It might break with us. I will go up carefully and look."

Telling Hal and Mab to stay together, in a spot where he knew the ice was thick, Mr. Blake skated slowly toward the place where poor Roly-Poly had gone under. As he came near the ice began to crack again. Mr. Blake skated back.

"It would be dangerous to go on," he said. "I am sorry for Roly-Poly, but it would not be wise for us to risk our lives for him. It would not be right, however much you love him."

"Oh, we do love him so much!" sobbed Mab.

"I'll get you another dog," said Mr. Blake, and then he had to blow his nose very hard. Maybe he was crying too, for all I know. Mind, I'm not saying for sure.

"No other dog will be like Roly-Poly," said Hal, who was trying not to cry.

"I'm awful sorry I threw the sticks for him to chase after," said Charlie Anderson, the boy who had been playing with the poodle dog while Hal and Mab were learning to skate.

"Oh, it wasn't your fault," said Daddy Blake. "Poor Roly! I will see if I can break the ice around the hole. Maybe he is caught fast, and I can loosen the ice so he can get out." Daddy Blake took off his skates, and then, with a long piece of fence rail, while he stood on the bank, the children's papa broke the ice around the edges of the air hole. But no Roly-Poly could be seen.

"Oh dear" cried Mab. "He is gone forever!"

"Yes," spoke Hal, quietly, and then he put his arms around his little sister.

But don't you feel badly, children. We know something Hal and Mab do not know, and we'll keep it a secret from them until it is time for the surprise.

The two Blake children were so sorry their doggie had been lost through the ice, that their father thought it best to take them home.

"We will have another skating lesson to-morrow," he said. "But this shows you how dangerous air holes are."

"What is an air hole in the ice, Daddy?" asked Hal.

"I'll tell you," said Mr. Blake. This interested Mab, and she stopped crying. Besides, if you cry when it's cold, the tears may freeze on your cheeks, like little pearls, and fall off."

"An air hole," said Mr. Blake, as he walked on home with the children, "is a place where the ice has not frozen solidly. Sometimes it may be because there is a warm spring in that part of the pond, or a spring that bubbles up, and keeps the water moving. And you know moving or running water will not freeze, except in very, very cold weather.

"But always be careful of air holes, for the ice around them is easily broken, and you might go through."

"Poor Roly-Poly!" sighed Mab. "I wish he had been careful."

"So do I," spoke Hal.

"How would you like to go fishing through the ice?" asked Daddy Blake, so the children would have something new to think about, and not feel sorry about Roly.

"Fishing through the ice?" cried Hal. "How can we do that? Aren't the fish frozen in the winter?"

"I saw some frozen ones down at the fish store," Mab said.

"Well, I don't mean that kind," laughed Daddy Blake. "There are live fish in the waters of the lakes, rivers and ponds, down under the ice.

You can not catch all kinds of fish through the ice in winter, but you may some sorts--pickeral for instance."

"Oh, Daddy, and will you take us fishing?" asked Mab.

"I think I will, some day soon, if the cold keeps up," he said.

And, surely enough he did.

The weather was still very cold, and the ice froze harder and thicker.

Several times Daddy Blake took the children down to the pond, and taught them about skating. They were doing very well.

Then, one Sat.u.r.day, when there was no school, Daddy Blake called out:

"Now we'll go fishing through the ice. We'll go over to the big lake, so wrap up well, as it is quite cold. We'll take along some lunch, and we'll build a fire on the sh.o.r.e and make hot chocolate."

"Hurray!" cried Hal.

"Oh, how lovely!" exclaimed Mab.

Well wrapped up, and carrying with them their fishing things, as well as lunch, while Mr. Blake had a small axe, the little party set off for a large lake, about two miles away.

When they reached it, Hal wondered how they could ever get any fish, as the water was covered with a thick sheet of ice. But Daddy Blake chopped several holes in the frozen surface, so Hal and Mab could see the dark water underneath. The holes however, were not large enough for the children to fall through.

"Now we'll fish through the ice!" said Daddy Blake.

"Oh, I see how it's done!" exclaimed Hal with a laugh.

CHAPTER VII

LEARNING TO SKATE

"Now we'll bait our hooks," said Mr. Blake, when he had put the lunch, which they had brought along, safely away in a sheltered place. "And after that we will have a little skate practice to get warmed up, for it is colder than I thought."

"But if we bait our hooks, and leave them in the water, won't the fish run away with our lines if we are not here to watch them?" asked Mab.

"We'll fix the lines so the fish that bite will ring a little bell, to tell us to come and take them off the hook!" replied Daddy Blake with a laugh.

"Oh, now I know you're fooling us!" said Hal.

"No, really I am not," replied his father, but Mr. Blake could not keep the funny twinkle out of his eyes, and Hal was sure there was some joke.

From a small satchel, in which he had put the things for fishing, Mr.

Blake took several pieces of wire. On the ends were some bits of red cloth, and also, on each wire, a little bra.s.s bell, that went "tinkle-tinkle."

"Oh, they are really bells!" cried Mab, as she heard them jingle.

"Of course they are" said her father. "Now I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll bait our hook, and lower it into the water through a hole in the ice. Then, close to the hole, we'll fasten one of these pieces of wire each one of which has, on the upper end, a bell and a bit of red cloth.

"When the wires are stuck in the ice we'll fasten our lines to them, and then, when the fish, down in the cold water, pulls on the baited hook he will make the piece of red cloth flutter, and he will also ring the bell."

"Oh, now I see!" cried Hal. "And if we are off skating we can look over here, and if we see the red rag fluttering we'll know we have a bite, and can come and pull up the fish."