Jessie

One day Ronald and Henry, Jessie’s brother, took it into their heads to build a large snow-house in the yard back of the house. It was to be capacious enough to receive half a dozen boys at once, and so high as to admit of their standing upright within it. There was plenty of snow all around, and by working diligently with their shovels about an hour, they accumulated a pretty large heap. They had beat it down hard with their shovels, as they piled it up, so that it was quite solid. But after working harmoniously together, all this time, some differences of opinion at length began to arise between the two builders. Henry wanted to pile on more snow, and make the house larger. Ronald insisted that it was large enough, now. Henry, who was taller than Ronald, declared that he should not be able to stand up straight in it. Ronald told him not to be alarmed about that, for in digging out the inside, he meant to go clean down to the ground, which would make the hut nearly two feet higher than it appeared to be.

So Ronald carried his point, and Henry yielded somewhat reluctantly. They worked together again for a while, though not quite so merrily as before, smoothing and rounding off the pile into a regular shape. But when this was completed, they again began to dispute. Not that either of them was of a quarrelsome disposition, but there was an honest difference of opinion between them, and, as will sometimes happen in such cases, each was more ready to argue his own side than to listen to the other. Henry was for throwing a quantity of water upon the heap, by which means the outside would be turned into solid ice, as the water froze. He proposed to do this now, and to leave the work of excavation until another day. But Ronald thought the heap was compact and solid enough as it was, and it would only be throwing away labor to put water upon it. He determined to dig it out at once; and having marked a place for the door, he forthwith began to hollow out the hut, without further argument. Henry stood leaning upon his shovel, apparently not much pleased with the independent spirit displayed by Ronald; but he said little, and offered no further assistance.

Such was the position of affairs, when footsteps were heard on the other side of the fence, and Ronald, looking over, spied Jessie, who had evidently set out for a walk.

“Where are you going, Jessie?” he inquired.

“Down to the pond, to see the ice-boat,” replied Jessie.

“Hold on a minute and I’ll go, too,” said Ronald, throwing down his shovel, and brushing the snow from his clothes.

“That’s right—I should like company,” replied Jessie. “Wont you come, too, Henry?”

“I can’t—it’s about time for me to go home,” replied Henry.

“Well, don’t you touch my snow-house, while I’m gone, will you?” interposed Ronald.

“Your snow-house, I should think!” retorted Henry, in a sneering tone.

“Yes, it is mine, for it’s on mother’s land, and you’ve no right to come into the yard, if I tell you not to,” replied Ronald.

“It’s your mother’s land, is it? I thought she died in the poor-house, years ago,” responded Henry, with a bitter look that did not seem to sit at all naturally upon that open, good-natured face.

“Well, you touch it if you dare, that’s all,” replied Ronald, with an angry look; and leaping over the fence, he ran to overtake Jessie, who had walked on, and had heard none of this ill-natured conversation.

To explain Henry’s ungenerous fling about Ronald’s mother, it should be mentioned that the parents of that boy were poor French Canadian emigrants, who were suddenly carried off by a fever, in Highburg, leaving their only child, Ronald, at the age of eight years, homeless and friendless. He was a singularly bright and lively boy, and Marcus Page took such a fancy to him, that he induced his mother to adopt the orphan. Never having received much training, Ronald had many wild and strange ways, and had fallen into some bad habits, though his disposition was naturally affectionate, kind-hearted and docile. Marcus, from the first, exerted a great influence over him, acting the part of teacher and father to him; and from his success in making a good boy of this little semi-savage, he earned the name of “the Boy-Tamer.”

Ronald’s anger was somewhat cooled off, by the time he overtook Jessie, although he was not yet in a very pleasant mood. He looked back several times, to see what Henry was about, but the latter stood leaning upon the fence, apparently undecided what to do. Jessie asked several questions about the snow-house, as they walked along. Although Ronald did not seem inclined to say much about it, he was careful to give her no intimation of the quarrel that had arisen. She had been recently reading a volume of Arctic travels, and Ronald’s snow-house reminded her of the huts of snow in which the Esquimaux live. She explained to him the manner in which they are built. They are circular in shape, rising in the form of a dome, and are built wholly of ice and snow. We give a representation of one nearly completed. The picture also shows a finished hut, in the distance, and the low and narrow entrance to a third, in the foreground. It does not seem as though these snow hovels could be much more comfortable to dwell in than the one which Ronald and Henry built; but the poor Esquimaux, though living in a climate far colder than the coldest in the United States, are glad to make their homes in these rude huts, which seem fit only for boys’ playthings. An American traveller in those regions says that although these snow-houses might not be considered exactly comfortable, particularly by those who had a fondness for dry clothing, and for joints that did not creak with frost in the morning, yet he confessed he had often slept soundly in them.

From snow-houses the conversation glided to iceboats, which are sleds or boats constructed to sail on the ice. One of these had been recently rigged up by a young man in town, and as it was a novelty, it was the object of Jessie’s walk to see it. Ronald had already seen it, and explained its construction to her; and she, in return, told him how in Arctic expeditions the sledges were sometimes provided with sails, by which the men were greatly aided in their tedious journeys over vast fields of ice.

