Sleigh riding

“ A sleigh ride of several miles, on a moonlight night, through a lovely snow-covered landscape of hill and woods and valley, does not detract from the enjoyment of an informal carpet dance, especially when the vehicle is a big box sleigh, filled with a dozen lively lads and lasses, whose songs and laughter ring out above the jingling bells. ”

“ So the Starr children, with Mike, climbed up and sat upon the logs of the first sledge, and the other children waited for the second load to come in sight.
The sleigh-ride over the rough road to the river was great fun, for [131] often the sleigh would bump over a huge snow-covered stump or rock, and make the children roll against each other and cling fast to the chains that bound the logs together. ”

“ The snow continued to fall so heavily, that Uncle Donald decided to remain where we were, or rather to form another camp more under shelter of the trees. To proceed with the horses would have been almost impossible, and he therefore settled to send them back and to prepare the sleighs and snow-shoes for the rest of our journey. A sleigh is simply a thin board, ten feet long and about a foot broad, turned up at one end. The baggage is secured to it by leathern thongs. ”

“ A sleigh much used by Russian merchants is shaped like an elongated mill-hopper. It has enormous carrying capacity, and in bad weather can be covered with matting to exclude cold and snow. It is large, heavy, and cumbersome, and adapted to slow travel, and when much luggage is to be carried. All these concerns are on runners about thirty inches apart, and generally shod with iron. On each side there is a fender or outrigger which serves the double purpose of diminishing injury from collisions and preventing the overturn of the sleigh. ”

“ Vehicles of every description, from the most elegant appointed sleigh down to the rough box sled, are seen upon the road, and the jingle of bells is everywhere heard, as the sledges follow, pass and repass one another on the snowy track. Ladies closely wrapped in furs and veils, and their cavaliers in fur caps with flaps brought closely around ears and chin, alike bid defiance to the temperature, which is not infrequently in the neighborhood of zero; and the blood seems to course more quickly for the keenness of the atmosphere. ”

“ The sport went on and time flew by. Grown more and more daring, the strong heels of the boys urged on the descending sled till it moved at the pace of a swift locomotive. Suddenly there came a clumsy old-fashioned sleigh along the shore road, which crossed the slide at a right angle. Frans braked with heel and staff, and the other boys in vain did their best to help him. The sled struck the sleigh, and was emptied in a moment. The boys who were unencumbered fell here and there in the soft snow or on the road. Nono held desperately fast to his precious bundle, but could not save little Decima. ”

“ On and on the downgrade of the mountain road they bounded, causing the sleigh to bounce from one side to the other. They were certainly running away, and to the occupants of the sleigh it looked as if each moment might bring a smash that would terminate fatally. ”

“ That inexpressibly cheerful sound the merry chime of sleigh-bells, that tells more of winter than all other sounds together, is no longer heard on the bosom of Red River; for the sleighs are thrown aside as useless—lumber-carts and gigs have supplanted them. The old Canadian, who used to drive the ox with its water-barrel to the ice-hole for his daily supply, has substituted a small cart with wheels for the old sleigh that used to glide so smoothly over the snow, and grit so sharply on it in the more than usually frosty mornings in the days gone by. ”

“ I myself will ride with my legs outside, my toes touching the snow to guide my sleigh; but you are a beginner, and you cannot do so. Never ride with your legs out, for it is dangerous for a man who is not accustomed to it to ride that way. Sometimes accidents happen even among the most expert, and some Lapps get seriously injured. Here is a stick to guide your sleigh, and to prevent your reindeer from going too fast push the stick deep into the snow. It will not be as good as feet, but it is much better than nothing. ”

“ The boys and loafers shout again—six horses, rearing, pitching, plunging, rush with a wide sweep from out the lane, dragging after them a huge, open, omnibus sleigh. As the great ark ranges in front of the hotel, and its mad team subsides into comparative quiet, forth issue from the thronged piazzas crowds of village belles and beaux. Can it be that so many may find room aboard the sleigh, capacious as it is? Leave that to the Genius who presides over expeditions of this sort. In a sleigh, large or small, there is always room for one more. ”

“ Should, however, the latter stimulus become indispensable, the driver jumps from the sleigh, runs forward, applies his pack-thread lash, and regains his seat without any hazard from extraordinary increase of impetus. The runners of these sleighs are formed of two slips of wood, so low that the shafts collect the snow into a succession of wavy hillocks, properly christened ‘cahots,’ for they almost dislocate your limbs five thousand times in a day’s journey. ”

“ After the road to the tavern is broken, the road to the school-house, the doctor's house, and the meeting-house come next.
The roads thus made were not permitted in former days to be cut up idly by careless use; many townships forbade by law the use of narrow sleds and sleighs. The roads were narrow at best; often when two sleighs met the horses had to be unharnessed, and the sleighs lifted past over each other. On lonely hill-roads or straight turnpikes, where teamsters could see some distance ahead, turnouts were made where one sleigh could wait for another to pass. ”

“ He thought that if it should snow heavily enough he would use the sleigh when he started out in the afternoon. There were several sick children to visit on opposite horizons of his neighborhood. The sound of the bells as he drove in at their front gates might have value: it would not only mean the coming of his sleigh, but it would suggest to them the approach of that mysterious Sleigh of the World which that night they were expecting. Afterwards he was to go to a distant county seat for a consultation. ”

“ The sleighs constantly upset, from running against a stump or slipping over a hill-side; and when we hauled and strained to right them, the dogs lay down quietly, looking round at us, and not offering to pull an ounce to help. When the driver, aggravated beyond endurance, rushed up, stick in hand, and bent on punishment, they made frantic exertions, which only made matters worse, resuming128 their quiescent attitude the moment he returned to haul again at the sleigh; and all the time the unfortunate Milton lay, bound and helpless, half buried in the snow. ”

