Ah! winter brings many joyous sports and
pastimes. And you get back home along about half-past two, and the
fire's out, and the folks are in bed, and you have to be at the
store to open up at seven - Laws! I wish it was so I could go
sleigh-riding once more in the long winter evenings, when the pitcher
in the spare bedroom bursts, and makes a noise like a cannon.
And sliding down hill, I like that.
What? Coasting? Never heard of it. If it's anything like sliding
down hill, it's all right. For a joke you can take a barrel-stave
and hold on to that and slide down. It goes like a scared rabbit,
but that isn't so much the point as that it slews around and spills
you into a drift. Sleds are lower and narrower than they used to be,
and they also lack the artistic adornment of a pink, or a blue, or a
black horse, painted with the same stencil but in different colors,
and named "Dexter," or "Rarus,'' or"Goldsmith Maid." These are good
names, but nobody ever called his sled by a name. Boggs's hill,
back of the lady's house that taught the infant-class in
Sunday-school, was a good hill. It had a creek at the bottom, and a
fine, long ride, eight or ten feet, on the ice. But Dangler's hill
was the boss. It was the one we all made up our minds we would ride
down some day when the snow was just right.
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