A SKATING STORY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 59, 9 March 1880, Page 1

A SKATING STORY.

It was jaet twenty years ago yesterday, cays Reid Gordon, a party of us fellers went over to Bergen Creek, on a skating match. The day was colder

than ten icebergs, the iae smooth as glass, and we made up our minds to have a heap of fun. Bill Berry was the leader of the crowd. He was a tall six-footer, full of pluok and the beet skater in all creation. Give Bill Berry a pair of skates and smooth sailing, and he'd make the trip to Baffin's Bay and back again in 24 hoars, only stopping long enough at Halifax to take a drink. Well, we got to the creek and fastened our skates on, and after taking a good horn from Joe Turner's flask, started off in good style, Bill Berry taking the lead. As I was telling you it was a dogged cold day, and we had to skate fast to keep the blood up. There were little air-holes in the ioe, and every now and then we would come near going into them. My skates pot loose, and I tried to fasten 'em. Just as I had finished buckling the straps I saw something shooting aloßg the ioe like lightning. It waa Bill Berry's head. He had been going it like greased electricity, an/1 before he knew it, he was into on a of them airholes. The force was bo great as to cat his head off against the sharp corners of the ioe. "It's all day with Billy Berry," st-id I. "And ell night too," said Joe Turner. Just as hs had got these words out of his month, I looked at Bill's head, which had been going it on tbe ice, and all at once it dropped into another hole. We ran to it, and I heard Bill Berry say, "Quick, boys, quick! pull me out !" Hooked into the hole, and there, bb I am a sinner, was Bill Berry's body, which had shoDtad along under the ice, and met the head at the hole in the ice. It was so shocking oold the head had frozen fast to the body, and we pulled Bill out as. good as new. He felt a little numb at first, but after skating awhile he felt as well as the rest of us, and langhed ovtr the joke. We went home after dark, all satisfied with the day's sport. About ten o'clock in tbe evening somebody knocked at the door and said I was wasted over at Bill Berry's. I put on my coat and went over. There lay Bill's body in one place and his head in another. His wife said that after he had corns from skating he sat down by tbe fire to warm himself, and while attempting to blow his nose, he threw his head into tbe fireplace. The coroner was called that night, and the verdiot of th 9 jury was— " That Bill Berry came to his death by aka'ing top fast."