d made them
feel as good as new.

By and by Grandfather Winkle came home from going about with the milk.
Grandmother Winkle scrubbed the cart and made it all clean again; and
by noon you would never have known, unless you had looked very, very
closely--much more closely than would be polite--that anything had
happened to the Twins or the milk cart, or their clothes or anything.

After they had eaten their dinner, and the dogs were rested and
Grandfather had smoked his pipe he said,

"Kit, if you think you can mind, I will take you and Kat both home in
the dog cart." Kit and Kat both nodded their heads very hard. "Only,
I'll do the driving myself," said Grandfather Winkle. And he did.

He put Kit and Kat both on the seat, and he walked slowly beside the
cart. They went out on the road beside the canal toward home. They got
there just as the sun was getting low in the west, and Vrouw Vedder was
going out to feed her chickens.

VI

THE DAY THEY GOT THEIR SKATES

One morning, when Kit and Kat ran out early to feed their ducklings,
the frost nipped their noses and ears.

"It's getting colder every day. Very soon winter will come," Kat said.

They ran down to the canal. The old goose and the gander and the
goslings--now half grown--were standing on the bank, looking unhappy:
there was a thin sheet of ice all over the canal, and they could not go
swimming.

Kit took a stick and broke the ice. Thin sheets of it, like pieces of
broken glass, were soon floating about; and the old goose, the gander,
and all the goslings went down the bank in a procession into the water.

They swam about among the pieces of ice for a while, but it was so cold
that they soon came up on the bank into the sun again and wiggled their
tails to shake out the water. Then they all sat down in the sun to get
their feet warm.

Kit and Kat ran up and down the road and played tag until their cheeks
were red and they were warm as toast. Then they ran into Vrouw Vedder's
warm kitchen.

The kettle was singing on the fire, and there was a smell of coffee in
the air. Vrouw Vedder gave the Twins some in a large cup. She put in a
good deal of milk and gave them each a piece of sugar to sweeten it
with.

"Is it Sunday?" asked Kat. On Sundays they sometimes had coffee. On
other days they had milk.

"No," said Vrouw Vedder; "but it is cold, and I thought a cup of coffee
would warm us all up."

While they were drinking their coffee, Kit and