you all right?” demanded Teddy, watching her as she stretched out first one leg and then the other. “You didn’t break anything, did you?”
“Nothing but my dignity,” she answered, with a giggle that brought an answering grin from the boy. “Teddy,” she demanded, turning to him suddenly, “what did happen, anyway?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, except that we came to the end of that path and jumped off,” answered Teddy, feeling gingerly of his forehead on which Billie could see that a large purple lump was beginning to swell. “If I had had a chance to see what was coming I could have rolled off the sled and pulled you with me. But that turn in the road brought us right on top of it. It’s a sort of precipice, I guess,” he went on to explain, while Billie eyed with sympathy the swelling lump on his forehead. “It’s about fifteen feet high, I think, and if there hadn’t been snow on the ground we surely would have got hurt.”
“If there hadn’t been snow on the ground, we wouldn’t have been sledding,” Billie pointed out, adding, so unexpectedly as to make Teddy jump: “Who hit you?”
“Wh—what?” he gasped. Then seeing that her eyes were fixed on the bump that he was still fingering gingerly, Teddy’s face grew redder than it already was, if such a thing were possible, and his hand fell quickly to his side. “Oh, that!” he said, loftily, as if it were nothing at all. “I guess the runner of the sled gave me a whack just as we dumped over. It doesn’t hurt, though. Not a bit.”
“I bet it does, too,” said Billie, as the boy pulled his cap down tight over the tell-tale spot. “Where is the sled, Teddy?” she added.
“Out there, somewhere, sticking in a drift,” answered the boy. “I didn’t have time to pull it out because I thought you had been killed or something and I had to come to look for you.”
“Thanks,” she laughed at him. Then her face became suddenly serious, and she struggled to her feet, trying to brush off the snow that seemed to cover her from head to foot. “How are we going to get out of this, Teddy?” she asked, looking at him seriously.
“Ask me an easy one,” he returned, his good-looking face extremely anxious and puzzled. “The snow is awfully deep, and I don’t believe we could ever get up to that path again. It would take us a couple of hours to go around, and besides, I’m not sure just how to go.”
“In other words,” said Billie, trying her best to speak gayly while her heart sank at this unusually long speech of Teddy’s, “we’re lost, aren’t we?”
“I guess it amounts to that,” Teddy answered soberly, and for a long minute they just stood staring at each other.
Then Billie gave herself an impatient little shake.
“Help me out of this,” she said, as she tried to push through the heavy snow that seemed to press in upon her from every side. “I’d like to have a look around, anyway.”
She found that even with Teddy’s help it was no easy task to clamber out of the snowdrift that she had fallen into, and both she and the boy were panting with exertion when they had finally managed to get out into the open.
Even there they stood up to their waists in the clinging snow, and Billie, looking desolately out over the white expanse, began to realize that she was very, very cold.
“There’s the sled,” said Teddy, pointing to two runners sticking out of the snow and marking the spot where the sled had struck. “Wait here and I’ll get it.”
Billie watched him as he struggled through the drifts, and suddenly she was aware of an overwhelming desire to sit down where she was and cry.
“But that wouldn’t do any good,” she told herself sharply, “even if this place does look more lonely than a desert. If we don’t get where it’s warm pretty soon we’ll turn into icicles ourselves, I guess.”
The wind had become stronger and more biting, and Billie’s teeth had begun to chatter. She was glad when Teddy floundered back to her, the rope of his sled looped over one arm. He slipped the other arm through hers protectingly.
“We’ll find a way out of this soon,” he said, comfortingly. “You just watch your uncle Teddy.”
Billie tried to laugh but she could not, her teeth were chattering so.
“You said that before,” she told him hysterically. “And we—we—went over the cliff!”