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66 SOBER JOHN.

“¢Helm a-port! George, hard a-port!’ |

cried Arthur.

‘But George, in his confusion, instead
of putting the helm a-port, only crowded
it harder and harder a-starboard, and this
carried the jolly-boat short about to the
Jeft. It balanced itself a moment upon the
edge of a knoll, and then went over, tum-
bling the boys head over heels down .the
snow-bank.”

“Did it hurt them?” said Rollo.

‘Not much; they soon had the jolly-boat
to the top of the hill again, and before night
they got to have such skill in steering that
they could keep her exactly in the track
until they got to the bottom of the hill, and
strike the ice upon the pond so exactly true,

_ that they would shoot across from shore to

shore, as straight as an arrow.”’

Here Jonas stopped, as if the story was
ended. Rollo then asked him what made
Sober John think of such a plan as that.

“Why,” said he, “he had been reading {

about an ice-boat that day, which sails about
on the ice, with three runners, the hinder
one movable like a rudder.”