Snow Ride Read Online Free

thoughtfully, estimating their ability to tap the trees. Eventually she decided to remove exactly six buckets from the sleigh.
    “How did you figure that out?” Stevie asked.
    “Beats me,” Betsy confessed. “It just looked like six too many!”
    Stevie laughed.
    With that, Betsy climbed up in the front of the sleigh and took the reins from Dinah. They were on their way.
    The three girls sat together on a wooden bench near the front of the sleigh. Betsy, in the middle, held the reins. She wasn’t sitting so much as standing, and she had her feet braced against a board at the front edge of the sleigh. She held one rein in each hand. When they were ready to start, she flicked the reins so they slapped the horse’s rump lightly, and she made a clicking sound with the back of her tongue. The horse began walking obediently, pulling the sleigh through the thick spring snow.
    At first Stevie was aware of the lumbering motion of the large horse, feeling the separate tugs of each step he took. Then, as the horse began moving more steadily, allshe felt was the easy glide of the smooth runners of the sleigh.
    It really just confirmed her feeling that she’d traveled backward in time a few hundred years. She shared the thought with Dinah and Betsy.
    “Wait until we get to work,” Betsy said. “You’re going to wish for the twentieth century again!”
    Stevie wasn’t sure what Betsy meant, but the fact that both Betsy and Dinah seemed to find it funny made her slightly uneasy.
    Their first turn was a sharp right off a narrow section of path. Stevie watched with interest as Betsy approached the turn. First she flicked the reins gently to get the horse’s attention and then tugged a little on the left rein. The horse swished his tail amiably and moved to the left. The sleigh moved way to the left side of the path as well. Then Betsy tugged on the right rein gently and held it firmly. Slowly the horse turned to the right. The sleigh followed. Soon Betsy released the pressure on the rein, the horse stopped turning, and the sleigh straightened out, heading right along the path they’d wanted.
    “That’s complicated,” Stevie said. “Do you always have to go the opposite way before you turn?”
    “Only when it’s tight,” Betsy explained. “If I try to turn too sharply, I run the risk of having the horse break the shafts on the sleigh or having the shafts hurt the horse.” Stevie looked to see what she meant. The shaftswere two long pieces of wood, one on either side of the horse, that attached to the sleigh. A sharp turn could be real trouble. It was clear, though, that Betsy knew what she was doing. It made Stevie feel confident.
    The woods were crisscrossed with trails, all totally mystifying to Stevie, but Betsy seemed to know where she was going, and when Betsy was in doubt, Dinah came to her rescue. Betsy drove the sleigh surely, directing the horse at each turn and urging him gently when he decided to slow down and examine something interesting.
    “Off to the right now,” Dinah said. Stevie didn’t know how Dinah could remember where to turn or how they’d even gotten where they were.
    “That’s right,” Betsy agreed. She tugged gently on the right rein at a fork in the path. The path rose to the right. The horse followed willingly.
    Suddenly they left the woods and came out into an open area that Stevie thought was probably a field in the summer. For the first time since they’d left the Sugar Hut, Stevie could see where they were. They were completely surrounded by forest-covered hills and mountains. Many of the trees, especially on the higher parts of the hills, were evergreens whose bushy branches weighed heavily under blankets of snow. Other trees, now bare of their leaves, stood in stark contrast, with snow on top of their branches, exposed bark below.
    “Oh,” Stevie said, surprised, and delighted at the wonderful sight that looked as if it had been painted for the occasion by a greeting card