CHAPTERXII
Poor Nan was upset by hearing that Mrs. Pry was ill in bed when the old lady should have been up getting breakfast, and Nan was also rather worried about not hearing from her father and mother, so that when Flossie burst out crying it seemed as though too many things were happening.
“Why, Flossie, what’s the matter?” asked Nan of her little sister. Nothing special had happened, as far as Nan could see. Flossie had not fallen out of her bed, that was certain. “Are you sick, too, Flossie?” asked Nan.
“No-oo-oo, I’m not sick,” sobbed Flossie. “But I—I’m afraid.”
“Afraid of what?” Nan wanted to know. “There is nothing to be afraid of. It’s morning. We’re late, and maybe we’ll be tardyat school, but that isn’t anything to cry about.”
“I’m not—now—I’m not crying about school!” Flossie sobbed. “I’m scared about Aunt Sallie!”
In her bedroom across the hall the old lady heard.
“Don’t be afraid about me, my dear,” called Aunt Sallie. “I’m not as badly off as all that, though I don’t believe I’m able to get around. The lumbago has me by the back.”
“There! That’s what I’m scared of!” cried Flossie. “I don’t want the lumbago to get me! Shut the door, Nan!”
Then Nan understood, and so did Mrs. Pry.
“The little dear,” sighed the old lady. “You won’t catch the lumbago, Flossie. Little girls don’t catch the lumbago.”
“No, but maybe the lumbago will catch me!” and Flossie still sobbed. “Shut the door, Nan, and keep the lumbago out!”
Then Nan laughed and said:
“Why, I do believe she thinks the lumbago is a sort of animal! Do you, Flossie?”
“Ye-ye-yes,” was the halting answer. “Isn’t the lumbago like the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood?”
“Bless your heart, no!” chuckled Mrs. Pry, in as jolly a manner as she could, though it hurt her to laugh. “The lumbago is something like rheumatism. It catches one in the back and keeps them in bed. I’ve had it before. I’ll be better in a few days. Bless you! the lumbago isn’t a wolf, though it pains a lot. Don’t be afraid. Though I don’t know what you are going to do, Nan. I’m not able to get out of bed, I’m afraid.”
“I’ll manage all right,” Nan said, though her heart was sinking with all the troubles that seemed flocking around. “I’ll make you some coffee, as I do when mother has a headache.”
“Do you think you can, my dear?” asked Aunt Sallie. “I’m so sorry I’m laid up with this lumbago!”
“I can manage,” replied Nan bravely, while she hurried with her dressing. “We children will just have to keep house by ourselves in real earnest,” she said to herself.
Nan was helping Flossie dress, and then she intended to hurry down to the kitchen to make coffee. Nan could get up a simple breakfast, her mother and Dinah having taught her this. But as Nan fastened Flossie’s buttons she heard Bert moving around in his room.
“Whoop-ee!” yelled the boy as he danced around his apartment. “Oh, look, Freddie! It’s snowing like anything! It’s a regular blizzard!”
“Oh, let me see!” begged the small Bobbsey lad.
“Don’t run around barefooted!” warned Nan from her room. “I don’t want you catching cold, Freddie, for then I’ll have some one else sick to nurse.”
“Oh, is Flossie sick?” called Bert who, having looked from the window to see that it was snowing hard, had now begun to dress. “Is Flossie sick?” he called again.
“No. It’s Mrs. Pry,” Nan answered. “She has the lumbago in her back, and I’ll have to stay home from school and nurse her. You and Flossie and Freddie can go, Bert—thatis, if the storm isn’t too bad. But you’ll have to hurry. We’re late!”
“Late! I should say we were late!” cried Bert as he looked at a clock on his bureau. “It’s after half past eight and——”
Just then, above the noise of the swirling snowflakes hitting against the windows and the sound of the howling, cold wind, another noise came to the ears of the Bobbsey twins.
A bell rang out in the distance. Five strokes were sounded, then a pause and five strokes more. Another pause, then another five strokes.
“It’s the storm signal on the school bell!” cried Bert. “The three fives! Hurray, no school to-day!”
He danced around the room, half dressed.
“Are you sure?” asked careful Nan.
“Sure!” answered Bert. “There it goes again!”
There was no doubt of it this time. Fifteen strokes rang out, five strokes at a time. It was the signal Mr. Tarton had told the children to listen for in case of a storm. And this surely was a storm! The wind blewharder and the swirling, white flakes came down more thickly.
“No school! No school!” sang Freddie as he began to dress.
“No school! No school!” echoed Flossie, as she followed Nan to the kitchen.
“Hush, my dears, not so much racket!” begged Nan in a low voice. “Mrs. Pry is sick, and she may not like noise.”
“Oh, I’m not fussy that way,” said the old lady who, in spite of her deafness, seemed to have heard what Nan said. “Don’t keep the children quiet on my account. And you’ll have to hurry, Nan, or they’ll be late for school.”
