New-York tribune., 1910-02-06

PLW page
mostly freezing upon the cheeks and that IN
tense, consuming longing to be hanging right
over the top Of a kitchen IRE with four redhOt
Ids Wit some Sensible Person popping her
head through the kitchen door and saving,
d" Veil, Mr.. Cake OF Ice, you did find out that
You are no longer twelve years old, did you
And its mighty lucky you'll be # YOU don't
have pneumonia or something. Deed its the
TRUTH
If I lived at Spitz5ergen or UDernivik or
TObOlSk or Nlad1VOSUOk or somewhere around
the headwaters Of the Yukon, why, probably
ID ice skate for the lack of something else to
do; but. even then, | am positive that | would
not stultIfv myself by declaring that | liked it.
And am almost nlanIaCauy glad that | don
live at any place where d have to ice skate for
the lack OF something better to do
' The camel declared the low comedy
maxim, can 60 ten days without water, but
who wants TO be q canel:'
Similarly. who'd want to be blubber lined
solelyfor the dubious JOY OF being an ice skater?
Snowshoeing and Skeeins
SNOWSHOEING too; and sIleeing; likewise
- curling. that Scottish Winter Sport on the
ice, lot of which IS done by n n Scots N this
country. additionally ice Yachting, and so
They re ali br-r-r-r-r diversions. excessively
so. The present writer ought TO know, because
he has-once-tried them all After having,
upon an occasion, walked fully nine feet on
snOwshoes. I've been wondering ever since why
ANYBODY, barring Of course the intrepid trap
pers (all trapperS are 80 intrepid, aren they:)
IN FeninOre COoper's tales ever for a moment
considered putting such clumsy, hOrTIt wing,
tur1-vou-topside-down things on their feet.
The intrepid trappers had to wear EN-, of
course 10 traverse III winter those little dis
tanceS between the Mohawk Valley and Quebec
and between the foothills of the AdirOndacks
and the western shore OF Lake HurOn-mere
little trudges OF SIX or seven hundred miles or
so. That IS, maybe they traversed those dis
tances with snowshoes on their feet; but d
admire exceedingly to be shown that they did,
at that,
But why anybody nowadays should put on
snowshOes, when there are trains and steam
boats and automobiles and aerOpanes and
dirigibles and things. and y-Orse than putting
them on, solennly aver tn : .-aIkIrg IN them IS
fun-that's the part of II that battles me.
S1.ees Were invented by ScandIna- an gentle
men who lived III the regime OF Thor and Odln.
They invented them 50 that they could make
big Jumps from peak 70 peak and then 60 home
and write Sagas telling all about what fine and
dandy fellows and what astounding jumPists
thev were. " l sing myself harpS Olaf the
Wolf in his personally conducted Saga. sing
q about how | Jumped seven hundred and ninety
three feet and eight inches yesterday morning.
I Olaf the Wolf, did that; so | sing Olatl'
How do We know, q thousand years or so after
OIaf's demise that he didn't Just sit down
latter going, We'll say, two sleeps out OF the
general view and write his Saga or Saginaw, |
4 TldJLCT IdCL Ilt u c'4 lO SI1ti4
Jump whatever
= The writer hereof IS not maintaining that he
ever skeed nimbly from Crag 70 crag like the
7ossv chamois: but he had pair Of EN- on
once, and that was enough. Skeeing ism I q
sport It's a messy method OF committing |
suicide. Skee me no skeesl
Once upon a time this writer, IN pursuit OF
the precarIous journalistic profession, was gwen
the assignment to cover the attempt OF famous
Hudson River ice yachtsman to beat the I'm
pre- State Express for a distance OF thirty miles
or so. Covering" the assignment meant |
-75ino on the ice Yacht as ballast. | am not |
going to write q bout this experience at all. 1t
bad enough 10 find oneself sitting up stark IN
bed, still half dreaming about that hldeous per
fOrrnance, on an average OF once week iand
fifteen wears afterward too), without arousng
the mental cell where the wretched memory Is
slowed away by writing about It. But VIII
saw, IN all wilful defiance, that nobody mas ever
been able to tell me since that time that ice
Yachting is a Winter Sport or any other KIND
Jf sport The ice vachtsman may BEN tact
generally is-a law abiding citizen and tax
Daver, but he's a berserker under MS peIt. be
eve me, and the madness OF the Moro ID III nm