THE ICE-BOAT

“Oh, there comes my skate off again!  Freddie, have you got any paste in your pocket?”

“Paste, Flossie!  What good would paste be to fasten on your skate?”

“I don’t know, but it might do some good.  I can’t make the strap hold it on any more,” and a plump little girl shook back her flaxen, curling hair, which had slipped from under her cap and was blowing into her eyes, sat down on a log near the shore of the frozen lake and looked sorrowfully at the shining skate which had become loosened from her shoe.

“Come on, Flossie!” called the small, plump boy, just about the size of his sister, and with her same kind of light hair and blue eyes.  “There go Bert, Nan and Tommy Todd ’way ahead of us.  We’ll never catch up to ’em if you sit here.  Come on!”

“I can’t help sitting here, Freddie Bobbsey!  How am I going to skate on only one skate?” asked the little girl.

“Put on the other, and come along.”

“I have put it on, lots of times, but it comes off every time I skate a little bit.  That’s why I want some paste.  Maybe I could paste the strap fast around my shoe.”

“I don’t believe you could, Flossie,” and this time the small, plump boy stopped skating around in a ring—­“grinding the bar,” as it is called—­and glided toward his sister seated on the log.  “Anyhow, I haven’t any paste.  What made you think I had?”

“Oh, you carry so much stuff in your pockets I thought maybe you’d have paste.”

“I might if it was summer, Flossie, and I was making kites with Bert.  But I haven’t any paste now.”

“Then have you got a postage stamp?”

“A postage stamp?  Of course not!  What good would a postage stamp be to fasten your skate strap?”

“Well, a postage stamp has paste on it, hasn’t it?  Anyhow, it’s sticky, ’cause I got some on my tongue once, and I just know if I could only fasten down the end of this skate strap, to keep it from flopping up, and coming out of the buckle, I’d be all right.  It’s the flopping end that comes loose.”

“Well, pooh! a postage stamp wouldn’t be any good!” cried Freddie.  “If you did stick it on it wouldn’t last more than three strokes.  A postage stamp wouldn’t go far at all!”

“Some postage stamps do!” exclaimed Flossie.  “Mother got one on a letter the other day and it had stuck itself on half-way round the world—­she told me so.  And if a stamp sticks half-way around the world I should think it would stick while I skated down to the end of the lake.”

“Huh!  That’s different!” half grunted Freddie, for, just then, he was stooping over tightening one of his straps.  “Anyhow, I haven’t got a stamp.”

“Well, maybe you could fix my skate so it wouldn’t come off,” suggested Flossie.  “I’ve tried and tried, but I can’t, and I don’t want to stay here all alone.”

“Why Flossie Bobbsey!  I’m with you!”