monotonous, but still . . . . You pass a house, and a woman comes out to scrape off a plate to the chickens standing on one foot in a corner where the sun can get at them, and the wind cannot. She scrapes slowly, and looks at you as much as to say: "I wonder who's sick. Must be somebody going for the doctor, day like this." And then she shudders: "B-b-b-oo-oo-oo!" and runs back into the house and slams the door hard. You snuffle and look at the chimney that has thick white smoke coming out of it, and consider that very likely a nice, warm fire is making all that smoke, and you snuffle again, and ride and ride and ride and ride and ride and ride and ride and 'ride. And about an hour and a half after you have given up all hopes, and are getting resigned to your fate, you turn off the big road and up the lane to the house where you are going on your pleasure-trip, and you hop out as nimble as a sack of potatoes, and hobble into the house, and don't say how-de-do or anything, but just make right for the stove. The people all squall out: "Why, ain't you 'most froze?" and if you answer, "Yes sum," it's as much as ever. Generally you can't do anything but just stand and snuffle and look as if you hadn't a friend on earth. And about the time you get so that some spots are pretty warm, and other spots aren't as cold as they were, why then you wrap up, and go home again with the same experience, only more so. Fine! fine!
It's nice, too, when there's a whole crowd out together in a wagon-bed with straw in it. There's something so cozy in straw!
And the tin horns you blow in each other's ear, and the songs you sing: "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way," and "Waw-unneeta! Waw-unneeta, ay-usk thy sowl if we shud part," and "Nearer, my God, to Thee," and "Johnny Shmoker," and that variation of "John Brown's Body," where every time you sing over the verse you leave off one more word, and somebody always forgets, and you laugh fit to kill yourself, and just have a grand time. And maybe you take a whole lot of canned cove oysters with you, and when you get out to Makemson's, or wherever it is you're going, Mrs.
Makemson puts the kettle on and makes a stew, cooking the oysters till they are thoroughly done. And she makes coffee, the kind you can't tell from tea by the looks, and have to try twice before you can tell by the taste. 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. We'd go over there' and look up to the brow of the hill and say: "Gee! But wouldn't a fellow come down like sixty, though?""Betchy!"
We'd look up again, and somebody would say: "Aw, come on. Less go over to Boggs's hill.""Thought you was goin' down Dangler's."
"Yes, I know, but all the other fellows is over to Boggs's.""A-ah, ye're afraid."
"Ain't either."
"Y' are teether."
"I dare you."
"Oh, well now -- "
"I double dare you."
"All right. I will if you will. You go first.""Nah, you go first. The fellow that's dared has got to go first.
Ain't that so, Chuck? Ain't that so, Monkey?""I'll go down if you will, on'y you gotta go first.""Er - er - Who all 's over at Boggs's hill?""Oh, the whole crowd of 'em, Turkey-egg McLaughlin, and Ducky Harshberger, and - Oh, I don' know who all.""Tell you what less do. Less wait till it gets all covered with ice, and all slick and smooth. Then less come over and go down.""Say, won't she go like sixty then! Jeemses Rivers! Come on, I'll beat you to the corner."That was the closest we ever came to going down Dangler's hill.
Railroad hill wasn't so bad, over there by the soap-factory, because they didn't run trains all the time, and you stood a good chance of missing being run over by the engine, but Dangler's Well, now, Iwant to tell you Dangler's was an awful steep hill, and a long one, and when you think that it was so steep nobody ever pretended to drive up it even in the summer-time, and you slide down the hill and think that, once you got to going.
Fun's fun, I know, but nobody wants to go home with half his scalp hanging over one eye, and dripping all over the back porch. Because, you know, a fellow's mother gets crosser about blood on wood-work than anything else. Scrubbing doesn't do the least bit of good; it has to be planed off, or else painted.
Let me see, now. Have I missed anything? I'll count 'em off on my fingers. There's skating, and sleigh-riding, and sliding down hill, and Oh, yes. Snowballing and making snow-men. Nobody makes a snow-man but once, and nobody makes a snow-house after it has caved in on him once and like to killed him. And as for snowballing - Look here. Do you know what's the nicest thing about winter? Get your feet on a hot stove, and have the lamp over your left shoulder, and a pan of apples, and something exciting to read, like "Frank Among the Indians." Eh, how about it? In other words, the best thing about winter is when you can forget that it is winter.
