Then the two small twins looked back over the icy lake and far behind them saw their father and mother, with Bert and Nan, standing on the ice and waving their hands.
"Oh, they've jumped off and left us to sail the boat alone!" cried Freddie, "Now I can steer! Isn't that good?"
Flossie was not quite sure that this was "good," but, for a few seconds, she believed what Freddie had said—that the others had jumped off the ice-boat. She did not know that they had been spilled out, as Bert said afterward.
"Now watch me steer!" cried Freddie crawling back toward the tiller, which was the last thing Bert had let go of, as he shot from the boat.
"Oh, can you?" asked Flossie. "Do you think you can steer?"
"Of course I can," was the answer. "You just watch me. I'll make this boat go faster!"
"But you want to be awfully careful, Freddie."
"Oh, I'm always careful, ain't I?"
"Well, I s'pose you are—most times," an-
