as he
had caught the boy, and lifted the whip, the creature was seen
hop-hopping from bank to bank. "I can't surely be mistaken this time; I
must catch it."

Which seemed quite easy, for it limped as if it was lame, or as if the
frost had bitten its toes, poor beast! Gardener went after it, walking
cautiously on the slippery, crackling ice, and never minding whether or
not he walked on the slides, though they called out to him that his
nailed boots would spoil them.

But whether it was that ice which bears a boy will not bear a man, or
whether at each lame step of the kangaroo there came a great crack, is
more than I can tell. However, just as Gardener reached the middle of
the lake, the ice suddenly broke, and in he popped.--The kangaroo too,
apparently, for it was not seen afterward.

What a hullaballoo the poor man made! Not that he was drowning--the lake
was too shallow to drown any body, but he got terribly wet, and the
water was very cold. He soon scrambled out, the boys helping him; and
then he hobbled home as fast as he could, not even saying thank you, or
taking the least notice of them.

Indeed, nobody took notice of them--nobody came to fetch them, and they
might have staid sliding the whole afternoon. Only somehow they did not
feel quite easy in their minds. And though the hole in the ice closed up
immediately, and it seemed as firm as ever, still they did not like to
slide upon it again.

"I think we had better go home and tell mother every thing," said one of
them. "Besides, we ought to see what has become of poor Gardener. He was
very wet."

"Yes, but oh, how funny he looked!" And they all burst out laughing at
the recollection of the figure he cut, scrambling out through the ice
with his trowsers dripping up to the knees, and the water running out of
his boots, making a little pool, wherever he stepped.

"And it freezes so hard, that by the time he gets home his clothes will
be as stiff as a board. His wife will have to put him to the fire to
thaw before he can get out of them."

[Illustration: The ice suddenly broke, and in he popped.]

Again the little people burst into shouts of laughter. Although they
laughed, they were a little sorry for the poor old Gardener, and hoped
no great harm had come to him, but that he had got safe home and been
dried by his own warm fire.

The frosty mist was beginning already to rise, and the sun, though still
high up in the sky, looked like a ball of red-ho