"Why, I haven't been skating for thirty years!" exclaimed Grandpa
Horton. "I don't know whether I have forgotten or not, Sunny Boy. But
I have no skates, you see, and I shall not get any because I don't
expect to go skating often this winter. I'll get you started, and then
this winter, when we go home, Grandma and I will be able to think of
you having fine times on the ice."

Wilkins Park was several blocks from the Horton's house, but Sunny Boy
and his grandfather liked to walk, and though it was a cold day they
tucked their hands in their coat pockets and walked fast and were very
comfortable. The best skating pond in Centronia--indeed about the only
good pond--was in the center of the Park, and long before Sunny Boy and
his grandfather came in sight of the Park they saw boys and girls with
skates over their arms, hurrying to the pond.

"Hurry, Grandpa!" urged Sunny Boy. "Hurry! Maybe there won't be room
for me!"

Grandpa Horton laughed and said he thought there would be room for one
small boy on the pond even if half the town did want to go skating that
afternoon.

"I suppose it is because there is no school," he said, as they turned
in at the Park gates. "I declare, Sunny Boy, if I had thought of it, I
don't know that I would have brought you today!"

For the ice-pond--and by this time they were in sight of it--was
crowded with skaters. Skating in holiday week was too delightful to be
neglected, and it seemed as though all the school children in the city