have had no
skates this morning."

"I didn't have no heel on one shoe," blurted Jim in confusion, and
Roger, in relief, hoorayed himself into hoarseness.

But Jim, like Muggs, was something of a mystery, and after a time the
Doctor, with a sigh, abandoned his effort to break through the boy's
sullen shyness. Still Jim was the first at the chopping block when Annie
wanted wood, and when the task took on something of the charm of Tom
Sawyer's fence by reason of a winter wren, so tame from overfeeding that
he perched himself now and then upon the handle of the ax, Jim fell back
with resentment and resigned the ax to Marty Fay who spat upon his
hands, doubled up his fists, sparred, in an excess of good spirits, with
an invisible antagonist, and thereafter made the chips fly so fast that
the little wren departed.

Already there were great Christmas bunches of oats upon glistening trees
and fences, but, while Asher was carrying double portions of food to
cattle and horses, to Toby, the cat, and Rover, the dog, the Doctor went
about, with an eager pack of boys at his heels, distributing further
Christmas largess for his feathered friends--suet and crumbs and seed.
For there were chickadees in the clump of red cedars by the barn, and
juncos and nuthatches, white-throated sparrows and winter wrens, all so
frank in their overtures to the Doctor that the boys with one accord
closed threateningly around Muggs to keep him from drumming the birds
into flight. Jim fastened a great chunk of suet to a tree-trunk and very
soon a red-breasted nuthatch was busy with his Christmas breakfast.
Altogether Roger's bang-up Christmas began with terrific bustle, with
Annie, from whose kitchen already floated odors that set the insatiable
Muggs to sniffing, by far the busiest of them all.

The grandfather's clock struck ten. It found the old farmhouse deserted
save for Annie in the kitchen and Aunt Ellen in her rocking chair by the
sitting-room window. The Doctor was guiding his guests to the Deacon's
pond.

New skates, new sweaters, and a pond as smooth as glass! What wonder
then that Roger's trembling fingers bungled his straps, and Jim,
kneeling, fastened them on with nimble fingers.

"Ain't ye never skated?"

"No--I--I been lame. Oh, hurry, Jim! See, Mike's flyin' down the pond
like wind!"

Jim's eyes softened.

"I'll teach ye," he said.

As for the Doctor he had disinterred an ancient pair of skates from the
attic, and presently