The Press., 1885-09-10
ROLLER SKATING.

We have D skating rink in our town. A skating rink is great building with only one big room, and you skate all over the floor on roller skates. Its almost as good as circus, and Deacon Hopkins says its just as good, and that people ought to be ashamed to go to it. don't think its quite as good as;that, but. there is lots of fun in roller skating.
 It looks easy ias, anything to skate on rollers, but it isn't so easy after all. l learned to skate in one day, and can skate beautiful now. My knee has got over be- ing stiff, and I can see out of my right eye, though it IS pretty black. The doctor says my nose will go down in few days, and l needn't wear my arm in a sling more ma week more. I had an elegant time learning to skate, and I shall be nble to skate some more just as soon as my arm IS well.
 MT. Travers don't like roller-skating He's afraid he'll fall and break himself that's what's the matter with him. I hate to see man afraid, and I told him so, but he said, Jimmy, I've got to buy my own clothes and pay my own doctors bills, and not being as rich as Vanderbilt, I can't af- ford to skate. And then he told me a story about boy that would skate all day, and as he didn't use anything but his legs, they grew and grew till they got to be five feet long and as big round as an ordinary man, while the rest of him didn't grow at all, so party of surveyors that were lay ing out railroad hired him for a pair of compasses to measure land with, and they handled him so roughly that they bent one leg and twisted the other off, just as l did with 8 pair of compasses used to have. ..s .,. .'.
 This story didn't frighten at all. If my legs were to grow like that boys I'd get 8 place in a museum with big salary, and have the best kind of time. Mr. Travers means we'll, but he don't know what kind of stories to tell boys when he wants to frighten them and do them good.
 Sue was anxious to skate the moment she heard the rink was open, and she tried to get MT. Travers to give her pair of skates, but he wouldn't do it. He said she would fall and hurt herself, and thought he was really unkind. -.
 So I told Sue .would lend her my skates, and show her how 10 skate. She said I was dear good boy, only am that before everybody. But I told her that l knew way to skate without falling, and I'd teach it to her.
 
 that their feet spread apart. When one foot slips away from the other you've got 10 fall, and there isn't any help for it. Now if you were to tie your feet together with a rope foot along, your feet couldn't separate and you couldn't fall. I invented this way myself, and I think. it was very generous in me to tell Sue about it for nothing. Some people, if they had in- vented it, would have kept it to them selves, and been famous, like the man that invented lightning and sewing machines.
 We'll, Sue arranged that I was to go to the rink with her, and put her skates on and tie her feet together some morning when there was nobody in the rink to see her. took her the next morning, and we had the place all to ourselves. I put on her skates and tied her feet together, stood her up straight, and then she made me go away and leave her. She said was to come back for her in half an hour, but that she wouldn't try to skate while l was there looking at her. Sol went away, but before I got outside of the door she started to skate, and got halfway across before she came down. I cUhidn' under stand how she came to fall for was sure I had tied the rope all right, but then you can't expect much from girls. -
 cdlne DdCk III e4aCbly nalI an nOuf. There was nobody in the rink but Sue, and she was on the floor in inst the same place where saw her last. She was pret- ty we'll tired out, for she had been trying to get up and falling down again the whole time. I never saw girl so broke up be- fore. Her dress was torn in about fifty places, and her hair was full of dirt and the rink was just covered with hair pins. Slle wasn't hurt much in the face, but her hands looked pretty bad, and she said she was almost dead and I'll never forgive you if live thousand years, and I know you did it on purpose.
 She laid all her trouble to the rope. First, she said it tripped her up, and then every time she tried to get up she fell down again because her feet were tied. Come to think of it, perhaps she was right, and person can't get up very well when her feet are tied together, for tried it to see if she had any excuse for her con- duct. However, I meant to be kind to her and help her to learn to skate, and I think she might have given me credit for that. - Jimmy B'oaoaa, ia Harper 5 Young People.