FUN AND FINANCE OF BOYHOOD 15 



I remember when it happened that a warm 

 spring rain, falling on the accumulated snow of 

 winter, was followed by a zero temperature, and 

 a condition arose which no native could resist. 

 The whole face of nature was one glare of ice. 

 The spirit of the Creole possessed the descend- 

 ant of the Puritan, and work was forgotten 

 while the carnival lasted. Boys put on skates; 

 men, matrons, and maids got out shovels and 

 pans if other means were wanting. Some of 

 the younger women and girls treated the pans 

 as snowshoes and began their coast standing up- 

 right upon them. This method was not usually 

 approved by their mothers, who claimed that sit- 

 ting down in the pan while coasting was less 

 likely to lead to unladylike results. Another 

 objection to the employment of this form of 

 snowshoe in coasting was the impossibility of 

 guiding it, and its habit of spinning around like 

 a tee-to-tum was embarrassing to the occupant, 

 although it gave joy to the spectators. The 

 masculine equivalent of the milkpan was the 

 barn-shovel. The coaster sat upon the shovel 



