CHAPTERVI
Mrs. Pry was a “little deaf,” as she called it. She also was a good-natured person. And she was no stranger to the Bobbsey twins. She had worked in their house many times before, and knew her way about very well.
“I suppose, Nan,” she said, “that I’m to take the room I always have?”
“Yes, Aunt Sallie,” answered Nan, for Mrs. Pry wanted to be called by the more affectionate name. “Mother said your old room was ready for you.”
“Then I’ll just take my bag up and be right down to help get supper,” and she started up the stairs.
“I guess Dinah has everything all cooked, ready to eat,” Nan said.
“Oh, you’re going to have boiled beets, are you? That’s good! I’m very fond of boiled beets,” and Mrs. Pry smiled and went on upstairs, not knowing that she had misunderstood Nan. But Nan did not take the trouble then to correct the old lady. She had all she could do, did Nan, to keep Flossie and Freddie from laughing out loud at Mrs. Pry’s queer mistakes.
Bert and Nan at first felt a trifle lonesome because their father and mother had gone away, but this feeling wore off as the evening advanced. There was a jolly little party at the table when the evening meal was served, and Mrs. Pry made many more queer mistakes because she did not catch just what the children or Dinah said. And as the Bobbsey twins were nearly always laughing, anyhow, a few laughs, more or less, at Mrs. Pry’s mistakes did not matter. She did not know they were laughing at her, and, really, it did no harm.
“Anyhow, you can’t help it,” said Bert to Nan afterward. “I thought I’d burst right out snickering when I asked her to pass thebread and she thought I was saying I couldn’t move my head!”
“Yes, that was funny,” agreed Nan. “Is it still snowing, Bert?” she asked, as she got out her books, ready to do some studying for the next day.
“Yes, snowing hard,” Bert reported as he held his hands to the sides of his face so he could peer out into the darkness. “Going to be a regular blizzard, I guess.”
“Oh, Bert! I hope not that!”
“Why not?”
“Because, I don’t want father and mother snowed-up.”
“Oh, I guess a train can get through pretty big drifts before it’s stuck. Don’t worry.”
Flossie and Freddie had gone to bed earlier, and about all they talked of was the fun they would have in the snow the next day.
“If it snows too hard they ought not to go to school,” said Nan to Bert, speaking of the smaller twins.
“No, I guess it would be better for them to stay at home with Aunt Sallie and Dinah—ifthe snow’s too deep,” he agreed. “But maybe it won’t be.”
Flossie slept in Nan’s room, while Freddie “bunked,” as he called it, with Bert. Just how long she had been asleep Nan did not know, but she was awakened by hearing her sister calling her.
“Yes, dear, what is it?” asked Nan sleepily.
“I’d like a drink of water,” Flossie answered.
“All right,” Nan said kindly. She often got up in the night to get Flossie a drink. Now she slipped on her robe and slippers and went into the bathroom. “It’s still snowing,” said Nan to herself, as she listened to the wind blowing the flakes against the window. “I do hope mother and daddy will be all right.”
Nan was carrying the water in to her sister when the door of Aunt Sallie’s room, farther down the hall, opened, and the old lady put out her head. Nan noticed the old-fashioned night-cap Mrs. Pry wore.
“Is anything the matter, Nan?” asked Mrs.Pry. “Has anything happened? Are burglars trying to get in? If they are, telephone for the police at once. Don’t try to fight burglars by yourself.”
“It isn’t burglars,” answered Nan. “I was just getting Flossie a drink.”
“What’s that?” exclaimed the old lady. “You say Flossie has fallen into the sink? Poor child! But what is she doing at the sink this hour of the night?”
“Not sink—drink!” exclaimed Nan, trying not to laugh. “I am getting Flossie a drink.”
“Oh—drink! Why didn’t you say so at first, my dear? Well, I must get in bed or I’ll have that misery in my back again.”
Flossie turned over and went to sleep once more after taking the water. But Nan was a bit longer finding her way to dreamland. Somehow or other, she felt worried, just why she could not say.
“But I feel as if something were going to happen,” she told herself.
However, Nan was a strong, healthy girl, and when you are that way you do not lie awake very long at night. So Nan soondropped off to sleep and then the house remained quiet until morning.
“Oh, it snowed a lot!” cried Flossie, running to the window to look out.
“Get back into bed!” ordered Nan. “You’ll catch cold in your bare feet. Is it still snowing, Flossie?”
“No, it isn’t snowing but there’s a lot on the ground.”
“Well, I’m glad the storm is over,” said Nan, as she got up to dress, after which she would look after Flossie.
So much snow had fallen in and around Lakeport that, though it was still early in the season, it looked as if winter had come to stay. Of course all the boys and girls liked this, though when Sam Johnson went out to shovel paths it can not be said that he liked the snow.
“Makes too much wuk!” Sam said to his wife.
“You ought to be glad you has yo’ health, Sam!” chuckled fat Dinah. “An’ when you comes in I’s gwine to hab hot pancakes an’ sausages an’ maple syrup fo’ you!”
“Yum! Yum!” murmured Sam. “Dat’s good!”
“Are we going to have pancakes, too?” asked Freddie, overhearing this talk.
“Indeed you is, honey lamb!” said Dinah, smiling at him.
On the way to school, Danny Rugg and Sam Todd began throwing snowballs at Bert and John Marsh. Bert did not mind this much, since Danny and Sam were using soft balls. But pretty soon Joe Norton, a chum of Sam’s, happened along, and he joined forces with Danny. This made three against two, and Bert and John were getting the worst of it when Charlie Mason, with whom Bert was very friendly, ran up.
