CHAPTER IV THE FROZEN POND

 Daddy Blake hurried down cellar. Hal and Mab carefully putting away their new skates, followed their father. Roly-Poly, the little fat poodle dog looked around to see if he could find anything to drag off and hide, but, seeing nothing, he went down cellar also, barking loudly at each step.

 

"Hal! Mab!" called Aunt Lolly. "Come back here, dears!"

 

"We want to see what has happened!" answered Hal.

 

"Oh, you'll get hurt! I'm sure you will!" exclaimed the dear, little, fussy¹ old lady aunt.

 

"No, it isn't anything serious!" called Daddy Blake when he saw what had happened. "Only one of the water pipes has burst. We must send for the plumber². Wait, children, until I shut off the water, and then you can come down. It is like a shower-bath now."

 

Daddy Blake found the faucet³, by which he could shut off the water at the stationary⁴ wash-tubs, and then, when it had stopped spurting⁶ from the burst pipe, he called to Hal and Mab:

 

"Now you may come and see how strong ice is. Not only does it burst glass bottles, but it will even crack an iron pipe."

 

"Just like it cracked a cannon⁷ ball!" cried Hal, and he was in such a hurry to get down the cellar steps that he jumped two at a time.

 

That might have been all right, only Roly-Poly, the little fat poodle dog, did the same thing. He became tangled⁸ up in Hal's legs, and, a moment later, the little boy and the dog were rolling toward the bottom of the steps, over and over just like a pumpkin⁹.

 

"Oh!" cried Mab, holding fast to the handrail, a little frightened.

 

"Oh my!" exclaimed Mamma Blake at the top of the cellar steps. "What has happened?"

 

"Oh my goodness me sakes alive and some orange pudding!" exclaimed

Aunt Lolly. "I just knew something would happen!"

But nothing much did, after all, for Daddy Blake, as soon as he heard Hal falling, ran to the foot of the stairs, and there he caught his little boy before Hal had bounced down many steps.

 

"There you are!" cried Daddy Blake, as he set Hal upright on his feet.

"Not hurt a bit; are you?"

"N-n-n-n-no!" stammered¹⁰ Hal, as he caught his breath, which had almost gotten away from him. "I'm not hurt. Is Roly-Poly?"

 

Roly was whirling about, barking and trying to catch his tail, so I guess he was not much hurt. The truth was that both Hal and Roly were so fat and plump, that falling down a few cellar steps did not hurt them in the least.

 

"Well, now we'll look at the burst water pipe," said Daddy Blake, when the excitement was over. The water had stopped spurting out now, though there was quite a puddle¹¹ of it on the cellar floor by the tubs.

 

Mr. Blake lifted Hal across this, and showed him where there was a big crack in the water pipe. Then he showed Mab, also lifting her across the little pond in the cellar.

 

"You see the pipe was full of water," Mr. Blake explained, "and in the night it got so cold down cellar that the water froze, just as it did in the glass bottle out on the back porch.

 

"Then the ice swelled¹² up, and it was so strong that it burst the strong iron pipe, splitting it right down the side."

 

"But why didn't the water spurt⁵ out when I came down cellar earlier this morning?" asked Mamma Blake. "It did not leak then."

 

"I suppose it was still frozen," answered her husband. "But when the furnace fire became hotter it melted the ice in the pipe and that let the water spurt out. But the plumber will soon fix it."

 

Hal and Mab watched the plumber, to whom their papa telephoned. He had to take out the broken pipe, and put in a new piece. Afterward¹³ Hal looked at the pipe that had been split by the ice.

 

"Why it's just as if gun-powder blew it up," he said, for once he had seen a toy cannon that had burst on Fourth of July, from having too much powder in it.

 

"Yes, freezing ice is just as strong as gunpowder¹⁴, only it works more slowly," said Daddy Blake with a smile. "Powder goes off with a puff¹⁵, a flash and a roar, but ice freezes slowly."

 

"Oh, but when are we going skating?" asked Mab, as she and her brother started for school, a little later that morning.

 

"As soon as I can find a frozen pond," said Daddy Blake with a smile.

 

Well wrapped up, and wearing warm gloves, Hal and Mab went to their lessons. It was so cold that wintry day, though there was no snow, that they ran instead of walking. Running made them warm.

 

"Is my nose red?" asked Mab, when they were near the school.

 

"Oh, it's awful red!" cried Hal. "Is mine?"

 

"As red as a boiled lobster¹⁶!" laughed Mab. "Let's run faster!"

 

So they ran, and soon they were in a glow of warmth.

 

"Oh!" cried Mab, as she and her brother entered the school-yard, "we forgot to ask Daddy why we get warm when we run."

 

When the two children reached their house, after lessons were over for the day, they found their father waiting for them. He had his skates over his shoulder, dangling¹⁷ from a strap¹⁸, and he had Hal's and Mab's in his hand.

 

"Come, we are going to look for the frozen pond!" he said.

