So laughing together, they all wrapped up warmly and went out to get on the wood sled when it came back. The hill over by the sawmill was not so steep, but it swept in long, undulating sections, as it were, clear from the top of Woodchuck Hill down to the bridge at Little River. The Peckham boys had been sliding for a couple of days, and had worn a fair sized track over the snow and ice. “There’ll be fine skating when the snow clears off a bit,” Billy called out. “We’ve got a skating club, and you’ll have to join. Piney’s the best girl skater. Jiminy, you ought to see her spin ahead. We skate on the river when it’s like this and you can keep on going for miles.” “Do you know, girls,” Jean said on the way back, “I think we stay in the house too much and coddle ourselves just as Mrs. Gorham says. I feel simply dandy now. Who’s for the skating club?” Even Helen joined in. It seemed to take the edge off the loneliness, this co-operation of outdoor fun and sport. The end of the week found the river clear and ready for skating. Jean never forgot her first experience there. It was not a straight river. It slipped unexpectedly around bends and dipping hillsides, curving in and out as if it played hide-and-seek with itself, Doris said, like the sea serpent that met its own tail half way around the seven seas. Up near the Greenacre bridge Astrid and Ingeborg met them with Hedda. Helen, the fanciful, whispered to Jean how splendid it was to have real daughters of the northland with them, but Jean laughed at her. “Cousin Roxy would say ‘fiddlesticks’ to that. I’m sure they were all born right on this side of the briny deep, you little romancer.” “It doesn’t matter where they were born,” answered Helen, loftily. “They are the daughters of vikings somewhere back. Just look at their hair and eyes.” It really was a good argument, Jean thought. They had the bluest eyes and the most golden hair she had ever seen. Sally skated up close to her and began to talk. “Father says when his father was a boy, there were gray wolves used to come down in wintertime from Massachusetts, and they’ve been chased by them on this river when they were skating.” “My father tells of wolves too,” Astrid said in her slow, wide-eyed way. “Back in Sweden. He says he was in a camp in the forest on the side of a great mountain, and the men told him to watch the fires while they were hunting. While he was there alone there came a pack of wolves after the freshly killed game. He stood with his back to the fire and threw blazing pine knots at them to keep them back. While the fire kept up they were afraid to come close, but he could see the gleam of their eyes in the darkness all around him, and hear them snap and snarl to get at him. Then the men and dogs returned and fought them. He was only thirteen.”