Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial321dodg).pdf/328

222 kind of snow one ordinarily raves about. One morning early in January, however, the enthusiastic Californian poked her feet into her warm, pink bedroom slippers, went to the window, pulled the curtain aside, and looked out.

“Oh, I ’m so glad,” she cried. “It’s snowing, Prudence! Just look. Great big flakes coming down as fast as ever they can!”

“Oh, come back to bed,” grumbled Prudence. “I guess if you had to see the horrid flakes coming down from October to April you would n’t think it so fine. Bob will tell you what he thinks of it, too, when he has to shovel a few tons of it off the front walk.”

“I wish I could go snow-shoeing once,” said Grace, obediently dropping the curtain. “I ’ve always wanted to learn,”

“You shall have an opportunity,” said Prudence, sitting up in bed. “We have two clubs here. The girls walk Wednesday afternoons and the boys Wednesday evenings. Once a month we all walk together and have a jolly good supper at the men’s snow-shoe—club-house. We ‘ve just been waiting for snow enough—we have n’t had as much as usual this winter.”

“ But,” said Grace, “what good would that do me? I don’t know how to snow-shoe—I should have to learn.”

“Oh, no, you would n’t. All you do after you get the shoes on is to walk like this.”

Prudence slipped out of bed and walked around the room, taking long, deliberate steps.



“People take naturally to snow-shoeing, just as ducks take to swimming,” explained Prudence, “You have only to remember not to step on your own shoes nor on any one’s else, that ’s all—but you would soon find that out.”

Grace, catching sight of a pair of tennis-rackets on her cousin’s wall, got up on a chair, pulled them down, and after much labor tied one to each foot with her hair ribbons.

“There!” she cried, as she paddled with considerable difficulty around the room; “is that the idea? Tt is n’t so very difficult, I do believe.