Harper's Young People, February 28, 1882 An Illustrated Weekly

THE LITTLE FROST QUEEN.

Sparkling and light Are the snow-drifts white In the glow of the winter's morning, And the icicles gleam In the sun's bright beam, Each tree and shrub adorning.

Rosy and fair In the frosty air Are the cheeks of the little maiden, And merry and gay With the happy day Is her heart with the sunshine laden.

Where is she bound O'er the frosty ground? Ah, that is beyond our knowing. But wherever she goes, We may fairly suppose The sunshine will surely be going.

CHARLEY OTIS'S RIDE.

AS TOLD BY HIS GRANDSON.

He is my grandfather now--Charley Otis is--and he told my brother Hal and me this story. He's a regular fine old gentleman, is my grandfather Otis. There isn't a bit of old fogy about him, and he likes to see us boys have any amount of fun. He isn't hard on a fellow either, when he gets into trouble through some of his mischief; though he looked pretty sober when Hal and I and Uncle Timothy's boys painted Squire Dexter's Chester Whites one time, and the Squire caught us at it, and thrashed us, and made father and Uncle Timothy pay ten dollars apiece to get out of having a lawsuit.

"Don't have any more of that sort of fun, boys," says grandfather.

"No, sir," says we; and we don't mean to, for there isn't any fun in it. Some folks in story-books are all the time preaching up how funny it is to paint pigs. It isn't. If it is, it is mean fun, and I don't like that kind. For besides making a fellow feel cheap, there's almost always something not so nice to top off with.

"Boys will be boys, Susan." That's what grandfather says to mother time and again.

"Well, they needn't be wild Indians," says mother. But she doesn't tell father that time. You see, my grandfather was a boy once himself, and he knows we can't keep bottled up all the time. We have to "let nature caper"--that's what grandfather calls it--once in a while, or we would burst, Hal and I, and go off like two rockets maybe. I hope when I grow up I'll be just the kind of a grandfather my grandfather is.

Last Washington's Birthday we boys had planned to have no end of fun, skating on the pond, and snapping crackers at folks, and playing shinney. But when Hal and I got up in the morning, everything was dull gray; and when breakfast was over, it was snowing as if the witches were emptying all their feather-beds at once up in the sky.

Hal looked out of the window, and turned away, and shut his lips. Then I looked out, and--well, I'm not very old, and small of my age--and I cried. At that grandfather put down his paper.

"Hoity-toity!" said he; "what's all this about?"

We told him.

"Well," said grandfather, "this snow will make first-rate coasting, and while you're waiting for enough of it to come, I'll tell you a story."

So here is the story. You ought to have heard Grandfather Otis tell it, though, with his funny twinkles and wrinkles to set it off; but because you couldn't, I'm going to tell it my own way, in regular story-book style:

Early one Twenty-second of February, more than fifty years ago, my grandfather and my two great-uncles, Stephen and Samuel, were out looking for something to have fun with. "Trouble was," says grandfather, "there was ice enough, but we hadn't a pair of skates to our feet." Pretty soon, while they were standing around on the door-step, a man came along leading a horse and sleigh, and hitched it to the fence. The man's name was Mr. Nutt.

"Good-morning," said the boys, wondering to themselves what made him walk and lead the horse, instead of riding. Catch a boy doing it!

"Mornin'," said Mr. Nutt. "Father to home, boys?"

"Yes, sir," said they.

"I'm going after the doctor," said Mr. Nutt, "and that critter runs away so'st I can't do nothin' with him. It's Lawyer Chadbourne's horse, down to Westport, 'at I took for his keep, and that's more'n I'll get out 'n him. S'pose I can get your father's team, boys?"

"Wouldn't wonder," said they. "Father's chopping wood in the north lot."

With that Mr. Nutt started off across the field, and the boys walked down to the gate to look at the horse. He was a red horse, with "three-white-feet-and-a-white-nose--take-off-his-shoes-and-give-him- to-the-crows."

The boys walked around him, and looked at him, and felt of the harness.

"Looks kind enough," said Steve.

"Don't believe he'll run away," said Sam.

"The harness is stout," said Charley.

Then they all looked at each other and laughed.

"S'pose we do," said they; "and be spry about it."

So Sam and Charley got into the sleigh, and Steve unhitched the horse, and got on behind, with one foot on each runner, and Charley took the reins, and away they all went. The horse didn't go so very fast at first, but he kept going faster and faster and faster; and pretty soon the sleigh hit his heels. Then didn't he go!

"Stop him!" yelled Sam. "Whoa!"

"Whoa!" sung out Steve, a-hanging on to the sleigh back for dear life. "We've go-go-gone far enough."

But there wasn't any whoa to that horse. And Steve made up his mind that he'd ridden about as long as he wanted to, and so he dropped off. He fell flat, and slid for as much as a rod on the ice before he stopped. "Took every one of his wesket buttons off," says grandfather, "slick and clean as you'd cut 'em with a knife."

But that didn't stop the horse--no, sir! On he went, with the old sleigh clattering at his heels, and the ice his shoes cut up flew like sleet into the faces of the two boys. All Charley could do was to keep him in the road, and that's more than a good many would, I say. And the horse kept going faster and faster.

"Whe-ew!" said Sam, catching his breath. And he jumped out, and turned two first-class summersets before he struck on his head in a snow-bank beside the road. And there he was.

Then Charley, my grandfather, was left all alone. That's why I call it "Charley Otis's Ride." And the horse kept going faster and faster. And Charley couldn't see a rod ahead of him, for the wind blowing and the bits of ice flying, until, pretty soon, he began to go up a little hill. And because for a minute the ice didn't fly so thick, Charley saw, just ahead, and hobbling along as fast as his two poor shaky legs and his knotty cane would carry him, old Grandsir Herrin, who wasn't anybody's grandfather really, though everybody called him so. And Grandsir Herrin was as deaf as the deafest kind of a post--and right in the middle of the road! Now, sir--

No use to ask me what I'd have done if I'd been there. I wasn't there. But I can tell you what Charley did, and I don't believe anybody could have done any better. His heart thumped so he could almost hear it through all the noise of the bells. But, quick as a flash, he put all his strength on the right rein, and pulled that horse with a flying jump into a big bank of snow drifted up against the road fence. And Charley kept right along.

He picked himself up in a minute, and looked around. The horse was deep in the snow, standing quiet enough, but trembling like a leaf. Charley unharnessed him and got him out of the snow, and turned the sleigh, and harnessed up again, and led the horse back to where he started from. Sam and Steve were waiting by the gate.

Charley hitched the horse, and just then another man drove along, and stopped.