White Cloud Kansas Chief

Select Tale.

HIGH JINKS ON SKATES.
BY CLEW GARNETT, U. S. N.

Everywhere, in all sorts of newspapers,
I had read of glorious skating fun—Central
Park skating—Schuylkill, and
Schuylkill Park—Diamond ditto—private
ditto—the grand fun—men on skates.
boys on skates; splendid sylphides in
scant skirts, steel-shod, and skimming away
over the ice—the—the—Thunder! the
very reading gave me the ice fever, and
in the delirium consequent upon the sudden
attack, I resolved on taking an ice
cruise myself.

Why not? What was to hinder? I
had never navigated that sort of craft,
'tis true. But then I'd been on the water,
under water, all my life—and on ice,
too, some. Hadn't I killed seals, and
chased white bears, for weeks together,
on ice?

Women could skate—so the papers
said. So did everybody else, when I inquired
of 'em. I could—skate! What
was the reason I could not? The only
things I'd ever seen a woman do that I
couldn't, was to hook her own dress aft.
and, carrying six feet breadth of crinoline,
sail through a twenty inch doorway.
Yes, sir—I could skate; and I was
bound on an ice cruise.

There was nothing to prevent the expedition
from being fitted out at once. I
was lounging about the Navy Yard, detached
from everything—all acquaintances
included—waiting orders. Disgusted
with bar-rooms, detesting theatres, what
was I to do for amusement? Why,
skate, of course! Ah, yes!—the very
thing. By Jove! Why hadn't I thought
of that before?—I'd have a cruise directly;
or sooner, if possible. No—I must
have the tools first, and started off up
town to find 'em.

I brought up in front of a big window,
on the starboard side of Chestnut Street,
going towards Schuylkill, where they had
more different rigs of sliding-machines
than you can see national flags in Gibraltar.
Knowing about as much of the
qualifications of the different patterns as
a cow does of chronometer time, I went
inside, and asked for a pair of skates.

"What kind do you prefer, sir?"

"Oh, I have no preference. Give me
the best article you have."

"Yes, sir," and the clerk passed out
for inspection a pair of brass-clad steel
clippers, with more giggies and running
rigging to 'em than there is to a French
sloop-of-war.

"These are the best, are they?"

"Yes, sir—decidedly! Just get on to
them, sir, and you'll go everywhere and
anywhere, like patent lightning! If you
don't find it so, bring 'em back, sir, and
I'll refund your money."

"What's the price?"

"Fourteen dollars! Very cheap, sir."

Didn't believe that, of course; but invested
the amount, and made sail for
Fairmount.

Found superb skating. Everybody
said so—only those that called it elegant,
splendid! magnificent! There was a regiment
of men, a battalion of dimity, and
a whole brigade of small craft, on skates,
a-kivering, scooting, and cutting all sorts
of fancies on the ice: everybody laughing.
chattering, whooping, skylarking, and
skittering, in all directions! and I don't
wonder newspapers, and everybody else
called skating: glorious fun.

"Have your skates strapped, sir?" said
an itinerant boot-black, about the height
of a walking-stick.

"Do you understand it, Bub?"

"Oh, yes, sir. I strap all the ladies
skates for 'em."

"Ah, ha! Do, eh? Must have a jolly
time of it! Would like the berth, myself.
There you are. Go ahead, boy!"

and I sat down on Blackie's box, about
a couple of fathoms out on ice.

Whiz!—like a rocket, went by a great,
strapping, long-legged chap, with a cigar
flying jibboom, and swinging his arms
like a frigate's headyards in a hurricane,
with the braces all adrift.

"Oh, ho! So they can smoke on skates
—eh, boy?

Lord! yes, sir! Everybody smokes
on the ice.

"Exactly."

So I fired up on a Prince,
and shipped it for the cruise.

Urchin announced skates all a-taunto,
and took a fifty cent "fractional" fee.

"Here, boy!—here's another fifty. Just
allow me to sit on your box a few minutes,
till I get the run of the navigation."

"Yes, sir—you can set there till I get
somebody else to strap."

