h sat down pretty hard, and he was a fat, jolly, heavy sort of
man.

He sat right still and laughed for a whole minute, and then he tried it
again.

This time he succeeded in standing up, and he was just saying to
himself, "I wish Jemima Sanders had come along to see me skate," when
one of his feet began to slip away from him.

"I know how," he shouted. "There's no help for it. I must strike right
out."

So he did, and his first slide carried him nearly a rod on that one
skate before he could get the other one down. He did that, however, and
it worked finely, for he had been a good skater when he was a young man.
He had kept hold of the rope-handle of the sled, and it was following
him. That is, when he struck out with a foot he swung his long arms too,
and the sled swung around on the ice as if it was half crazy.

"What can be the matter with my ankles?" he said to himself. "They used
to be good ankles."

No doubt; but then the last time he had skated before that, they had not
had so much to carry.

"Billy," exclaimed Joe Pearce, "Uncle Josh is agoing!"

"How he does go! Ain't I glad it's thick ice!"

"Let's go. Come on, boys."

Other eyes than theirs had been watching Uncle Josh, for everybody knew
him, and nobody had ever seen him skate, and Joe and Billy were followed
by almost all the boys on the pond.

"Hurrah for Uncle Josh!"

"Can't he skate, though!"

"See him go."

Right across the pond, as if he were in a desperate hurry to reach the
opposite bank before the ice could melt under him, went Uncle Josh, and
with him, all around him, swung the sled.

It may have served as a sort of balance-wheel, and helped to steady him,
but it could not steer him. Neither could he steer himself, and the next
thing he knew he was headed down the pond, and skating for dear life
toward the dam.

"If I stop, I shall come down," he said, with a sort of gasp. "I'm
getting out of breath. Good! I'm pointed for the shore again, and
there's a snow-bank."

All the boys were racing after him now, but they had stopped shouting in
their wonder at what could have got into Uncle Josh. He himself was
beginning to feel very warm, for it was a good while since he had done
so much work in so short a time.

"Here comes the shore!" But just as he said it, there he was, and the
skate he was sliding on caught in a chip on the ice.

The wind had been at work to keep the pond clean when it piled that
snow-bank, and had left it