closed threateningly around Muggs to keep him from drumming the birds
into flight. Jim fastened a great chunk of suet to a tree-trunk and very
soon a red-breasted nuthatch was busy with his Christmas breakfast.
Altogether Roger's bang-up Christmas began with terrific bustle, with
Annie, from whose kitchen already floated odors that set the insatiable
Muggs to sniffing, by far the busiest of them all.

The grandfather's clock struck ten. It found the old farmhouse deserted
save for Annie in the kitchen and Aunt Ellen in her rocking chair by the
sitting-room window. The Doctor was guiding his guests to the Deacon's
pond.

New skates, new sweaters, and a pond as smooth as glass! What wonder
then that Roger's trembling fingers bungled his straps, and Jim,
kneeling, fastened them on with nimble fingers.

"Ain't ye never skated?"

"No--I--I been lame. Oh, hurry, Jim! See, Mike's flyin' down the pond
like wind!"

Jim's eyes softened.

"I'll teach ye," he said.

As for the Doctor he had disinterred an ancient pair of skates from the
attic, and presently he began to perform pedal convolutions of such
startling design and eccentricity that the boys gathered about him and
cheered until, seating himself unexpectedly in the center of a
particularly wide and airy flourish, he flatly told the boys to run