CHAPTER I

A NEW GAME

"Mother, what can we do now?"

"Tell us something to play, please! We want to have some fun!"

As Harry and Mabel Blake said this they walked slowly up the path toward
the front porch, on which their mother was sitting one early Spring day.
The two children did not look very happy.

"What can we do?" asked Hal, as he was called more often than Harry.

"There isn't any more fun," complained Mab, to which her name was often
shortened.

"Oh, my!" laughed Mother Blake. "Such a sadness! What doleful faces you
both have. I hope they don't freeze so and stay that way. It would be
dreadful!"

"It can't freeze," said Hal. "It's too warm. Daddy told us how cold it had
to be to freeze. The ther--ther--Oh, well the thing you tell how cold it
is--has to get down to where it says number 32 before there's ice."

"You mean the thermometer," said Mab.

"That's it," agreed Hal. "And look, the shiny thing--mercury, that's the
name of it--the mercury is at 60 now. It can't freeze, Mother."

"Well, I'm glad it can't, for I wouldn't want your face to turn into ice
the way it looked a little while ago."

"But there's no fun, Mother," and Mab, whose face, as had her brother's,
had lost its fretful look while they were talking about the thermometer,
again seemed cross and unhappy. "We can't have any fun!"

"Why don't you play some games?" asked Mrs. Blake, smiling at the two
children.

"We did," answered Hal. "We tried to play tag, but it's too muddy to run
off the paths, and it's no fun, staying in one place. We can't play ball,
'cause Mab can't throw like a boy, and I'm not going to play doll with
her."

"I didn't ask you to!" said Mab quickly. "I was going to play doll by
myself."

"Yes, but you'd want me to be a doctor, or something, when your doll got
sick--you always do."

"I should think that would be fun," said Mother Blake. "Why don't you play
doll and doctor?"

"I'm not going to play doll!" declared Hal, and his face looked crosser
than ever.

"Oh, it isn't nice to talk that way," said his mother. "You ought to be
glad if Mab wanted you to be a doctor for her sick doll. But perhaps you
can think of something else--some new game. Just sit down a moment and
we'll talk. Then perhaps you'll think of something. I wonder why it is so
warm to-day, and why there is no danger of anything freezing--not your
faces of course, for I know you wouldn't let that happen. But why is it so
warm; do