t. What pipe would not be proud to be the object of such a
sacrifice!

For a while Ben skated on in silence. There was so much to engage his
attention that he almost forgot his companions. Part of the time he had
been watching the iceboats as they flew over the great Haarlemmer Meer
(or lake), the frozen surface of which was now plainly visible from the
canal. These boats had very large sails, much larger, in proportion,
than those of ordinary vessels, and were set upon a triangular frame
furnished with an iron "runner" at each corner--the widest part of the
triangle crossing the bow, and its point stretching beyond the stem.
They had rudders for guiding and brakes for arresting their progress and
were of all sizes and kinds, from small, rough affairs managed by a boy,
to large and beautiful ones filled with gay pleasure parties and manned
by competent sailors, who, smoking their stumpy pipes, reefed and tacked
and steered with great solemnity and precision.

Some of the boats were painted and gilded in gaudy style and flaunted
gay pennons from their mastheads; others, white as snow, with every
spotless sail rounded by the wind, looked like swans borne onward by a
resistless current. It seemed to Ben as, following his fancy, he watched
one of these in the distance, that he could almost hear its helpless,
terrified cry, but he soon found that the sound arose from a nearer and
less romantic cause--from an iceboat not fifty yards from him, using its
brakes to avoid a collision with a peat sled.

It was a rare thing for these boats to be upon the canal, and their
appearance generally caused no little excitement among skaters,
especially among the timid; but today every iceboat in the country
seemed afloat or rather aslide, and the canal had its full share.

Ben, though delighted at the sight, was often startled at the swift
approach of the resistless, high-winged things threatening to dart in
any and every possible direction. It required all his energies to keep
out of the way of the passersby and to prevent those screaming little
urchins from upsetting him with their sleds. Once he halted to watch
some boys who were making a hole in the ice preparatory to using their
fishing spears. Just as he concluded to start again, he found himself
suddenly bumped into an old lady's lap. Her push-chair had come upon him
from the rear. The old lady screamed; the servant who was propelling her
gave a warning hiss. In another instant B