“ After the advent of the first snow, and when deep enough, there might be heard the sleigh-bell, either on a grocer’s or butcher’s sleigh, or on an improvised sleigh made from a dry-goods case with a pair of runners attached, to which would be fastened a pair of shafts from a buggy or wagon not now usable. Everyone who owned a horse had a sleigh at little cost, and good use was made of it while the snow lasted. ”

“ Only twice in the year did the Europeans at that lonely outpost receive letters from home. Little wonder that they longed for them, and that they went almost wild with joy when they came.
Soon the sleigh appeared in sight, coming up the river at full speed, and a loud “hurrah!” from the men at the gate, told the visitor that he was a welcome guest. It was a dog-sleigh—a sort of conveyance much used by the fur-traders in winter travelling. In form, it was as like as possible to a tin slipper bath. It might also be compared to a shoe. ”

“ A sleigh is an admirable vehicle on a smooth surface such as ice, but it is totally unadapted for use on common roads; the reason being that the amount of friction between the sleigh and the road is so great that to move the sleigh the horse would have to exert a force which would be very great compared with the load he was drawing. But a vehicle properly mounted on wheels moves with the greatest ease along the road, for the circumference of the wheel does not slide, and consequently there is no friction between the wheel and the road ”

“ Indeed, to my mind, there must always be the man who will prefer the reins to the driving wheel. And who can blame him for the choice?
Footnotes
[1] “In Europe, sledge is the name applied to a low kind of cart, but in America the word has been abbreviated to sled or changed to sleigh, which in either case involves the idea that a sliding vehicle is meant. In the rural districts, the farmer employs a machine we call a stone-sledge. This is commonly made from a plank, the flat under surface of which is forced along the surface of the ground by ox-power.” The World on Wheels. Ezra N. Stratton. ”

“ Another winter sport, very popular in Sweden, and which has already reached America, is the "running sleigh," shown in the illustration. A light sleigh is equipped with long double runners and is propelled by foot power. The person using the sleigh stands with one foot upon a rest attached to one of the braces connecting the runners and propels the sleigh by pushing backward with the other foot. To steady the body an upright support is attached to the runners. ”

“ Some lover of the wheel, who evidently cannot bear to lose the pleasure of wheeling even when the snow lies thick on the ground, has invented a sleigh attachment. This is a runner fastened beneath the driving-wheel of the bicycle. ”

“ I had a trial of the sleigh for a couple of hours; and in company with a fat friend was bumped over the gutters through the soft snow,—for on it we could not be said to ride,—whilst every inequality of the streets was made evident to our bones.
This is a species of amusement into which the Northerns enter with a spirit of positive enthusiasm: man, woman, and child all talk of, and look forward to, the arrival of sleighing-time as a season of the highest festivity. ”

“ The flexible flyer is a small sleigh that will not carry more than one big child or two very small ones. The rider lies stretched out on the sleigh, flat on his stomach, with his legs sticking out behind. A bob-sleigh is larger—often made, in fact, by fastening a piece of board across two sleighs running one behind the other. ”

“ At each movement he made his body lowered several inches, his knees yielding with an inclination inward; but as the sleigh turned at a bend in the road, the youth cast his eyes in quest of his old companion, and he saw that he was already nearly concealed by the trunks of the trees, while his dogs were following quietly in his footsteps, occasionally scenting the deer track, that they seemed to know instinctively was now of no farther use to them. Another jerk was given to the sleigh, and Leather-stocking was hidden from view. ”

“ We had plenty of spare reindeer with us, and at the end of each set of sleighs two or three reindeer were made fast to the last one. A man was in the front sleigh of the set to lead, and another man in the last one. John was to lead the set in which I was, and his brother was to be in the last. As usual each man rode his sleigh with his legs outside, turned back somewhat, or reversed, with the top of his shoes touching the snow, the feet to act as rudder. ”

“ The sleigh manifested a tendency to go faster than the horses; there was usually no protecting wall or rail at the outer edge of the slope, and more than once we narrowly escaped being pitched down a steep cliff of frozen earth to the solid ice fifty or a hundred feet below. At such times the way of safety lay in forcing the horses ahead, in the hope that they would overcome the sideling motion of the sleigh. As there was a chance that they might stumble, and throw horses, sleigh, passengers, baggage, and driver all in a heap, the alternative was nearly as bad as the preliminary danger. ”

“ The cheerful tinkling music thus occasioned on the Canadian roads is very pleasing. Sleighs vary a good deal in structure and costliness of decoration; and one often meets a rough, cheerful Canadian habitant sitting in his small box of a sledge (painted sometimes red and sometimes green) , lashing away at his shaggy pony in a fruitless attempt to keep up with the large graceful sleigh of a wealthy inhabitant of Montreal, who, wrapped up in furs, drives tandem, with two strong horses, and loudly tinkling bells. ”

“ Mr. de P—- was being driven towards the railway station in a two-horse uncovered sleigh with footman and coachman on the box. Snow had been falling all night, making the roadway, uncleared as yet at this early hour, very heavy for the horses. It was still falling thickly. But the sleigh must have been observed and marked down. As it drew over to the left before taking a turn, the footman noticed a peasant walking slowly on the edge of the pavement with his hands in the pockets of his sheepskin coat and his shoulders hunched up to his ears under the falling snow. ”

“ To the unversed, a march by sled would seem simplicity. In reality there is no more discouraging test than to hit the trail, dogless and by strength of back. The human biped cannot drag across the snow for any distance more than its own weight; hence equipment is of the simplest. At that, the sledge rope galls one's neck with a continual, endless, yielding drag, resulting in back pains peculiar to itself. It is this eternal maddening pull, with the pitiful crawling gait that tells; horse's labour and a snail's pace. ”