"Jerry--it's perfect! Come and look." Gyp, shivering in her pajamas, was standing with her small nose flattened against Jerry's cold window. Downstairs a clock had just chimed seven.

Jerry sprang from her bed with one bound. She peeped over Gyp's shoulder. A thaw the day before had made the girls very anxious, but now a sparkling crust covered the snow and the early sun struck coldly across the housetops.

This was the day of the Lincoln Midwinter Frolic.

"Bring your clothes into my room and we'll dress in front of the fire. Uh-h-h, isn't it cold? But won't it be fun? Don't you wish it was ten o'clock now? It's going to be the very best part of the whole holiday!"

Jerry thought so, too, when, a few hours later, she and Gyp joined a large group of the Lincoln girls and boys at the trolley station. A special car, attached to the regular interurban trolley, was to take them and their sleds and skis--and lunch--out to Haskin's Hill where the Midwinter School Frolic was always held.

Jerry had not caught a glimpse of the country since arriving with Uncle Johnny at the Westley home. As the car sped along she sat quiet amid the merry uproar of her companions, but her eyes were very bright; these wide, open stretches of fields, with the little clusters of buildings and the hills just beyond, made her think of home.

The founders of Lincoln School had wanted to thoroughly establish the principle of co-education. "These young people," one of them had said, "will have to live and work and play in a world made up of both men and women; let them learn, now, to work and play together." The records of the school showed that they worked well together and one had only to give the briefest glance at the merry horde that swarmed over Haskin's Hill on that holiday morning to know that they played well together, too.

"It's most like Kettle," cried Jerry, excitedly, for at Haskin's station, where the picnickers left the trolley, the hills pressed about so close that they, indeed, seemed to Jerry like her beloved mountains. "But how horrid to call a lovely place like this Haskin's!"

"It's named after a funny little hermit who lived for years and years--they say he was 'most one hundred and fifty when he died--in the little cabin at the foot of the hill where we coast. He used to write poetry about the wind and the trees and he'd wander around and sit in his door playing a violin and singing the verses he'd written."

"Then his name could be any old thing," declared Jerry, delighted at the picture Gyp had drawn, "if he did such lovely things! Let's us call it the Singing Hill."

The scent of pine on the frosty air and the knowledge that her new sweater and tam-o'shanter were quite as pretty as the prettiest there, transformed Jerry into a new Jerry. She felt, too, that out here in the open she was in her element; a familiarity with these sports that had been her winter pastime since she was a tiny youngster gave her an assurance that added to her gay spirits.

Thanks to long hours of play with Jimmy Chubb she could steer the bob-sled with a steadier hand than any of the others; Barbara Lee, looking more like a schoolgirl than ever in a jaunty red scarf and cap, declared she'd trust her precious bones to no one but Jerry!

The morning passed on swift wings; only the pangs of hunger persuaded the girls and boys to leave their fun. They gathered in front of the picturesque old cabin about a great bonfire over which two of the older boys were grilling beefsteak for sandwiches. And from a huge steaming kettle came a delicious odor of soup.

"Imagine Isobel saying she's too old for all this fun," exclaimed Gyp as she stood in the "chow line" with her mess tin ready in her hand. "Why, a lot of these girls and boys are older than she is! The trouble with Isobel is"--and her voice was edged with scornful pity--"she's afraid of mussing her hair!"

Skiing was a comparatively new sport among the Lincoln boys and girls. Only a few of the boys had become even fairly skillful at it, yet there had been much talk of forming a team to defeat Lincoln's arch-enemy--the South High. While the young people ate their lunch their conversation turned to this.

"We haven't anyone that can touch Eric Hansen, though--he learned how to ski, I guess, in the cradle," declared Dana King, frowning thoughtfully at the long hill that stretched upward from where they were grouped.

During the morning Ginny Cox had borrowed Graham Westley's skis and had, after many tumbles, succeeded in one thrilling descent. She declared now to the others, between huge mouthfuls of sandwich, that it was the most exciting thing she'd ever done--and Ginny, they all knew, had done many! Jerry, next to her, had agreed, quietly, that skiing was--very exciting. Ginny's head was a bit turned by that one moment of victory when she had stood flushed--and upright--at the foot of the hill, trying to appear indifferent as the boys showered laughing congratulations upon her for her feat, so, now, she turned amused eyes upon Jerry.

"Can you ski?" There was a ring of derision in her voice. Jerry nodded. "Then I dare you to try it from the very top!"

The face of Haskin's Hill was divided by a road that wound across it. Because of the steep descent of the upper part and because the level stretch of the road made a jump too high for anyone's liking, only one or two of the............