CHAPTERIV
Mr. Tarton had not been principal of the Lakeport school a number of years without knowing how to deal with the boys and girls.
He was used to all kinds of excitement, having girls fall downstairs and stopping boys from fighting. And often the pupils lost things in school. So the news that Danny had lost his ring did not startle Mr. Tarton very much.
“Well, that’s too bad, Danny,” said the principal. “I’m sorry about your ring. I’ll announce before the school to-morrow that you have lost it, and perhaps some one has found it. What kind of ring was it?”
“A birthday ring.”
“Yes, I know. But was it gold or silver and did it have a stone in it?”
“It was gold, and all carved. It didn’t have any stone in it, but on top it had the letters of my name—D. R. For Danny Rugg, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” returned the principal, while Bert looked at Danny and Sam rather soberly. For Bert did not like being accused of having broken the window when he had not even thrown at it, and he thought Danny should be man enough to own up that he did it.
“I was just going to send for you, Danny, to ask you about the broken church window,” the principal went on. “But finish telling me about your ring, so I will know what to say when school starts to-morrow.”
“Well, I had my ring on when I came to school this morning,” Danny said. “And just now, when I was going home—I was waiting outside for Sam,” he explained. “Just now I saw it wasn’t on my finger. I went back in my classroom to look for it, but it wasn’t there.”
“Very likely you dropped it somewherearound the school,” said Mr. Tarton. “I will inquire about it. But now as to this broken window. Sam says he thinks Bert did it.”
“But I didn’t!” burst out Bert Bobbsey.
“Just a moment, please, Bert,” said Mr. Tarton, in a low voice. “Did you see Bert break the window, Danny?”
“No, sir, I—now—I didn’t exactly see him break it,” answered Danny slowly. “But I saw him have a snowball in his hand.”
“You had one yourself!” cried Bert. “And so did Sam!”
“I didn’t throw it at the church, though!” Sam cried.
“Neither did I!” declared Bert.
Danny said nothing, but he did not look at Bert.
The principal questioned the boys for a long time, but he could learn nothing more. Sam stuck to it that Bert had broken the window, and though Danny did not actually say so, it was easy to see that he wanted Sam’s story to be believed. And of course Bert said he did not break the stained glass.
“Well, Bert, do you know who broke the window?” asked Mr. Tarton, at last.
For a moment the Bobbsey boy was silent. Then in a low voice he said:
“Yes, sir, I think I know who did it. But I’m not going to tell.”
Danny Rugg’s face grew rather red at this, and he seemed very much interested in looking at something outside the window.
“Well,” said Mr. Tarton, at length, “I can’t make you tell, Bert, and I don’t know that I want to. I hope that the boy who broke the window will be man enough to confess and pay for it. Meanwhile, we shall let the matter rest. You boys may go.”
Danny and Sam hurried out ahead of Bert, who walked more slowly. Since morning many things had happened, and Bert no longer felt as friendly toward Danny as he had before.
“Danny’s a whole lot meaner since he got so thick with Sam Todd,” said Bert to himself, as he walked out of the school. He could hear the two cronies talking together just ahead of him.
“Did you really lose your gold birthday ring, Dan?” asked Sam.
“Sure I did!” was the answer. “Dad’ll scold me, too, when he finds it out. I wish I could get it back.”
“Don’t you know where you lost it?” Sam wanted to know.
What Danny answered Bert could not hear, for by this time the two boys had run on ahead. They were making snowballs and throwing them.
“Trying to break more windows, I guess,” murmured Bert, as he passed the church and looked up at the hole in the beautiful stained-glass window. Then he saw a man’s head thrust out of the hole—for it was large enough for that, and Bert recognized the church sexton, Robert Shull. Mr. Shull was about to fasten a piece of plain glass over the hole in the colored window.
“Hello, Bert!” called Mr. Shull, for the Bobbseys attended this church and the sexton knew the twins.
“Hello!” Bert answered.
“I’ve got to mend this hole to keep out thesnow until this window can be fixed with new stained glass,” the sexton said. “It’s going to cost quite a lot of money, too.”
