My First Ride on an Ice Boat. 



It may be a bit of landscape, a gun, dog, rod, boat, or a 

 wild stormy day, that awakens the echoes in the cob-webbed 

 galleries of Memory's store-house and brings back to life 

 some pleasant incident of bygone days. The cold, wintry bast 

 that sweeps around the house corner tonight and drives against 

 the window panes, reminds me of my first ride on an ice boat. 

 I was spending a few weeks visiting in Wisconsin, and was 

 stopping with a relative who kept a hotel in one of those 

 pretty lake resort towns for which the state is noted. As is 

 well known, these are very pleasant resorts in summer, but 

 the dullest of places during the long winter. I had hunted, 

 fished through the ice, kated, and taken a hand in all the 

 winter sports of the place except ice boating. There were 

 only two or three boats on the lake and I was afraid I would 

 have to go away without enjoying this long-wished-for pleas- 

 ure ; but, having a full share of patience, I awaited my oppor- 

 tunity, and it came at last. I was sitting by the fire in the 

 little village hotel, enjoying my after-breakfast cigar, one cold 

 morning, when George W. dropped in and invited me to 

 "take a scoot" with him across the lake on his ice boat. I 

 quickly accepted the invitation, as it was just what I had 

 been waiting for for weeks. A short, brisk walk, and we 

 were at the landing, and getting the "Flyer" ready for the 

 trip. Things were soon made shipshape, the big white sails 

 hoisted, and, as we slipped away from the shore, my compan- 

 ion told me to get down out of the way of the boom and cling 

 to a rope that ran along the center of the boat from stern to 

 bow. 



The wind was blowing a gale from the northwest, the 

 thermometer down to 12 degrees below zero, and the air full 

 of snow and frost. The farther we got out on the open lake, 

 the faster we went, until it seemed to me were flying instead 

 of sailing. The wind hummed through the rigging, the sails 



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