Aunts -- Juvenile fiction; Boston (Mass.) -- Juvenile fiction; City and town life -- Juvenile fiction; Siblings -- Juvenile fiction
"I could push myself along on one skate," said the little girl, "but it
isn't much fun. Can you fix it, Russ?"
Her brother shook his head.
"I don't guess anybody could fix that broken skate," he said.
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Rose.
"But," went on Russ, "I know how to make something that you can have
lots of fun with; and so can I!"
"Can I, too?" asked Laddie.
"We all can," said Russ. "We can take turns."
"On what?" asked Rose.
"A skate wagon," answered Russ. "I saw a boy downtown have one--the day
we went to the movies. You take a good roller skate, and pull it apart.
Then you put two of the wheels on the front end of a board, and the two
other wheels on the back end."
"Well, then what do you do?" asked Laddie, for Russ had come to a pause.
"Well, then you nail a stick up on the front end of the board, for a
handle, and you stand on it--you stand on the board, I mean--and you
ride downhill on the sidewalk on the skate wagon. It's fun!"
"Say, let's do it!" cried Laddie. "I'll help you, Russ! Give us that one
skate that isn't busted, Rose, and we'll make a skate wagon."
Laddie knelt down and began to unfasten the strap of the one good skate,
which was still on Rose's left foot.
"Stop! Stop it!" cried the little girl, pulling back her leg.
"Hold still!" exclaimed Laddie. "I can't get your skate off if you
wiggle so much."
"I don't want my skate off!" insisted Rose.
"Then how am I going to make a skate wagon?" asked Russ in some
surprise.
"I can push myself along on one foot, and skate that way," went on Rose.
"If I let you boys take my skate to make a wagon of, you'll be riding
all the time and I won't have any fun. I'm going to keep my own skate.
So there!"
"We'll give you some rides; won't we, Russ?" asked Laddie.
"'Course we will! Lots of 'em!" added the older boy.
"I'd let them take my skate, if I were you," said Mrs. Bunker. "One
skate is not of much use to you, Rose, and if Russ can make a sort of
wagon, or skatemobile, as I have heard them called, it will be fun for
all of you."
"All right," said Rose, after thinking over what her mother said. "But I
got to have my turns."
"Yes, you may all have turns," said Mother Bunker, who usually settled
disputes in this gentle way. "Now, Russ and Laddie, let us see you make
the funny coaster wagon."
Rose let Laddie take the roller skate off her foot, and then Russ took
the two front wheels from the two back ones. He had looked at a
"skatemobile" a few days before, and, being a clever little chap, he
remembered how it was made.
"I can get the pieces of board out in the garage," said Russ. "I saw
William have some, and he said I could take them."
Russ did not find it quite so easy to make the coaster wagon as he had
thought. To fasten the wheels of the skate to the board he used many
nails, and bent most of them. Then William, who had been doing something
to Aunt Jo's automobile, came out and watched Russ at work.
"Ouch!" Russ suddenly exclaimed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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