 

Then Hal and Mab forgot all about asking why they became warm when they ran. They cried out joyfully¹⁹:

 

"Oh, Daddy is going to take us skating! Daddy is going to take us skating!"

 

Across the fields they went, and in a little while they came to a place where was a pond, in which they used to fish during the summer. But now as they looked down on the water, from the top of a small hill, they saw that the pond was all frozen over. A sheet of ice covered it from edge to edge.

 

"Oh, now we can skate!" cried Hal in delight, "Now we can try our new skates."

1 fussy   

adj.为琐事担忧的，过分装饰的，爱挑剔的

参考例句：

• He is fussy about the way his food's cooked.他过分计较食物的烹调。
• The little girl dislikes her fussy parents.小女孩讨厌她那过分操心的父母。

2 plumber   

n.(装修水管的)管子工

参考例句：

• Have you asked the plumber to come and look at the leaking pipe?你叫管道工来检查漏水的管子了吗？
• The plumber screwed up the tap by means of a spanner.管子工用板手把龙头旋紧。

3 faucet   

n.水龙头

参考例句：

• The faucet has developed a drip.那个水龙头已经开始滴水了。
• She turned off the faucet and dried her hands.她关掉水龙头，把手擦干。

4 stationary   

adj.固定的，静止不动的

参考例句：

• A stationary object is easy to be aimed at.一个静止不动的物体是容易瞄准的。
• Wait until the bus is stationary before you get off.你要等公共汽车停稳了再下车。

5 spurt   

v.喷出；突然进发；突然兴隆

参考例句：

• He put in a spurt at the beginning of the eighth lap.他进入第八圈时便开始冲刺。
• After a silence, Molly let her anger spurt out.沉默了一会儿，莫莉的怒气便迸发了出来。

6 spurting   

（液体，火焰等）喷出，（使）涌出( spurt的现在分词 )； （短暂地）加速前进，冲刺； 溅射

参考例句：

• Blood was spurting from her nose. 血从她鼻子里汩汩流出来。
• The volcano was spurting out rivers of molten lava. 火山喷涌着熔岩。

7 cannon   

n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮

参考例句：

• The soldiers fired the cannon.士兵们开炮。
• The cannon thundered in the hills.大炮在山间轰鸣。

8 tangled   

adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Your hair's so tangled that I can't comb it. 你的头发太乱了，我梳不动。
• A movement caught his eye in the tangled undergrowth. 乱灌木丛里的晃动引起了他的注意。

9 pumpkin   

n.南瓜

参考例句：

• They ate turkey and pumpkin pie.他们吃了火鸡和南瓜馅饼。
• It looks like there is a person looking out of the pumpkin!看起来就像南瓜里有人在看着你！

10 stammered   

v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He stammered most when he was nervous. 他一紧张往往口吃。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Barsad leaned back in his chair, and stammered, \"What do you mean?\" 巴萨往椅背上一靠，结结巴巴地说，“你是什么意思？” 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

11 puddle   

n.(雨)水坑，泥潭

参考例句：

• The boy hopped the mud puddle and ran down the walk.这个男孩跳过泥坑，沿着人行道跑了。
• She tripped over and landed in a puddle.她绊了一下，跌在水坑里。

12 swelled   

增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情）

参考例句：

• The infection swelled his hand. 由于感染，他的手肿了起来。
• After the heavy rain the river swelled. 大雨过后，河水猛涨。

13 afterward   

adv.后来；以后

参考例句：

• Let's go to the theatre first and eat afterward. 让我们先去看戏，然后吃饭。
• Afterward,the boy became a very famous artist.后来，这男孩成为一个很有名的艺术家。

14 gunpowder   

n.火药

参考例句：

• Gunpowder was introduced into Europe during the first half of the 14th century.在14世纪上半叶，火药传入欧洲。
• This statement has a strong smell of gunpowder.这是一篇充满火药味的声明。

15 puff   

n.一口(气)；一阵(风)；v.喷气，喘气

参考例句：

• He took a puff at his cigarette.他吸了一口香烟。
• They tried their best to puff the book they published.他们尽力吹捧他们出版的书。

16 lobster   

n.龙虾，龙虾肉

参考例句：

• The lobster is a shellfish.龙虾是水生贝壳动物。
• I like lobster but it does not like me.我喜欢吃龙虾，但它不适宜于我的健康。

17 dangling   

悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口

参考例句：

• The tooth hung dangling by the bedpost, now. 结果，那颗牙就晃来晃去吊在床柱上了。
• The children sat on the high wall,their legs dangling. 孩子们坐在一堵高墙上，摇晃着他们的双腿。

18 strap   

n.皮带，带子；v.用带扣住，束牢；用绷带包扎

参考例句：

• She held onto a strap to steady herself.她抓住拉手吊带以便站稳。
• The nurse will strap up your wound.护士会绑扎你的伤口。

19 joyfully   

adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地

参考例句：

• She tripped along joyfully as if treading on air. 她高兴地走着，脚底下轻飘飘的。
• During these first weeks she slaved joyfully. 在最初的几周里，她干得很高兴。