o turn up a corner of the carpet with
your foot, it gives out a flash, and your hair crackles as you brush it.
Breakfast is always hot, be the weather what it may. The coffee is
scalding, and the buckwheat cakes steam when the cover is taken off.
Your host's little boy asks whether he may go coasting to-day, and his
sisters tell you what days the schools will all go sleighing. You may
see boys coasting on Boston Common all the winter day through, and too
many in the streets, where it is not so safe.

To coast is to ride on a board down a frozen slope, and many children do
this in the steep streets which lead down to the Common, as well as on
the snowy slopes within the enclosure where no carriages go. Some sit on
their heels on the board, some on their crossed legs. Some strike their
legs out, put their arms akimbo, and so assume an air of defiance amid
their velocity. Others prefer lying on their stomachs, and so going
headforemost, an attitude whose comfort I could never enter into.
Coasting is a wholesome exercise for hardy boys. Of course, they have
to walk up the ascent, carrying their boards between every feat of
coasting; and this affords them more exercise than they are at all aware
of taking.

As for the sleighing, I heard much more than I experienced of its
charms. No doubt early association has something to do with the American
fondness for this mode of locomotion, and much of the affection which is
borne to music, dancing, supping, and all kinds of frolic is transferred
to the vehicle in which the frolicking parties are transported. It must
be so, I think, or no one would be found to prefer a carriage on runners
to a carriage on wheels, except on an untrodden expanse of snow. On a
perfectly level and crisp surface I can fancy the smooth, rapid motion
to be exceedingly pleasant; but such surfaces are rare in the
neighborhood of populous cities. The uncertain, rough motion in streets
hillocky with snow, or on roads consisting for the season of a ridge of
snow with holes in it, is disagreeable and provocative of headache. I am
no rule for others as to liking the bells; but to me their incessant
jangle was a great annoyance. Add to this the sitting, without exercise,
in a wind caused by the rapidity of the motion, and the list of
_desagremens_ is complete. I do not know the author of a description of
sleighing which was quoted to me, but I admire it for its fidelity. "Do
you want to know what sleighing is like?