CHAPTER XVTHE SLIDE ON SNAKE HILL
Joe and Roger marched down at an early breakfast hour from the upper regions of the big white house, singing energetically if not melodiously a pæan of joy:
“‘The frog he would a-wooing go——Bully for you! Bully for all!The frog he would a-wooing go——Bully for all, we say!’”
“‘The frog he would a-wooing go——Bully for you! Bully for all!The frog he would a-wooing go——Bully for all, we say!’”
“‘The frog he would a-wooing go——Bully for you! Bully for all!The frog he would a-wooing go——Bully for all, we say!’”
“‘The frog he would a-wooing go——
Bully for you! Bully for all!
The frog he would a-wooing go——
Bully for all, we say!’”
The boys’ determination to reach the low register of a bullfrog in that “bully for all” line was very, very funny, especially in Roger’s case, for his speaking voice was naturally a shrill treble.
Their joy, however, awoke any sleepers there might have been in the house, and most of them came to their bedroom doors and peered out.
“What’s the matter with you blamed little rascals?” Ned, in a purple bathrobe, demanded.
“Wouldn’t you boys just as lief sing as to make that noise?” Nat, in a gray robe, and at his door, questioned.
But he grinned at his small cousins, for it hadn’t been so long ago that he was just as much of a boy as they were.
“Hello, kids!” cried Tavia, sticking out a tousled head from her room. “Tell us: What’s the good news?”
Jennie Hapgood peered out for an instant, saw Ned and Nat, and darted back with an exclamatory “Oh!”
“I—I thought something had happened,” she faintly said, closing her door all but a crack.
“Something has,” declared Joe.
“What is it, boys?” asked Dorothy, appearing fully dressed from her room. “The ice?”
“What ice?” demanded Tavia. “Has the iceman come so early? Tell him to leave a big ten-cent piece.”
“Huh!” grunted Roger, “there’s a whole lot more than a ten-cent piece outside, and you’d see it if you’d put up your shade. The whole world’s ice-covered.”
“So it is,” Joe agreed.
“There was rain last evening, you know,” Dorothy said, starting down the lower flight of stairs briskly. “And then it turned very cold. Everything is sheathed in ice out-of-doors. Doesn’t the warm air from the registers feel nice? Idolove dry heat, even if it is more expensive.”
“Bully!” roared Nat, who had darted back torun up the shade at one of the windows in his room. “Look out, girls! it’s great.”
Every twig on every bush and tree and every fence rail and post were covered with glistening ice. The sun, just rising red and rosy as though he had but now come from a vigorous morning bath, threw his rays in profusion over this fairy world and made a most spectacular scene for the young people to look out upon. In an hour all of them were out of doors to enjoy the spectacle in a “close up,” as Tavia called it.
“And we all ought to have spectacles!” she exclaimed a little later. “This glare is blinding, and we’ll all have blinky, squinty eyes by night.”
“Automobile goggles—for all hands!” exclaimed Nat. “They’re all smoked glasses, too. I’ll get ’em,” and he started for the garage.
“But no automobile to-day,” laughed Jennie. “Think of the skidding on this sheet of ice.” For the ground was sheathed by Jack Frost, as well as the trees and bushes and fences.
Joe and Roger, well wrapped up, were just starting from the back door and Dorothy hailed them:
“Where away, my hearties? Ahoy!”
“Aw—we’re just going sliding,” said Roger, stuttering.
“Where?” demanded the determined older sister.
“Snake Hill,” said Joe, shortly. He loved Dorothy; but this having girls “butting in” all the time frayed his manly patience.
“Take care and don’t get hurt, boys!” called Tavia, roguishly, knowing well that the sisterly advice was on the tip of Dorothy’s tongue and that it would infuriate the small boys.
“Aw, you——”
Joe did not get any farther, for Nat in passing gave him a look. But he shrugged his shoulders and went on with Roger without replying to Tavia’s advice.
