"I guess I have. Come right along to the store with me." "Come on, Joe. Keep your skate on. Don't limp any more'n you can help." But both he and Joe cut a queer figure as they followed Uncle Josh up the street; for when a boy makes one of his legs longer than the other, and slips and slides on that foot, it makes a good deal of difference in the way he walks. Everybody knew Uncle Josh, and although he was a deacon and a very good man, everybody expected to see a smile on his face, and to hear him chuckle over something when they met him. So nobody was half so much surprised as Joe and Billy were, and their surprise did not come to them until they reached the store. But it came then. "Skates for these boys," said Uncle Josh, as they went in. "One for each foot, all around. Straps too." That was it, and now the boys were doing more chuckling than Uncle Josh himself. "Billy," asked Joe, "do you know what to say?" "Why, we must thank him." "Yes, I s'pose so. But that doesn't seem to be half enough." "Can't we thank him big, somehow?" "Enough for two pair of skates?" "That's so. We can't do it." They had to give it up; but they did their best, and Uncle Josh cut them short in the middle of it. "Come, come, boys, we can't stay here all day. There won't be another Saturday again for a week, and then it may rain. Don't put your skates on. Wait till we get to the pond. Bring along the big ones. They'll do for me." "Why, are you going, Uncle Josh?" "Of course I am. If the ice is twenty feet thick, I want to skate on it. That kind of ice'll bear anybody." And so the boys tied the big skates upon the sled, and were starting off, when Uncle Josh exclaimed: "No, boys, give 'em to me. I haven't had a pair of skates in my hand for twenty years. I want to see how it would seem to carry them." There were not a great many people to be met in a small village like that, but every one they did meet had a smile for Uncle Josh and his skates, till they reached the miller's house, just this side of the pond. And there was Mrs. Sanders, the miller's wife, sweeping the least bit of snow from her front stoop. "Joe," said Billy, "do you see that?" "And Charley Shadders was guessing, then. He said snow wouldn't light on her stoop." "There isn't but mighty little of it, and it didn't cost her anything." But just at that moment Mrs. Sanders was resting on her broom, and looking very severely at Uncle Josh, and saying, "Now, Deacon Parmenter, where are you going with those boys? Skates, too, at your time of life." "Good-morning, Sister Sanders. I declare, if you'll go with us, I'll trot right back and get a pair of skates for you. I'd like to see a good-looking young woman like you--" "Deacon Parmenter! Me? To go skating? With you and a couple of boys? I never!"