"I declare!" remarked the deacon, "so he can."

"So can Vosh," said Mrs. Stebbins. "There ain't any city boy going to beat him right away."

Vosh's effort to find out if that were true had already carried him so far away, that, the moment Corry followed him, Susie felt safe to say,--

"Now, uncle Joshua, if you will help me buckle my skates"--

She was in such a fever to get them on, that she hardly heard the storm of remarks from Mrs. Stebbins and aunt Judith; but the deacon seemed to take an understanding interest in the matter, and he was right down on his knees on the ice, hurrying to fasten those skates for her.

"Can you really skate, Susie?"

"I'll show you in a minute. Please do hurry, before either of them suspect any thing."

"O Susie!" said Pen mournfully, "I do wish I could."

"You must learn some day."

"Susie!" exclaimed aunt Judith, "wait for somebody to go with ye: you might tumble down."

"Start, now, Susie," said her uncle. "Off with you!"

She was really a very graceful skater; and her aunts looked on with admiration, as well as a vast deal of astonishment, while she made a few whirls near by, to make sure her skates were on rightly. Then away she glided over the ice; and the first thing Vosh Stebbins knew of it was when the form of a young lady fluttered swiftly past him, between him and the glare of the great central bonfire. Her face was turned the other way, and his first exclamation was,--

"What a splendid skater! Who can she be?"

"I know," said Port Hudson, close at hand, and waiting for his share of the joke. "She's a girl from the city, and she's spending the winter with some relatives of mine. Come on: I'm going after her. Think you can keep up? Come on, Vosh."

Away went Porter, just as his friend felt a great hot flush come into his face, and dashed after them, exclaiming,--

"If I ain't stupid! Why, it's Susie Hudson herself!"

He felt as if his honor were at stake, and he had never skated so in all his life before. The fires on the bank seemed to flit by him as he followed that solitary girl-skater around the glittering icy reaches of the mill-pond. It looked so like a race, that almost everybody else paused to watch, and some even cheered. Deacon Farnham himself shouted,--

"Hurrah for Susie!" and Pen danced up and down.

"It's jest wonderful," said aunt Judith, "to see her go off that way the very first time."

"Guess it isn't quite the first skatin' she ever did," said Mrs.

Stebbins; "but Vosh'll ketch her, now, you see'f he don't."

Susie had somehow got it into her head that she did not mean to be caught, and her practice was all in her favor; but just as she reached the head of the pond, and made a quick turn into the winding channel of the river, Vosh came swinging along at her side, and for a little distance he did not speak a word to her.

"Vosh," she said, after trying very hard to think of something else to say, "I wish you'd teach me to skate."

A ringing laugh was all his answer for a moment, and then he remarked innocently,--

"The ice is smoother up this way, but I mustn't let you get too far from the folks. Tire you all out skating back again."

On they went, while all the people they had left behind them, except their own, were inquiring of each other who the young lady could be that had so astonished them.

Oddly enough, the Benton girls had omitted skating from their list of accomplishments, by a kind of common consent; and Susie's bit of fun had a surprise in it for others besides Vosh and her aunts. It was quite likely she would have imitators thereafter, but she had made an unexpected sensation that evening.

Even Port had surprised Corry and the Benton boys, although some of them were every way his equals on the ice.

"Now, Vosh," remarked Susie at the end of nearly a mile of that crooked ice-path, "we'd better go back. Are you tired?"

"Tired! I could skate all night. We'd better go, though, or aunt Judith'll borrow a pair, and come skating along after us."

Down the river they went again, and across the pond; and by that time a score of busy tongues were circulating the discovery.

"It's that there city cousin of the Farnhams. She learned how to skate when she was travellin' in Russia."

Part of that news may have had some help from Corry; but Susie's aunts were glad to get her back again, and Mrs. Stebbins said to her,--

"You never did look prettier nor nicer. I do jest like to see any gal nowadays that ain't afraid of her shadder."

"Guess Susie isn't much afraid of any thing," said Pen; "but I'm awful glad there wasn't any holes in the ice."

"No air-holes are needed on a mill-pond," said Mr. Farnham; "but, if I'm not mistaken, there'll be some lame young people to-morrow. n.o.body feels very well the day after such a race as that."

He was not altogether wrong. Susie felt pretty well the next day, but in spite of her practising beforehand, her race with Vosh Stebbins had been a severe one; and, to tell the full truth, he himself was willing to get over the effects of it before volunteering to try another.

CHAPTER XII.

A VERY EXCITING WINTER EVENING.

The people of Benton valley and village had not been ignorant of the fact that Deacon Joshua Farnham's family had some city cousins spending the winter with them. Some had said at first that they were there for their health, and some that they were orphans and had come to stay; but the facts of the case got around after a while.

Susie and Port had made some acquaintances at the donation, and some at the spelling-match, and some at the meeting-house; but people had not exactly made up their minds what to do about them. Now came the altogether sensational affair of the moonlight skating-race on the mill-pond, and something had got to be done.

Away over on the other side of the valley, and just in the outer edge of the village, stood a great white, square box of a house, larger than any other house within ten miles of it. Squire King was by all odds the richest man in that circ.u.mference, and he had built his house large accordingly. Mrs. King was not exactly proud, although she knew she was rich, and that she had been to Europe once, and to a number of notable places in the United States. Neither she, nor any other woman in or about Benton, was in a position to look down upon the Farnhams. She liked them, as did everybody else, and was a little in awe of aunt Judith; but she had not felt any social duty in the matter of their visitors until she was told of the skating. It had really been pretty well done on the ice, but it was tenfold more wonderful when it was described in Mrs. King's dining-room. Even Squire King himself dropped his newspaper, and listened, and asked, "What's the world coming to?"

And Mrs. King's three lady neighbors who were telling her about it were unable to answer him. They all said, however, that it was time some special attention should be paid, and that such a young lady must be worth getting acquainted with. So had said every girl in the valley who felt old enough to skate; and quite a number of well-grown boys decided to learn new "curly q's" on the ice. Every boy of them had a b.u.mp on the back of his head within three days, and the pond was less like a looking-gla.s.s than formerly; but Mrs. Squire King had made up her own mind in less time than that, without any headache. There should be a young people's party at her house; and her husband agreed with her, that the nearer they could fill it up, and leave standing-room, the better.

"Do it right away, Addie," said he. "Do it right up to the handle. Kind of startle folks. n.o.body's a-looking for any such thing to come."

It was to be all sorts of a surprise; and the whole valley went about its affairs, just the same as if Mrs. Squire King were not manufacturing so much frosted cake, and boiling tongues and hams for sandwiches. Some other tongues would have been hot enough if they had known a word about it before the invitations were written and sent out.

Up at Deacon Farnham's it was a little quieter than it was anywhere else the day after the skating, until he himself came in from the village at noon. He had come for his dinner, but there was a look in his face as if he had brought something. Pen had seen it there before; and she asked him what it was to be, precisely as if he had spoken about it.

"What have I got? How do you know I've got any thing?"

"Is it something for me?"

"No, not this time, Pen; but I've something for Port and Susie."