Merry voices soon informed Jessie and Ronald that they were in the vicinity of the pond. Round Hill Pond, it was called, taking its name from a prominent hill near its borders. It was a beautiful sheet of water, surrounded on all sides by hilly land, much of which was covered with forest trees. At this time, there was quite a large gathering of young men and boys upon its glassy surface. There were parties of merry skaters, performing their quick and graceful evolutions, or cutting fantastic figures upon the ice. Some of the skaters had bats and balls, and others were drawing sleds, on which were seated their little brothers or sisters. There were also some famous coasts on the pond, which many of the boys were improving. Starting high up on the steep sides of the pond, they came down with a railroad speed that sent them whizzing across the narrow part of the pond; and here, fortunately, was another icy hill-side, by which they were returned to their first starting place, in the same way they came. I cannot say what would have been the consequences of a collision between these two opposite trains of coasters; but as each side had its own track, and the law of keeping to the right was enforced by common consent, they got along without anything more serious than an occasional narrow escape from an accident.

But the great attraction of the pond was the ice-boat. This was a large, rough sled, shaped somewhat like a flat-iron, and instead of runners, having three skate irons, two behind and one forward. The forward skate could be turned, and thus served as a rudder to steer the craft. Near the centre of the sled there was a mast, capable of supporting a large, square sail. The sail was dropped, and the ice-boat was at rest, near the edge of the pond, when Jessie and Ronald arrived. They went down upon the ice, to have a nearer view of it, and found the young man who made it getting ready for a sail. Several persons were standing around, one of whom, a middle-aged man, was endeavoring to convince the youth that he sailed his craft wrong end first.

“Why, look here, John,” said the man, “doesn’t it stand to reason that the rudder of a boat ought to be in the stern? Now just answer me that, will you?”

“Well,” replied the boy, availing himself of the Yankee’s privilege of answering a question by asking another, “supposing you were making an ox-sled with a set of double runners, would you put the traverse runners behind, because you were going to steer with them?”

“That’s nothing to do with it,” replied the other; “of course I wouldn’t build an ox-sled as I would a sail-boat. But, let me tell you, I’ve seen these things before to-day. I was out in Iowa, one winter, and crossed the Mississippi in a sail-sled, a good deal like this, only she had the two stationary runners in front, and the single one behind. She was running as a ferry-boat, and she flew across the river like a bird. And then she’d mind her rudder just as quick as any boat you ever saw; you could whirl her right about in a moment.”

“So I can my boat,” replied the youth; “and as to that, I don’t believe it makes any difference whether the steering runner is in front or behind. Come, jump on, Mr. Grant, and you shall see for yourself,” added the young man, as he hoisted his sail.

“No, you’ll sail better with one than with two on board, with this wind,” replied the man.

“Well, Jessie, you’re light—I’ll take you, if you want to have a sail,” continued the young man.

“No, I thank you, I had rather stand here and see you sail,” replied Jessie.

“Yes, go, Jessie,” interposed Ronald; “I would, if he asked me.”

John did not take the hint, but setting his sail to the breeze, and giving his craft a push by means of a boat-hook, he started on his trip alone. There was a light wind, and the ice-boat, after a few minutes, got up a pretty good speed, sailing along very handsomely at the rate of four or five miles an hour, which is a little faster than a good walker usually travels. The young man frequently changed her course, and conclusively showed that the craft obeyed her rudder, if it was, as Mr. Grant asserted, in the wrong end of the boat.

As the sun was nearing the western horizon, Jessie and Ronald did not wait to see the return of the ice-boat, but started for home after it had disappeared behind the hills. They had not proceeded far, when they discovered, with astonishment and awe, that since they had passed securely over the road, but little more than an hour before, a fearful snow-slide had taken place at a particular point, burying up the highway for nearly a dozen rods, to the depth of twenty feet! The road at this place wound around the foot of a steep hill, upon the side of which the deep snow had become softened by the afternoon sun, and slipping from the grasp of its icy moorings, had swept down from the heights above in an avalanche which must have shaken the solid ground beneath. There was a farm-house just beyond, and Jessie and Ronald, as soon as their first surprise was over, began to feel serious apprehensions that it had been swept away in the rushing tide from the mountain. They accordingly scaled the immense pile of snow, which was as hard and compact as if it had been trodden down by the feet of an army, and hurried forward to ascertain the extent of the disaster. To their great relief, they found the house safe, but so near had the destructive avalanche come to it, that a shed attached to the barn was demolished and buried up, and a wagon standing in it was crushed to pieces. The family which occupied the house had not yet recovered from their alarm and excitement. At the time the slide occurred, the mother and her two children were alone in the house. Hearing an unusual noise, which jarred the building like an earthquake, she ran to the door, and saw the whole hill-side apparently sliding down into the road. Comprehending her danger at a glance, she seized her little girl with one hand, and her babe with the other, and fled from the house with all possible speed—all of them bareheaded, and with only such garments as they wore indoors. Fortunately, she soon met her husband, who at first thought his wife had suddenly become crazy; but after hearing her story, he took the little girl into his arms, and they went back to the house. When Jessie and Ronald got there, the man was trying very earnestly to convince his wife that there was no further danger, but she kept glancing anxiously at the snow on the hill behind the house, as if momentarily expecting to see it commence its destructive march. There was, however, really little danger, now, for such was the form of the hill above the house, that a slide would not be likely to occur there, unless in connection with an avalanche on the more precipitous part of the mountain.

Jessie and Ronald now hurried home, thankful that an unseen Hand had held back the crashing snow-slip, while they were slowly passing along its track, unconscious of danger. So intently were their minds engaged with the fearful scene they had just witnessed, that Ronald did not notice, as he passed into the yard, that his snow-house was reduced to a shapeless heap, and its ruins scattered around in every direction.