“If Misther Billy goes, ’twill be all roight.”

“Oh, Granny,” Maida said, “you dear, darling, old fairy-dame!” She was so excited that she wriggled like a little eel all the time Granny was bundling her into her clothes.  And when she reached the street, it seemed as if she must explode.

A big moon, floating like a silver balloon in the sky, made the night like day.  The neighborhood sizzled with excitement for the street and sidewalks were covered with children dragging sleds.

“It’s like the ‘Pied Piper’, Rosie,” Maida said joyfully, “children everywhere and all going in the same direction.”

They followed the procession up Warrington Street to where Halliwell Street sloped down the hill.

Billy let out a long whistle of astonishment.  “Great Scott, what a coast!” he said.

In the middle of the street was a ribbon of ice three feet wide and as smooth as glass.  At the foot of the hill, a piled-up mound of snow served as a buffer.

“The boys have been working on the slide all day,” Rosie said.  “Did you ever see such a nice one, Maida?”

“I never saw any kind of a one,” Maida confessed.  “How did they make it so smooth?”

“Pouring water on it.”

“Have you never coasted before, Maida?” Billy asked.

“Never.”

“Well, here’s your chance then,” said a cheerful voice back of them.  They all turned.  There stood Arthur Duncan with what Maida soon learned was a “double-runner.”

Billy examined it carefully.  “Did you make it, Arthur?”

“Yes.”

“Pretty good piece of work,” Billy commented.  “Want to try it, Maida?”

“I’m crazy to!”

“All right.  Pile on!”

Arthur took his place in front.  Rosie sat next, then Dicky, then Maida, then Billy.

“Hold on to Dicky,” Billy instructed Maida, “and I’ll hold on to you.”

Tingling with excitement, Maida did as she was told.  But it seemed as if they would never start.  But at last, she heard Billy’s voice, “On your marks.  Get set!  Go!” The double-runner stirred.

It moved slowly for a moment across the level top of the street.  Then came the first slope of the hill—­they plunged forward.  She heard Rosie’s hysterical shriek, Dicky’s vociferous cheers and Billy’s blood-curdling yells, but she herself was as silent as a little image.  They struck the second slope of the hill—­then she screamed, too.  The houses on either side shot past like pictures in the kinetoscope.  She felt a rush of wind that must surely blow her ears off.  They reached the third slope of the hill—­and now they had left the earth and were sailing through the air.  The next instant the double-runner had come to rest on the bank of snow and Rosie and she were hugging each other and saying, “Wasn’t it GREAT?”

They climbed to the top of the hill again.  All the way back, Maida watched the sleds whizzing down the coast, boys alone on sleds, girls alone on sleds, pairs of girls, pairs of boys, one seated in front, the other steering with a foot that trailed behind on the ice, timid little girls who did not dare the ice but contented themselves with sliding on the snow at either side, daring little boys who went down lying flat on their sleds.