Skating and Sliding Down Hill 255 



lonely and mysterious influence which possesses 

 the skater, as if he and all else were in some 

 vision of enchantment, such as these are the 

 charms of a solitary moonlight pursuit of a moun 

 tain river, up stream and down stream, and as 

 God wills. 



Of the social side of skating there is nothing to 

 say that may not be familiar to the denizens of 

 any considerable city. They can get that. But 

 the social side of sliding, without which there would 

 be very little of it done, can t really be had in the 

 city, even by the children. The few streets they 

 are allowed to make dangerous are quite too social ; 

 they are crowded and noisy and full of foul lan 

 guage and the hoodlums that use it. Postponing 

 the question of the civilization of the hoodlums, 

 which is a pressing duty, it may be observed that 

 the children of other sorts ought to be brought up 

 to walk a few miles, to outlying hills at no great 

 remove. The country boys and girls don t mind 

 a long walk for good sliding. One of the best 

 slides that memory recalls could be made three 

 miles long, if the highway were in good condition ; 

 and while few would walk those three miles up 

 hill, and those few chiefly to say they had done it, 

 yet the lower section of that slide, say from half 

 to three-quarters of a mile long, was popular, and 

 even populous, on bright nights. A superb slide 