“Let me get a shot at ’em!” cried Charlie, and he made snowballs so fast and threw them so straight, hitting Danny, Sam and Joe, that though the sides were even, Danny and his two chums turned and ran away.
“Ho! Ho!” taunted John. “You’re afraid to stay and fight!”
“We are not,” said Danny. “But it’s almost time for the last bell.”
“That’s a good excuse!” laughed Charlie.
“I’ve got some horse-chestnuts in my pocket,” said Sam to Danny as they ran on. “This afternoon we’ll put some inside snowballs and we’ll soak Bert and his gang good and hard.”
“All right,” agreed Danny.
Though the snow had stopped falling, the skies had not cleared and the storm did not appear to be over, except for a little while. And there was so much snow on the ground that Mr. Tarton announced at the morning exercises that the children of the primary grades would be excused from returning in the afternoon.
“I also want to add,” the principal went on, “that we shall do this winter as we have done in past years. If on any morning the weather is too bad, or the storm too heavy, to make it safe for you to come out, the bell will be rung three times, five strokes each time, as a signal that there is to be no school. Then you need not start.
“So, children, in case of a storm, listen about half past eight o’clock. And if the bellrings five times, then is silent, then rings five times more, then is silent, and then rings a last five strokes, that means there will be no school.”
“I wish it would ring that way every day,” whispered Danny Rugg to Sam, as they were marching back to their room.
“So do I,” agreed Sam. “I hate school!”
And the worst of it was that his teacher heard him and Danny whispering, and each one had to remain in ten minutes later than the others that afternoon when school was dismissed.
Bert and Nan took Flossie and Freddie home at noon and left the smaller twins, who at once said they would go out and play in the yard which was covered with snow.
“Well, don’t get your feet wet, my dears,” cautioned Mrs. Pry. “The reason the principal let you stay at home was so you wouldn’t get wet in the snow. And if you’re going out in the yard to get wet feet, you might just as well go back to your classes.”
“We’ll be careful,” promised Freddie.
“And if any snow gets down my rubberboots, I’ll take ’em off and empty the snow out,” said Flossie.
It was Freddie who, a little later, thought of a way to have some fun. Floundering about in the snowy yard he saw back of the garage the big kennel in which Snap, the dog, used to sleep. A few weeks before this story opens, Snap had been taken sick, and had been sent to a dog-doctor to be cured. He was to remain away several months. So Sam had cleaned out the kennel and put it back of the garage.
“I know how we can have lots of fun, Flossie,” said Freddie.
“How?” asked the little girl.
“We’ll play we’re snowed-in at Snap’s kennel,” went on the little boy. “We’ll crawl inside and make believe we’re at the north pole. It’ll be nice and warm in the dog house, ’cause there’s a blanket nailed over the door. It’s like a curtain.”
“All right—let’s do it!” agreed Flossie. “And if we could have something to eat in the dog house it would be like a picnic.”
“I’ll get something to eat,” offered Freddie.
“What’ll you get?”
“Some of Aunt Sallie’s molasses cookies. She just baked a lot of ’em!”
“All right—get some, and we’ll play snowed-up in the dog house,” said Flossie.
Mrs. Pry was glad to have Freddie ask for some of her cookies, since the old lady was rather proud of the way she made them.
“What are you going to do with them?” she asked, as she handed Freddie the cookies.
“Eat ’em,” he answered.
“Of course, my dear, I know that!” laughed Aunt Sallie. “But where are you going to eat them?”
“Out by the garage.” Freddie didn’t want to say anything about the dog house, for fear Mrs. Pry or Dinah would say he and Flossie couldn’t play in it.
“Dat’s aw right,” announced Dinah. “De honey lambs will be safe out by de garage, ’case as how my Sam’s out dere. But don’t stay out too late, Freddie.”
“We won’t,” he promised.
With the cookies, he and Flossie crawled into Snap’s kennel. It was plenty largeenough for them, and they could almost stand up in the middle, though the sloping roof made it lower on each side.
As Flossie had said, there was a curtain, an old piece of carpet, tacked over the front to keep the cold wind out. And Sam had put some clean straw in the kennel, ready for the time when Snap should come back.
“Oh, this is a lovely place!” exclaimed Flossie, as she snuggled down in the straw.
“It’s fun!” agreed her brother. “Now we’ll pretend there’s a big snow storm outside and it’s all piled up against our house and we can’t get out to find anything to eat.”
“We don’t have to,” said Flossie. “’Cause you got cookies, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” answered Freddie. “I got a lot of cookies.”
“Then we’ll make believe some is roast turkey and some is cranberry sauce, and it’s ’most Christmas,” went on Flossie. Soon the two children were pretending in this jolly way.
Bert and Nan were a bit late coming home from school that afternoon. Bert stayed into do something for Mr. Tarton, and Nan helped Miss Skell clean off the blackboards.
But when the two older Bobbsey twins reached home they noticed that Flossie and Freddie were not in the house. It was getting dark, too—getting dark earlier than usual because of storm clouds in the sky.
“Where are Freddie and Flossie?” asked Nan of Mrs. Pry.
“Playing out in the garage,” was the answer.
But when Nan went out there Sam was locking the garage for the night.
“Flossie an’ Freddie?” repeated the colored man. “No, Nan, I haven’t seen ’em. Dey haven’t been out heah all dis afternoon!”
“Then where can they be?” faltered Nan. “Oh, I wonder if they can have wandered away and are lost! Oh, Sam!”