“Oh, what fun!” cried Jennie Hapgood, suddenly. “Couldn’twego coasting?”
“Sure we could,” Ned agreed instantly. Lately he seemed to agree with anything Jennie said and that without question.
“Tobogganing—oh, my!” cried Tavia, quick to seize upon a new scheme for excitement and fun. Then she turned suddenly serious and added: “If Dorothy will go. Not otherwise.”
Dorothy laughed at her openly. “Why not, Tavia?” she demanded. “Are you afraid to trust the boys unless I’m along? I know they are awful cut-ups.”
“I feel that Jennie and I should be more carefully chaperoned,” Tavia declared with serious lips but twinkling eyes.
“Oh!Oh!OH!” in crescendo from Nat, returningin time to hear this. “Who needs a ‘bag o’ bones’——Excuse me! ‘Chaperon,’ I mean? What’s afoot?”
Just then he slipped on the glare ice at the foot of the porch steps and went down with a crash.
“You’re not, old man,” cried Ned as the girls squealed. “I hope you have your shock-absorbers on. That was a jim-dandy!”
“Did—did it hurt you, Nat?” begged Tavia, with clasped hands.
“Oh-ugh!” grunted Nat, gingerly arising and examining the handful of goggles he carried to see if they were all right. “Every bone in my body is broken. Gee! that was some smash.”
“Do it again, dear,” Ned teased. “Your mother didn’t happen to see you and she’s at the window now.”
“Aw, you go fish!” retorted the younger brother, for his dignity was hurt if nothing else. “Wish it had been you.”
“So do I,” sighed Ned. “I’d have done it so much more gracefully. You see, practice in the tango and foxtrot, not to mention other and more intricate dance steps,doeshelp one. And you never would give proper attention to your dancing, Sonny.”
“Here!” threatened Nat. “I’ll dance one of my fists off your ear——”
“I shall have to part you boys,” broke in Dorothy.“Threatening each other with corporal punishment—and before the ladies.”
“Why,” declared Ned, hugging his brother in a bearlike hug as Nat reached his level on the porch. “He can beat me to death if he likes, the dear little thing! Come on, ’Thaniel. What do you say to giving the girls a slide?”
“Heh?” ejaculated Nat. “What do you want to let ’em slide for? Got sick of ’em so quick? Where are your manners?”
“Oh, Ned!” groaned Tavia. “Don’t you want us hanging around any more?”
“I am surprised at Mr. Edward,” Jennie joined in.
“Gee, Edward,” said Nat, grinning, “but you do put your foot in your mouth every time you open it.”
Dorothy laughed at them all, but made no comment. Despite her late seriousness she was jolly enough when she was one of the party. And she agreed to be one to-day.
It was decided to get out Nat’s old “double-ripper,” see that it was all right, and at once start for Snake Hill, where the smaller boys had already gone.
“For this sun is going to melt the ice a good deal by noon. Of course, it will be only a short cold snap this time of year,” Dorothy said, with her usual practical sense.
They were some time in setting out, and it was not because the girls “prinked,” as Tavia pointed out.
“I’d have you know we have been waiting five whole minutes,” she proclaimed when Ned and Nat drew the long, rusty-ironed, double-ripper sled out of the barn. “For once you boys cannot complain.”
“Those kids had been trying to use this big sled, I declare,” Nat said. “And I had to find a couple of new bolts. Don’t want to break down on the hill and spill you girls.”
“That would be spilling the beans for fair,” Ned put in. “Oh, beg pardon! Be-ings, I mean. Get aboard, beautiful beings, and we’ll drag you to the foot of the hill.”
They went on down the back road and into the woods with much merriment. The foot of Snake Hill was a mile and a half from The Cedars. Part of the hill was rough and wild, and there was not a farm upon its side anywhere.
“I wonder where the kids are making their slide?” said Tavia, easily.
“That’s why I am glad we came this way,” Dorothy confessed. “They might be tempted to slide down on this steep side, instead of going over to the Washington Village road.That’ssmooth.”
