Hopkins's Pond. 7 



fluffy snow in the lonely pond road, al- 

 lowing superstition to keep one eye on 

 the lookout, the muffled quunk, quunk, 

 quunk, of uncaused ice sounds suddenly 

 admonished him to take longer steps and 

 to get some kind of a door behind him. 



There was nothing mysterious about the 

 pond in the daytime, and it was great fun 

 to kick a stone out of the frozen ground 

 and send it bounding across the ice ; to 

 hear the musical whunk, whenk, whink, 

 ink, inkle, inkle, inkle, inkle, until the 

 stone bounced into the bushes on the 

 further bank. How the ice did ring to 

 the clipping skate strokes when we young- 

 sters, red-mittened and with flying tippet 

 ends, played shinny in the moonlight until 

 the driftwood fire burned low and we real- 

 ized that we had been out three hours 

 later than the time when we had pro- 

 mised to be at home, where our good 

 parents were consoling themselves with 

 the thought that we always had come 

 home previously. No matter how frosty 

 the night, or how keenly the wind blew, 

 we knew nothing of that while the fun 



