“Hello!” called Nelson Baker, as Sunny Boy came out on his front steps, dragging his new sled with him.  “Did you know it snowed in the night?  Can you go coasting?”

“Yes.  And let’s stop for Oliver,” suggested Sunny Boy.  “Oh, Nelson, your mother is rapping on the window for you.”

“Gee, I bet Ruth wants to go coasting,” said Nelson crossly.  “I never wanted to do anything in my life, Ruth didn’t want to, too.  I think girls are just horrid!”

“Nelson!” called Mrs. Baker, raising the window, “wait just a minute, dear; Ruth wants to go coasting, too.  She will be right out.”

“I told you so!” groaned Nelson.  “Now I can’t have a hit of fun.  Ruth will cry because the sled goes too fast and she’ll cry because her feet are cold and she’ll cry because she gets tired walking up the hill.  And then she will want to come home just when I am having a good time and I’ll have to bring her.  I wish Mother would make her stay in the house.”

Before Sunny Boy could answer him, Ruth came out.  She was a pretty little girl, about four years old, and she wore a fur hat and a dark red coat with a fur collar.  Her muff was tied to a string which went around her neck.  She had her own sled, a little one.

“Hello, Sunny Boy,” she said, smiling.  “Santa Claus brought me a sled, too.”

“What do you want to go coasting for?” asked Nelson, not waiting for Sunny Boy to answer.  “Your feet will get cold.”

“They won’t, either!” cried Ruth.  “Anyway, I’m going with you—­Mother said I could.  So there!” and she stamped her foot in its shiny new rubber.

“All right, come on then,” said Nelson crossly.  “What are you waiting so long for?  Sunny Boy and I could have a lot more fun if you stayed at home.”

Sunny Boy was so afraid Ruth was going to cry at this unkind speech that he tried to think of something to say that would make her forget it.

“You sit on your sled and Nelson and I will pull you,” he told Ruth.  “You can hold my sled for me.”

This pleased Ruth very much, and she sat down on her sled and tucked her coat around her and stuck her fat, short little legs, in their gray leggings, straight out in front of her.

“Take my sled, too,” said Nelson, forgetting to be cross.  “Don’t fall off, because we are going to go fast.”

“Let’s play we are fire horses, going to a fire,” suggested gunny Boy.  They had some automobile fire apparatus in Centronia, but the engines were still pulled by horses.  “Can you pull two sleds, Ruth?”

“Oh, my, yes,” replied dear little Ruth.

If the boys had asked her to pull six sleds she would have tried her best to do it.  It did seem too bad that when she wanted to go with them and tried so hard to please them, that they so often wished her to stay in the house and play by herself.  That is, Nelson did.

“Hang on,” said Nelson now, and away went the two fire horses, pulling the fire engine.