ry of the runaway
ice-boat, and of having left the rest of their family several miles away
on the ice.

"We tried to stop, but we couldn't," said Flossie. "And, oh, dear! I
wonder where Daddy and Mother are now." Flossie spoke as though it would
not take much to make her cry.

"Don't worry," said Uncle Jack, as every one around Lakeport called him.
"If your father and mother don't come for you I'll take you home."

"It--it's a long way to walk," said Freddie with a sigh. "And I guess
Flossie is hungry. Aren't you?" he asked of his little sister.

"Well--a little," admitted the blue-eyed girl twin.

"How about you, little man?" asked Uncle Jack.

"I--I guess I am, too," Freddie admitted. "Have you got anything to eat?"

"Well, maybe we can find something in my cabin," said the old man. He had
left his axe sticking in a tree near where the ice-boat had run into the
snow bank, and was leading the children along by either hand. Flossie and
Freddie looked up into his kindly, wrinkled face, the cheeks glowing red
like two rosy apples, and they knew they would be well taken care of.
Uncle Jack was a fine, honest man, and he was always kind to children,
who, often in the Summer, would gather flowers near his lonely log cabin.

In a little while Flossie and Freddie were seated in front of a stove, in
which crackled a hot fire, eating bread and milk, which was the best the
woodchopper could offer them. But they were so hungry that, as Freddie
said afterward, it tasted better than chicken and ice-cream.

"Haven't you got any little girl?" asked Flossie after a while.

"No, I haven't a chick or a child, I'm sorry to say."

"My father would give you a chicken if you wanted it," said Freddie. "And
some days _we_ could come and stay with you."

"That last part would be all right," said the old man with a smile; "but I
haven't any place to keep a chicken. It would get lonesome, I'm afraid,
while I'm off in the forest chopping wood. But I thank you just the same."

"Didn't you ever have any children?" asked Flossie, taking a second glass
of milk which the kindly old man gave her.

"Never a one. Though when I was a boy I lived in a place where there were
two children, I think. But it's all kind of hazy."

"Where was that?" asked Freddie, brushing up the last of the bread crumbs
from his plate.

"I don't remember much about my folks. Most of my life has been spent
working on farmers' land, until I got so old I could not p