But I'd like to, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, I would, Jan."

"Maybe I'll be a hermit some day," went on the little girl, after she had gotten into bed, her room being across the hall from Ted's.

"Huh! You can't be a hermit."

"I can so!"

"You can not!"

"Why?"

"'Cause hermits is only men. I'll be the hermit!"

"Well, couldn't I live with you—wherever you live?"

"Maybe I might live in a dark cave. Lots of hermits do."

"I wouldn't be afraid in the dark if you were there, Teddy."

"All right. Maybe I'd let you live with me."

"Does a hermit like snowstorms, Teddy?"

"Children, you must be quiet and go to sleep!" called Mrs. Martin from downstairs. "Don't talk any more."

Ted and Janet were quiet for a little while, and then Janet called in a loud whisper:

"Teddy, when you're a hermit will you have to eat?"

"I guess so, Jan. Everybody has to eat."

"Children!" warned Mrs. Martin again, and then Jan and Ted became quiet for the rest of the night.

It was very cold when the children awoke in the morning, and as soon as they were up they ran to the windows to look out. It had stopped snowing and the air was clear and bright with sunshine.

"We didn't get snowed in," called Janet, in some disappointment.

"No," answered Ted. "But it's so cold I guess the pond is frozen and we can go skating."

"Oh, that'll be fun!" cried Jan. "Will you help me skate, Ted? 'Cause I can't do it very well yet." She had just learned the winter before.

"I'll help you," her brother promised.

There was a pond not far from the Martin home, and it was so shallow that it froze more quickly than the larger lake, which was just outside the town, and where the best skating was. The smaller boys and girls used the little pond, though sometimes they went to the lake when it was perfectly safe.

After school Jan and Ted, taking their skates, went to the pond. There they found many of their little friends.

"How's the ice?" asked Teddy of Harry Kent.

"Slippery as glass," was the answer.

"Then I'll fall down!" exclaimed Jan.

And she did, almost as soon as she stood up on her skates. But Ted and Harry held her between them and before long she could strike out a little. Then she remembered some of the directions her father had given her when he taught her to skate the year before, and Jan was soon doing fairly well. Ted was a pretty good skater for a boy of his age.

"You're doing fine, Curlytop!" called Harry Morris, one of the big boys who had pulled Ted and Jan up the hill on his sled the previous night. He had come to see how thick the ice was. "You're doing fine. But why don't you hitch up your goat and make him pull you on the ice?"

"Oh, Ted, we could do that!" cried Janet, as the big boy passed on.

"Do what?"

"Harness Nicknack to a sled and make him give us a ride. Maybe he could pull us over the snow as well as on the ice."

"We'll try it!" cried Teddy.

He took off his skates and hurried home, telling Janet to wait for him at the pond, which was not far from the Martin house. In a little while Teddy came back driving Nicknack hitched to Ted's sled. The goat pulled the little boy along over the snow much more easily than he had hauled the small wagon.

"This is great!" cried Ted. "I'm going to drive him on the ice now. Giddap, Nicknack!"

Teddy guided the goat to the ice-covered pond. Nicknack took two or three steps on the slippery place and then he suddenly fell down, the sled, with Ted on it, gliding over his hind legs.

"Baa-a-a-a!" bleated Nicknack, as if he did not at all like this.

CHAPTER IV

THE SNOW HOUSE

"Oh, Teddy, you'll hurt Nicknack!" cried Janet, when she saw what had happened.

"I didn't mean to," Ted answered, jumping off the sled. "He slipped on the ice and I couldn't stop the sled."

"Help him get up," went on Jan. "He can't get up himself with that sled on his hind legs."

Teddy pulled back the sled, but still Nicknack did not get up.

"Maybe one of his legs is broken," suggested Tom Taylor, a boy who lived near the Martins.

"If it is he'll have to run on three legs. Our dog did that once, when one of his legs had been run over," said Lola Taylor, Tom's sister.

"Come on, Nicknack, get up!" cried Ted. "Stand up and give us a ride on the ice."

But the goat only went: "Baa-a-a-a!" again, and he seemed to shake his head as if to say that he could not get up.

"His legs are all right," Teddy said when he had looked at them as well as he could, and felt of the parts that stuck out from under Nicknack's body. "Why doesn't he stand up?"

"What's the matter, Curlytop?" asked Harry Morris.

"My goat won't stand up on the ice," Ted answered. "He fell down and his legs are all right, but he won't stand up."

"Maybe it's because he knows he can't," said Harry. "Goats aren't made to stand on slippery ice you know. Their hoofs are hard like a cow's. They are all right for walking on snow or on the ground, but they can't get a good hold on the ice. I guess the reason Nicknack won't stand up is because he knows he'd fall down again if he tried it. Here, I'll help you get him over into the snow, and there you'll see he'll be all right."

With the help of Harry, the goat was half led and half carried off the pond to the snow-covered ground. There Nicknack could drag the sled easily, and he gave Ted and Jan a nice ride, also pulling Lola and Tom.

Ted offered the big boy a ride behind the goat, but Harry said:

"I'm much obliged to you, Curlytop, but I'm afraid your sled is too small for me. Your goat is strong enough to pull me, I guess, but I'd fall off the sled, I'm afraid."

"I wish I could make him pull me on the ice," said Teddy. "How could we make him stop slipping?" he asked the big boy.

"Well, you'd have to have sharp-pointed iron shoes put on his hoofs, the same as they shoe horses for the winter. Only I don't know any blacksmith that could make shoes small enough for a goat. Maybe you could tie cloth on his hoofs, or old pieces of rubber, so he wouldn't slip on the ice."

"That's what we'll do!" cried Teddy. "To-morrow we'll make some rubbers for our goat, Jan."

"Do you think he'll let us put 'em on?" asked Jan.

"Oh, course he will. Nicknack is a good goat."

Ted and Jan drove him around some more in the snow, and this was not hard pulling for Nicknack, as the sled slipped along easily and he had no trouble in standing up on his sharp hoofs in the soft snow. But Ted did not again drive him on the ice that day.

"I know what we can do to have some fun," said Jan, as she and her brother started Nicknack toward home after having had some more rides themselves, and giving some to their little friends.

"What?" asked Ted. "Haven't we had fun enough?"

"Yes, but we can have more," went on Jan. "And this fun is good to eat."

"If you mean stopping at a store and getting some lollypops—nopy!" and Ted shook his head quickly from side to side.

"I didn't mean that," declared Jan.

"It's good you didn't," came from her brother, "'cause if you did we couldn't."

"Why not?" Jan asked.

"I haven't got a penny," returned Teddy. "I asked mother for some when I went home to get Nicknack, but she told me to wait a minute while she paid the milkman."

"Didn't you wait?" asked Jan in some surprise. It