if it was all
right, he should remain with the Curlytops that night. Mr. Taylor said
it would be all right, and thanked Mr. Martin for his kindness.

Janet remained up a little longer, listening to Tom and Ted telling over
again just how they had carried pails of water to the top of the wooden
slope, spilling down the sloping boards the liquid which swished its way
like rapids in a river. And then came the tumble and fall of the boys.

"Boys, as long as you are going to have good times to-morrow I suggest
that you go to bed now," said Mrs. Martin, when it was past nine
o'clock.

"I want to get a glass of water first," said Ted, going toward the
kitchen.

"You can get a drink up in the bathroom," his mother told him.

"I don't want this to drink," Ted explained. "I want to fill a glass
full of water and set it out on the steps."

"What for?" Janet wanted to know. "No birds will come to drink at
night," she added, for she and her brother had made a bird-feeding
station in their yard, and also a little shallow basin where the
feathered songsters could bathe and drink.

"This isn't for birds," Ted explained. "I just want to set a glass of
water outside and wait to see if it freezes. If it does, then we'll know
if there's going to be ice on our toboggan slide in the morning."

"Nonsense!" laughed his mother. "I can't let you stay up until you find
out if a glass of water will freeze. It would take too long."

"Not to see if just the top froze over," insisted Ted. "I don't mean
until the whole glass freezes solid. I know that would take a long
time."

"No, no!" laughed his mother, giving him a friendly little push from the
room. "Go to bed! I think it will be cold enough to make at least a skim
of ice on your toboggan slide. But not much more. So don't be
disappointed if you have to use candles on your sled runners to-morrow."

However, Ted, and Janet, and Tom went to bed filled with joyous hopes
for the next day. The boys were almost as good as they promised to be,
not having any pillow fight. But they did "cut up" a little, and had to
be told, more than once, to get quiet and go to sleep. And finally they
did.

In spite of the fact that the morning brought Saturday, with no school,
when the children might have slept later had they wished, Tom and Ted
were up earlier than usual. Hardly stopping to dress properly, the two
boys ran out into the yard and to the toboggan slide.

"Hurray!" cried Tom. "She froze!"