Presently Nan found some girls to skate with and then Bert went off among the boys. The girls played tag and had great fun, shrieking at the top of their lungs as first one was "it" and then another. It was hard work for Nan to catch the older girls, who could skate better, but easy enough to catch those of her own age and experience on the ice. The boys played tag, too, and "snapped the whip," as it is termed. All of the boys would join hands in a long line and then skate off as fast as they could. Then the boy on one end, called the snapper, would stop and pull the others around in a big curve. This would make the boys on the end of the line skate very fast, and sometimes they would go down, to roll over and over on the ice. Once Bert was at the end and down he went, to slide a long distance, when he bumped into a gentleman who was skating backwards and over went the man with a crash that could be heard a long distance off. "Hi! you young rascal!" roared the man, trying to scramble up. "What do you mean by bowling me over like that?" "Excuse me, but I didn't mean to do it," answered Bert, and lost no time in getting out of the gentleman's way. The gentleman was very angry and left the ice, grumbling loudly to himself. Down near the lower end of Mr. Bobbsey's lumber yard some young men were building an ice-boat. Bert and Charley Mason watched this work with interest. "Let us make an ice-boat," said Charley. "I can get an old bed-sheet for a sail, if you will get your father to give you the lumber." "I'll try," answered Bert, and it was agreed that the ice-boat should be built during the following week, after school. CHAPTER IX FREDDIE LOSES HIMSELF Christmas was now but four weeks away, and the stores of Lakeport had their windows filled with all sort of nice things for presents. Nan and Bert had gazed into the windows a number of times, and even walked through the one big department store of which the town boasted, and they had told Freddie and Flossie of many of the things to be seen. "Oh, I want to see them, too!" cried Flossie, and begged her mother to take her along the next time she went out. "I want to go, too," put in Freddie. "Bert says there are _sixteen_ rocking horses all in a row, with white and black tails. I want to see them." "I am going to the stores to-morrow," answered Mrs. Bobbsey. "You can go with me, after school. It will be better to go now than later on, when the places are filled with Christmas shoppers." The twins were in high glee, and Freddie said he was going to spend the twenty-five cents he had been saving up for several months. "Let us buy mamma something for Christmas," said Flossie, who had the same amount of money. "What shall we buy?" That question was a puzzling one. Flossie thought a nice doll would be the right thing, while Freddie thought an automobile that could be wound up and made to run around the floor would be better. At last both consulted Nan.