One evening as they sat around the reading lamp each member of the family wrote his or her choice on a slip of paper (’Dolph printed his in big, up-and-down letters) and then the papers were shaken up in a bowl.
’Dolph was blindfolded and with great gravity drew a slip. It was Carrie’s choice, and the paper read “_Follow Me_”—and thus the motor-iceboat was christened.
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It was both a cold and windy day on which Dan and Billy finally got the motor-iceboat down upon the ice. It was in Christmas week.
“I reckon that old blizzard you were telling about is pretty near due, Dannie,” quoth the younger boy, blowing his fingers to get some semblance of warmth into them, for the boys and old Bromley had to work without gloves part of the time.
“There’s a storm brewin’,” declared the old boatman, cocking his eye toward the streaky looking clouds that had been gathering ever since daybreak. “You can lay to that! And it wouldn’t surprise me if it brought a big snow, boys. Ye know we ain’t re’lly had our share of snow this winter so fur. We’ve had ice enough, the goodness knows!”
“You bet,” agreed Billy, with a chuckle. “And ice gathers some fast, too—if you take it from Money Stevens.”
“Why, Money went fishing up Karnac Lake way last Saturday—didn’t you hear? Says he would have had great luck, if only he could have kept the hole open through which he was fishing. He swears he hooked a pickerel so big that he couldn’t get it through the hole he’d cut in the ice!”
“That sure must have been some pickerel,” chuckled Dan. “Now, John, what do you think of this craft?”
“By gravy! I don’t know what _to_ think of it, boy,” grunted the old boatman. “It ain’t like nothin’ in the heavens, or on the airth, nor ag’in in the waters under the airth! If you say that dinky little ingine is goin’ to make her go, why I reckon go she will! But seein’s believin’.”
“Right-O!” agreed Dan, smiling. “And we will proceed to put the matter to the test right now before we step the mast. Get aboard.”
But Old John wouldn’t do that. He preferred to watch the proceedings from the dock—and he said so.
“I ain’t got so many more years ter live no way ye kin fix it,” he said, grinning. “Lemme live ’em whole. I wouldn’t venter on one o’ them sailin’ iceboats, let erlone this contraption.”