“I don’t remember much about my folks.  Most of my life has been spent working on farmers’ land, until I got so old I could not plow or cut hay.  Then the man who owns this forest said I might come here and chop firewood, and I did.  I built this cabin myself, and I’ve lived all alone in it for many years.”

This was so, for Jack had been in the woods from the time when Bert and Nan were babies, so Flossie and Freddie had often heard their older brother and sister say.

“Haven’t you any folks?” asked Freddie.

“Well, I seem to remember that once I had a brother and a sister.  But I lost track of them, and they lost me, I guess; so where they are now, if they’re anywhere, I don’t know.  I’m all alone, I guess,” and the woodchopper’s face was sad.

“Never mind!  We’ll come to see you,” said Flossie, with a smile.  “But now maybe we’d better start home, Freddie.  Papa and Mamma may be worried about us.”

“I’ll take you home, if you’ve had enough to eat,” said Uncle Jack.

“Oh, we’ve had plenty, thank you,” said Freddie.  “But it’s a long way to go home.  If I could sail the ice-boat back——­”

“I don’t like that boat!” cried Flossie.

“How would you like to ride on a sled?” asked the woodchopper.  “In a sled drawn by a horse with jingling bells?”

“That would be fine!” cried Freddie, clapping his hands.  “But where is he—­the horse, I mean?”

“Oh, out in my little stable.  I built a small stable, as well as this cabin, for I have to haul my wood into town to sell it.  I’ll get my bobsled ready and tuck you in among the blankets that spilled from your ice-boat.  Then I’ll drive you home.”

Flossie and Freddie liked this plan, and were soon snugly tucked in among their own robes, for the ice-boat had upset not far from the woodchopper’s cabin.

“Your folks will likely be worried about you,” said Uncle Jack, “so I’ll get you home as fast as I can, though my horse isn’t very speedy.  He’s getting old, like myself.”

“You don’t look old,” said Flossie kindly.

“Well, I am.  I’m old and full of pains and aches.”

“Have you got a stomachache?” asked Flossie.  “If you have my mother could give you some peppermint.”

“My pain is in my bones and back; peppermint isn’t much good for that.  I guess I need to go to a hospital.  But never mind me, I must look after you children now.”

Along through the snow jogged the woodcutter’s horse, his bells jingling as he hauled the sled over the road that led along the shore of the lake.

“What’ll we do about Bert’s ice-boat?” asked Flossie.

“I’ll look after it until he comes for it,” said Uncle Jack.  “It isn’t damaged any, and it will be all right.  Few folks come down to this end of the lake in Winter.  I have it all to myself.”

“You must be lonesome,” remarked Freddie.

“I am, sometimes.  Often I wish I had folks, like other men.  But it isn’t to be, I reckon.  G’lang there, Bucksaw.”