“Trust the boys for finding the most dangerousplace,” Jennie Hapgood remarked. “I never saw their like.”
“That’s because you only have an older brother,” said Dorothy, wisely. “He was past his reckless age while you were still in pinafores and pigtails.”
“Reckless age!” scoffed Tavia. “When does a boy or a man ever cease to be reckless?”
“Right-oh!” agreed Nat, looking back along the towline of the sled. “See how he forever puts himself within the danger zone of pretty girls. Gee! but Ned and I are a reckless team! What say, Neddie?”
“I say do your share of the pulling,” returned his brother. “Those girls are no feather-weights, and this is up hill.”
“Oh, to be so insulted!” murmured Tavia. “To accuse us of bearing extra flesh about with us when we all follow Lovely Lucy Larriper’s directions, given in theEvening Bazoo. Not a pound of the superfluous do we carry.”
“Dorothy’s getting chunky,” announced Nat, wickedly.
“You’re another!” cried Tavia, standing up for her chum. “Her lovely curves are to be praised—oh!”
At that moment the young men ran the runners on one side of the sled over an ice-covered stump, and the girls all joined in Tavia’s scream. If therehad not been handholds they would all three have been ignominiously dumped off.
“Pardon, ladies! Watch your step!” Ned said. “And don’t get us confused with your ‘beauty-talks’ business. Besides, it isn’t really modest. I always blush myself when I inadvertently turn over to the woman’s page of the evening paper. It is a delicate place for mere man to tread.”
“Hooray!” ejaculated his brother, making a false step himself just then. “Wish I had creepers on.Thisis a mighty delicate place for a fellow to tread, too, my boy.”
In fact, they soon had to order the girls off the sled. The way was becoming too steep and the side of the hill was just as slick as the highway had been.
With much laughter and not a few terrified “squawks,” to quote Tavia, the girls scrambled up the slope after the boys and the sled. Suddenly piercing screams came from above them.
“Those rascals!” ejaculated Ned.
“Oh! theyaresliding on this side,” cried Dorothy. “Stop them, Ned! Please, Nat!”
“What do you expect us to do?” demanded the latter. “Run out and catch ’em with our bare hands?”
They had come to a break in the path now and could see out over the sloping pasture in which the boys had been sliding for an hour. Their sledhad worked a plain path down the hill; but at the foot of it was an abrupt drop over the side of a gully. Dorothy Dale—and her cousins, too—knew that gully very well. There was a cave in it, and in and about that cave they had once had some very exciting adventures.
Joe and Roger had selected the smoothest part of the pasture to coast in, it was true; but the party of young folk just arrived could see that it was a very dangerous place as well. At the foot of the slide was a little bank overhanging the gully. The smaller boys had been stopping their sled right on the brink, and with a jolt, for the watchers could see Joe’s heelprints in the ground where the ice had been broken away.
They could hear the boys screaming out a school song at the top of the hill. Ned and Nat roared a command to Joe and Roger to halt in their mad career; but the two smaller boys were making so much noise that it was evident their cousins’ shout was not heard by them.
They came down, Joe sitting ahead on the sled with his brother hanging on behind, the feet of the boy sitting in front thrust out to halt the sled. But if the sled should jump over the barrier, the two reckless boys would fall twenty feet to the bottom of the gully.
“Stop them, do!” groaned Jennie Hapgood, who was a timid girl.
It was Dorothy who looked again at the little mound on the edge of gully’s bank. The frost had got into the earth there, for it had been freezing weather for several days before the ice storm of the previous night. Now the sun was shining full on the spot, and she could see where the boys’ feet, colliding with that lump of earth on the verge of the declivity, had knocked off the ice and bared the earth completely. There was, too, a long crack along the edge of the slight precipice.
“Oh, boys!” she called to Ned and Nat, who were struggling up the hill once more, “stop them, do! You must! That bank is crumbling away. If they come smashing down upon it again they may go over the brink, sled and all!”