So I sat there studying ice-navigation
by dead reckoning, till directly a little
petticoat craft, in yellow trowsers, skirts
to her knees, red belt, Russian cap, and
arms akimbo, swooped down, and checked
up right in front of me. There she
hung for a minute, quivering-like, and
balancing, just as a fish-hawk does over
his prey; and all the time eyeing me with
a dancing twinkle of her jolly black
eyes.

"A challenge for a race, sir! Catch
me, if you can!"

Little Dimity lifted her left foot a trifle,
bent right knee slightly, made a graceful
curve, the bottom of her skirt just
brushing my nose; and off she went like
a flying fish—ze-ee-zi-zit!—swinging
from side to side, her tartan skirt swaying
hither and thither, like the folds of a
spanker brailed in with the ship-head to
wind.

So ho! That's a challenge, is it? And
that's the way to skate? Thunder! I
can skate! Anybody can skate!

But I couldn't, though, whatever anybody
else could do. I accepted Dimity's
challenge, and her practice on ice. So I
bounced up from that blacking box, lifted
left foot a little, bent right knee, and
stuck my arms akimbo. But I didn't
cut a curve. I did the next best thing,
however, and cut a "spread eagle." Port
foot slid due southeast, and starboard one
northwest, till I realized those spread-out
pictorial impossibilities on circus bills. I
wondered if my boots and skates would
ever become shipmates again.

"Hello! mister, you musn't try to
skate all over both sides of this 'ere pond
at once!" growled an old commercial-looking
chap, as he checked up enough
to put in the remonstrance against my
ice-monopoly.

"I say, Mister Saltwater, couldn't yer
lift yerself amidships a bit, so we can sail
'tween yer legs" piped a young scamp,
file leader to a string of twenty juvenile
skaters.

"Don't try to skate on both feet at
once, my dear sir!" advised a sensible,
Christian-looking young man, who came
to my assistance, and set me on an even
keel once more. "When you lift one
foot, sir, you must throw all your
vigor and muscle into the other limb.
And then remember to sway your body
so that your weight will always be upon
that foot which hits the ice. 'Tis very
easy, sir—just this way!" and away went
my Christian mentor, with a long, striding,
graceful swing.

"Oh, yes, that's very easy. All the
vigor in the other limb. Yes, I can do
it." So I made a prodigious scoot and—
did it!

I stuck out left leg like a mosquito
when he's blood sucking. Put all my
vigor and muscle into right limb, and
couldn't get it out again. Went off on
one foot, like a shot; crooking right knee
a little twice a minute, just as little Dimity
did. Saw a crinoline craft crossing
my course, under convoy of a big double-banked
craft, both skating like a streak.
Tried to sheer to port and go clear of
'em.—Missed stays, and went afoul of
crinolines. The toe of my port skate
hooked Miss Somebody's skirt, which
gave me a broad sheer to starboard, and
I rammed big convoy, butting him square
on his cut-water, and drove the fire-end
There was an everlasting tangle, and all
of my Prince Albert slap down his throat.
bands went sprawling on the ice, like a
nest of land crabs.

"Look here, sir! What do you mean?"
yelled the big convoy, scrambling to his
feet, and maneuvering for a broadside.

"Beg pardon, sir. I couldn't help it!"

, "Oh, ho! green on skates, eh?"

"Yes, greener'n a cabbage!"

That mollified the big chap, and setting
me on my pins again, he volunteered
to educate me in checking up.

"Oh, yes; I can do that." And I did
directly. Off I shot again on one leg.
steering this time for the shore—for I'd
skated enough.

Half-way in, and there slid right down
in my course a crowd of forty or so—
girls and men, and women and boys. I
tried "down brakes," according to instructions,
and broke too much. Up toes,
and digging my heels into the ice, I sagged
back like, and doubled amidships, as
if I was going to take a seat—and I did!
I went down stern foremost, with a whang
that broke the ice like a pane of window-glass
shivered by a pebble hurled through
it. I had an idea, just then, that such a
bump as that would have started the armor
of any iron-clad afloat.

I sold those infernal skates, just as I
sat, for four dollars, under a strong conviction
that there's no fun in skating. It's
all a humbug. I can't skate—I don't
want to.