“There isn’t any school,” Nan said.
“What’s that—some one fell over a stool?” cried Mrs. Pry. “Oh, dear! And me flat on my back with lumbago! Who fell over the stool, Nan?”
“Nobody,” answered the Bobbsey girl. “I said there was no school!”
“Oh! No school! You mustn’t mumble your words, my dear. I can hear every time if you speak out. No school, eh? I’m gladof that, for if there was, you’d be late and on account of me. Oh, dear, I wish I could be around to help with the work!”
“We’ll do the work, Aunt Sallie,” said Nan kindly. “Don’t you worry or fuss. Just stay in bed and keep warm, and I’ll bring you up some breakfast. Would you like a hot flatiron for your back?”
“Well, it would help the misery a lot,” the old lady answered. “But I don’t like to be such a bother.”
“It isn’t any bother at all,” said Nan kindly. “Bert will help me get breakfast, won’t you, Bert?”
“Sure,” he answered, sliding down the banister rail. “But I’ve got to shovel the walks of snow.”
“They can wait,” said Nan. “There’s no use shoveling walks until it stops snowing.”
“I guess maybe that’s right,” agreed her brother. “Say, it’s a big storm,” he cried, as he saw how much snow had fallen in the night. “I hope father and mother are all right—and Sam and Dinah, too.”
“Yes, so do I,” agreed Nan. “And I hope some mail comes in to-day. I’d love to have a letter from mother.”
Flossie and Freddie crowded eagerly to the windows to look out at the storm. The house was snug and warm, but outside it was cold and blowy, and though the small twins did not mind snow or cold weather they were just as glad, this morning, that they did not have to tramp out to school.
Nan had often watched her mother and Dinah get breakfast, and so had Bert, so together the two older Bobbsey twins soon had coffee boiling on the stove, and the oatmeal which had been made ready the night before was being warmed.
“I’m going to fry me some bacon!” declared Bert.
“Do you know how?” asked Nan.
“Sure I do,” he declared. “Once Charlie Mason and I made a fire in the woods and fried bacon. It was good, too.”
“Well, first I wish you’d get some oranges out of the pantry for Flossie and Freddie,”said Nan. “Do that while I’m taking Mrs. Pry up this hot coffee,” she added, as she filled a cup with the steaming drink and put some slices of bread and butter on a tray.
“All right—the oranges will be ready in a minute,” laughed Bert. “First call for breakfast! First call for breakfast!” he shouted, as he had heard the waiters in the dining car announce as they came into the Pullman coaches on the railroad.
“It’s fun being snowed-in like this, isn’t it, Flossie?” asked Freddie, as he tried to see how flat he could make his nose by pressing it against the window.
“Lots of fun,” agreed the little girl. “But I’m hungry. I want my breakfast, Nan.”
“Bert will give you your oranges now,” Nan answered. “And I’ll dish out your oatmeal when I come down after I take Mrs. Pry her coffee.”
This satisfied the smaller twins, and they laughed at the funny faces Bert made as he went about, pretending he was a Pullman waiter. In fact Freddie laughed so hard that some of his orange went down the“wrong throat” and Bert had to pat his small brother on the back to stop the choking.
Nan carried the coffee into Aunt Sallie’s room. Mrs. Pry had not gotten out of bed and the shades were drawn down over the windows.
“Shall I make it lighter for you?” asked Nan. “It’s snowing again.”
“What’s that? You say the pig is out of the pen? Land sakes, child, I didn’t know you kept a pig! Dear me, and Sam isn’t here to chase him back into the pen! Oh, the misery in my back! If it wasn’t for the lumbago I’d get after the pig!”
“I didn’t say anything about a pig or a pen,” answered Nan, trying not to laugh. “I said it wassnowing again!”
“Oh, snowing again,” Mrs. Pry remarked. “Well, why didn’t you say so at first, my dear? Dear me! We’re having a lot of snow this winter, and early, too. That’s right; raise the curtains so I can see out. And thank you for the coffee. Ah, it makes me feel better,” she said, as she sipped it.
“Is it all right and strong enough?” asked Nan.
“Plenty strong, and very good, my dear. You’re quite a little housekeeper.”
Nan thought that she would need to be, and so would Bert, if they were to be left alone with a sick woman to look after. But Nan said nothing about this.
She helped Mrs. Pry sit up in bed, for the old lady could hardly raise herself on account of the pain in her back. Nan propped the pillows up against her, and then started downstairs to get the hot flatiron, leaving Mrs. Pry sipping the coffee and eating the bread and butter.
As Nan started down she heard the shrill voices of Flossie and Freddie, and she heard Bert calling:
“Come back in here! Come right back in, you little tykes!”
“Oh, what are they doing now?” thought poor Nan.