United States or Lesotho ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This sport has recently received wide popularity in sections of the country where the winters make it possible. Skis or, as they are sometimes spelled, skee, are a pair of flat runners from five to ten feet long which are attached to the feet in such a way as to be easily cast off in case of accident.
It requires nerve, skill, and muscular strength to skee, and a person who has never tried snow-shoes always finds it difficult to use them. It is a sport to which people must be trained from childhood. A skilful "skeer" can make a mile in two minutes.
Here, where the foot rests, there is a piece of birch bark fastened, over which there is a loop, and through this loop the foot passes. That part of the skee under the foot is concave, and here it is thickest, so that where it supports the weight of the person it cannot bend downward. The under part of the skee is grooved and polished, and soon becomes by use as smooth as glass.
Seraphitus drew in his left foot, furnished with another "skee," which was only two feet long, turned swiftly where he stood, caught his timid companion in his arms, lifted her in spite of the long boards on her feet, and placed her on a projecting rock from which he brushed the snow with his pelisse. "You are safe there, Minna; you can tremble at your ease."
The young doctor who sat at Isabelle's right asked her if she could play or sing, and when she said no, he asked her if she could skee. Those were the only personal remarks of the meal. Margaret, who was very much at home, entered into the talk with unwonted liveliness. It was a workshop of busy men and women who had finished the day's labor with enough vitality left to react.
Evidently the queenly anger was short-lived, for she was beaming again, and in a tone that was boyishly intimate she explained: "I'd made three dandy jumps and was going higher each time, but the sight of you upset me. Think of being upset by a perfectly strange man. Shows lack of social training, doesn't it? It's a wonder I didn't break a skee."
Their thoughts were all bent now upon the holiday scenes of the past. As they finished the meal and cleared away and washed the dishes they related incidents of their boyhood's time, compared, reiterated, and embellished. As they talked they grew jovial, and laughed often. "The skee broke an' you went over kerplunk, hey? Haw, haw! That reminds me of one time in Wisconsin "
Jerome and Mammy are packed off to open it up and make it habitable against our arrival, and everything's all skee and shipshape so far as THAT part of the plan is blocked out. The ship's in commission but now comes the question of her personnel. You, Harold, and your wife have been good enough to act as second and third in command but we must have junior officers.
Naught but the breeze of morning, delicately freighted with the breath of balsams, the dew, the fragrance of the awakening of the wild flowers, the indescribable matutinal freshness, the incense of a new day in June. "Skee!" Only the sound of the rippling Tennessee, so silver clear, beating and beating against the vibrant rocks as its currents swirl round the bend at the base of the cliff.
The farthest ranges showed blue under a silver film, and suddenly here were the rays of the sun shooting over all the world, aiming high and far for the western hills. And abruptly said the ada-wehi, as he still lay at length on the floor of the niche, "Skee!"
Word Of The Day