“Yes, I guess so,” agreed Bert.
“Some of you boys broke this,” the sexton went on, his head still out of the hole. He was picking from the window frame small bits of broken glass that had not fallen when the snowball crashed through.
“Yes, I guess one of our fellows did it,” admitted Bert.
“I heard it was you,” went on Mr. Shull.
“Well, I didn’t!” Bert cried.
“No, I don’t believe you did. You aren’t that kind of a boy. Maybe you know who did it?” Mr. Shull seemed to be asking a question.
“Yes, maybe I do,” Bert admitted. But that was all he would say. He walked on toward home.
When Bert reached his corner and was about to turn down the street on which he lived, he saw Danny and Sam throwing snowballs at a signboard. The two cronies caught sight of him and Danny called:
“Want to get up a snowball fight, Bert Bobbsey?”
“No, I don’t!” was the answer, not very pleasantly given.
“He’s afraid of being licked!” taunted Sam.
“I am not!” cried Bert. “I’ll snowball fight you any time I feel like it, Sam Todd, but I don’t feel like it. And you needn’t go around saying I broke that church window, for I didn’t!”
“It looked just like you did it,” Sam said, not quite so sure of himself as he had been.
“Aw, stop talking about it,” advised Danny Rugg. “And say, Bert, if you find my gold ring I’ll give you a reward.”
“All right,” answered Bert in a low voice, and passed on. He did not feel much like talking to Danny and Sam.
“I’ll give you twenty-five cents!” Danny called after him. But Bert did not turn his head or answer.
On reaching home, Nan told her mother why Bert had been kept in. Mrs. Bobbsey felt sorry for her son, but she knew he hadnot broken the window, and she felt sure that in time the truth would be known.
So when Bert finally reached home, half an hour later than usual, he found his mother waiting for him. She asked him what had happened, and Bert told her.
“Do you really think Danny did it?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
“I’m almost sure of it,” Bert answered. “If I could only prove it I’d be glad, for then everybody would know I didn’t do it.”
“Never mind,” soothed his mother. “Perhaps, some day, you can find a way of making sure that Danny did it. Then your name will be cleared. But until you are sure, don’t say that Danny broke the window.”
“No, Mother, I won’t,” promised Bert.
“Did you say Danny lost his new birthday ring?” went on Mrs. Bobbsey.
“Yes and he was all excited about it.”
“Well, of course it’s too bad,” said Bert’s mother. “But he shouldn’t have worn a valuable ring to school—especially at snowballing time. Things lost in the snow are hard to find.”
Bert went out to play in the snow with his brother and sisters. He looked up at the evening sky and saw it covered with clouds.
“There’s going to be more snow,” Bert decided. “If a lot falls we can coast on the big hill, and we can make snow forts and snow men and everything!”
Bert, like the other Bobbsey twins, liked the fun that came with winter. He liked summer fun, also. In fact, Bert and the other three Bobbsey twins liked all kinds of fun, just as you and I do.
It was after the evening meal, when Mr. Bobbsey was telling Bert not to mind so much being accused of breaking the church window, that the doorbell rang. Dinah, the colored cook, big, fat and jolly, answered and came back with a yellow envelope in her hand.
“A telegram!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. “I hope it isn’t any bad news!”
Every one grew quiet while Mr. Bobbsey opened the message.
“Well, it is bad news—of a sort,” he said.
“What?” asked his wife.
“Uncle Rossiter is very ill,” answered Mr. Bobbsey. “He wants you and me, Mary, to come to him at once. I think we’ll have to go. It may be his last illness. We’d better start in the morning.”
“Oh, will you take us with you?” begged Nan. “I remember Uncle Rossiter. Can’t we go with you?”
“Take us! Take us!” begged Flossie and Freddie.
Mr. Bobbsey shook his head.
“No,” he answered slowly, “it would be out of the question to take you twins. You’ll have to stay at home and keep house by yourselves. Mother and I will need to leave in a hurry. We can’t take you.”
Sad looks were on the faces of all the Bobbsey twins.