THE NEW SKATES


Daddy Blake laughed when Mab said that.

"Yes, the bottle is broken," he said, "but it was the ice that broke
it."

"How could it?" Hal wanted to know.

"I told you last night," said Daddy Blake, when the children were at
breakfast table a little later, "that heat made things get larger, and
that cold made them get smaller. That was true, but sometimes, as you
see now, freezing cold makes water get larger. That is when it is cold
enough to make ice.

"As long as there was only water in the bottle it was all right, the
glass was not broken. But in the night it got colder and colder. All
the warmth was drawn off into the cold air. Then the water froze, and
swelled up. The ice tried to push the cork out of the bottle, just as
you would try to push up the lid of a box if you were shut up inside
one."

"I guess the wires over the cork wouldn't let the ice push it out,"
spoke Hal.

"That's it," Daddy Blake answered. "And so, as the ice could not lift
out the cork, it swelled to the sides, instead of to the top, and
pushing out as hard as it could, it broke the bottle. The glass fell