Page:Anna Chapin--Half a dozen boys.djvu/167

Rh boy and his board parted company. The latter stuck fast in the soft snow and mud, and the  boy went tumbling and rolling away, amidst  the shouts of his friends. The fun waxed fast and furious. Mishaps were many, and Sam was particularly luckless. Sometimes his board would escape from his clutches, and go merrily  bobbing down the slope away from him, or else  it would run off from the side, and land him in  the snow beneath, or, again, some other boy on  his sled would come whizzing up behind him,  and, knocking his feet out from under him,  would carry him along on top of the pile,  struggling and laughing.

“It’s curious,” he remarked at length, “there don’t seem to be no reason why my  board should act so queer. If there’s goin’ to be anything left of me, I reckon I’d better quit.”

“I say, Bert,” suggested Ted, “let’s all go down in a crowd. There’s a short ladder over there that would be just dandy. Would your father be willing we should try it just once?”

“I guess so,” replied Bert. “I don’t suppose we’d hurt it any, and it would just about hold  us five. That’s as much fun as ice-boating.”