But what Russ intended to do he never finished telling for, just then, there came a stronger puff of wind than before, and Dick cried: 

“Lookout!”

Just what they were to look out for Russ and Laddie did not know, but they soon discovered.

The ice boat seemed to tilt up on one side, “as if it wanted to stand on its ear,” Grandpa Ford said afterward, and out spilled Russ, out spilled Laddie, and Dick, himself, almost spilled out.  But he managed to hold fast, which the two boys could not do.

Out of the ice boat the lads tumbled.  But as they had on thick coats, and as they did not fall very far but went spinning over the frozen pond, they thought it was fun.

Over the ice they slid, just as a skater slides when he falls down, and finally they stopped and sat up.

“Huh!” grunted Russ.

“That—­that was fun, wasn’t it?” asked Laddie.

“Lots of fun!” agreed Russ.  “I wonder if he did it on purpose?”

“Let’s ask him to do it again,” suggested Laddie.

But the spill was an accident.  Dick had not meant that it should happen.

“As for giving you more rides,” he said, when he had brought the boat back to shore, “I don’t believe I’d better.  The wind is getting stronger, and there might be a real accident next time.  Some other day I’ll give you more rides.”

“Oh, Dick, please!” pleaded Violet.  But Dick said he was sorry, but they would all have to wait for a calmer day.

So the little Bunkers had to be satisfied with this, and really they had had fine fun, and all agreed that Dick’s ice boat was just grand.

Back to the house they went, and, as it was nearly time to eat, they did not come out again until after the meal.  Then there was more skating, and some fun on the ice with sleds, until it was time to come in for the day.

“What’ll we do to-morrow?” asked Rose, as she and the other little Bunkers were getting ready for bed.

“If it snows we can go coasting,” said Russ.

“Well, it looks and feels like snow,” said Grandpa Ford, who came in from the barn just then, having gone out to see that the horses and cows were all right.

The grown folks sat about the fire after supper, talking and telling stories while the children were asleep in their beds.

“Hark!” suddenly exclaimed Mrs. Bunker.

“What is it?” asked her husband.

“I thought I heard one of the children,” she answered.

And just then, through the house, there sounded, as from some distance away, the rattle of a drum.

“Another queer noise!” exclaimed Grandma Ford in dismay.  “What will happen next?”

CHAPTER XXI

MR. WHITE

Rattle and bang-bang and rattle sounded the noise of the drum in Grandpa Ford’s house, and yet, as the grown folks downstairs in the sitting-room looked at one another, they could not imagine who was playing at soldier.  And yet that is what it sounded like—­children beating a drum.