“‘Then what kind are they?’ repeated the neighbor.
“‘Sure, they’re raw ones, Mr. Hurley,’ says he, and Hurley came to the house roaring with laughter over it. Nothing feazes Patrick.”
The long, sloping hill, under the chestnuts and oaks, would have made a splendid coasting place; only there was no snow on the ground.
“But when the snow _does_ come,” cried Dora Lockwood, “if the pond is still frozen over, won’t it be a great course?”
“The ice is all right now, at any rate,” Eve reassured them. “And there isn’t a spring hole in the entire pond, Otto says.”
Patrick had brought an axe and, with the help of some of the boys, soon had a big bonfire burning on the edge of the pond. Meanwhile the other boys helped the girls with their skate-straps, and then got on their own skates.
The ice hadn’t a scratch on it. It was like a great plate of glass, and so clear in places that they could see to the bottom of the pond—where the bottom was sandy.
All the young folk were soon on the ice, the boys starting a hockey game at the far end, and the girls circling around in pairs at the end nearest to the fire.
“That’s what Mrs. Case, our physical instructor, says we ought to learn,” said Laura, watching the boys.
“And it’s jolly good fun, too,” cried Bobby.
“But suppose you turned your ankle, or fell down and tore your dress?” suggested Nellie. “I believe hockey on the ice is too rough.”
“No game needs to be rough,” declared Laura. “That isn’t the spirit of athletics. Didn’t we learn how to play basketball without being rough?”
“Even Hessie Grimes learned that,” chuckled Bobby.
At that moment a gun was fired back in the thicker woods, and then out of the brush the girls saw an animal charging directly for the pond. Patrick saw it, too, and leaped up from before the fire and ran toward the beast.
“That’s the one they want to catch,” said Eve. “She is ugly, too, I believe.” Then she raised her voice in warning to Patrick; “Look out, Patrick! She is real cross.”
“Faith!” returned the Irishman, half squatting down in the path of the charging sow. “It’s not afraid I be of the likes of a pig. ’Tis too many of their tails I’ve twisted in ould Ireland, to run from wan in Ameriky——”
Just then the animal spied him and went for Patrick, full tilt. There wasn’t time for the Irishman to dodge; but he _did_ spread his legs, and the angry mother-hog ran between them.