CHAPTERXIII
Nan Bobbsey was glad her brother Bert was at home, helping her keep house. Without Bert she felt that she never could look after things, see to Flossie and Freddie and nurse the sick Mrs. Pry. And when Nan heard her small brother and sister squealing this way, which always meant mischief of some sort or other, she was more than glad that she also heard Bert’s voice calling to the small twins.
Nan got to the foot of the stairs in time to see Bert running out of a side door after Flossie and Freddie who, bare-headed and with no wraps on, had run out into the storm.
“Oh, you mustn’t do that!” exclaimed Nan. “Bring them in, Bert!”
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” he answered, but he could not help laughing, sojolly and full of fun were Flossie and Freddie, though they were also full of mischief.
“Now, I have you!” cried Bert as he caught Flossie before she had time to get very far away from the bottom of the steps.
“But you haven’t got me!” shouted Freddie, making a dash through the piles of snow on the ground and also through the cloud of swirling flakes falling from the sky. “You haven’t got me!”
“But I will get you!” shouted Bert. “Here, Nan,” he called to his older sister, “you hold this little tyke while I chase after this Freddie boy!”
Nan, with a sigh and yet with a little laugh, held Flossie, who, truth to tell, was herself laughing and giggling so hard at the trick she and Freddie had played on Bert that she could not have run much farther, no matter how much she wanted to.
Freddie had counted on Bert having to drag Flossie along with him on the second part of the chase. But when Bert turned Flossie over to Nan, that left him free to run, and he caught his small brother before thelatter had taken more than half a dozen steps.
“Prisoner number two!” cried Bert, picking Freddie up in his arms and carrying him back to the house. “Lock ’em up, Nan!”
“I shall have to, if they aren’t better,” Nan said, with a shake of her head as she put Flossie down in the hall while Bert did the same with Freddie.
“No, you don’t!” suddenly cried Bert, as he locked the door out of which the mischievous ones had darted. He saw Freddie making a sly attempt to open it again.
“What happened?” asked Nan. “I was coming down to get the flatiron for Aunt Sallie and I heard the children scream.”
“They were only yelling for fun and because they played a trick on me,” laughed Bert. “They wanted to go out and get some snow, but I wouldn’t let them.”
“Of course not!” agreed Nan. “The idea!”
“But we got out, anyhow, didn’t we, Flossie?” laughed Freddie.
“Yes, we did!” she giggled.
“I went to the front door to see if the man had left the milk,” explained Bert, “for heleaves it on the front steps when it storms too much to come around to the back. And when I opened the door these two prisoners,” and laughingly he shook a finger at them, “wanted to go out and get some snow to bring in the house.
“I said they couldn’t, and I only had time to get the door shut to keep them in. Then I went to the side door, leaving them trying to unlock the front door, which they couldn’t do, because I took the key out,” and with another laugh Bert held up the key. “But all of a sudden they crawled past me while I was looking on the side porch for the milk, and that’s how they got out. I had to run after them.”
“I was wondering what happened,” said Nan. “Did you bring the milk in, Bert?”
“No, I didn’t Nan. There isn’t any milk.”
“Oh, didn’t the milkman come?”
“Guess he didn’t,” Bert answered. “It isn’t the first time he’s missed us in a storm.”
“Well, I think we have enough left for to-day,” said Nan. “I’m pretty sure there is abottle in the pantry. But if he doesn’t leave any to-morrow, Bert, you’ll have to go after some. But I guess the storm will stop by then.”
“I don’t know,” said Bert, while again he shook his finger at Flossie and Freddie who were laughing together in a corner, plotting more tricks, it is likely. “It looks as if it’s going to snow for a week, Nan.”
“Oh, I hope it doesn’t do that!” she cried. “Mother and father would never get home and we’ll never have any word from them.”
“I guess there’d be some way out,” answered Bert. “But I don’t believe there’ll be any mail delivered to-day. I could go down to the post-office after it, though.”
“No, I don’t want you to go out in the storm!” objected Nan. “I don’t want to be left here all alone, with Mrs. Pry sick. Maybe you couldn’t get back.”
“I’ll stay with you,” promised her brother good-naturedly. “But is Aunt Sallie very sick?”
“Well, she has lots of pain in her back,” explained Nan. “That’s why I’m going totake her the hot flatiron. Then I must wash the dishes and see about getting lunch.”
“Could we play picnic and make believe take our lunch to the woods to eat?” asked Flossie.
“Oh, that would be lots of fun!” cried Freddie. “We could make believe up in the attic was woods. Let’s do that!”
“I’ll see about it,” answered Nan. “Now you look after them a little while, Bert, and I’ll take this iron to Aunt Sallie. And don’t you two little tykes dare to run out in the snow again!”
“We won’t,” promised Flossie.
Nan found the old lady moving restlessly about in bed with the pain of the lumbago in her back.
“Do you think I ought to get the doctor for you?” asked the girl.
“Oh, no, dearie, I’ll be all right in a day or so,” answered Mrs. Pry. “This hot iron will help a lot. Then if I had some of my liniment to rub on my back, I’d feel better.”
“Shall I get Bert to go to the drug store after the liniment?” asked Nan.
“You won’t need to do that, dearie,” answered Mrs. Pry. “I have some of the stuff in a bottle in my valise. If you’ll hand it to me I’ll rub it on my back, and then I’ll go to sleep awhile. I didn’t sleep much all night. But I fell asleep toward morning, and I slept so hard I didn’t wake up in time to call you to go to school.”
“Well, there isn’t any school, so that didn’t matter,” Nan said.
She found the bottle of queer-smelling liniment in the old lady’s valise, and gave it to her. Then Nan said:
“Well, I’ll go down now and wash the dishes.”
“What’s that?” exclaimed Mrs. Pry. “You say Bert is going out and try to catch some fishes? Land sakes, child! he never can catch any fishes in this snow storm! Don’t let him go! Besides, I don’t like fish, anyhow!”
“I didn’t say anything about fishes!” replied Nan in louder tones. “I said I was going to wash thedishes!”
“Oh! Dishes!” murmured Mrs. Pry. “Well,my hearing isn’t what it once was. But I surely thought you said fishes.”
Holding back her merriment, Nan went downstairs. Flossie and Freddie were so filled with joy over their plan of going up in the attic and playing they were on a picnic in the woods that they had become very good and quiet indeed, making no trouble for Bert, who had “picked up” the dishes, ready for washing.
“I’ll dry them for you,” he told Nan, and he added: “We might as well give Flossie and Freddie some crackers and cookies, and let them play up in the attic where they won’t bother Aunt Sallie. They’ve got to do something to keep out of trouble, and they can’t go out in the storm.”
“Yes, we’ll do that,” decided Nan.
Accordingly, she put some odds and ends of cookies, cakes and crackers in two boxes and gave them to the smaller twins. Then Flossie got one of her dolls and Freddie took a little iron fire-engine, one of his favorite toys, and the small twins went up to the attic. Nan went up with them and remained a littlewhile, to be sure it was warm enough for them.
“I’ll keep up a good fire,” Bert had promised, and he was as good as his word, for the attic was as “warm as toast.” Bert knew how to put coal on the furnace, and though he could not toss on quite as big shovelfuls as could Sam, who always looked after the heater, Bert did very well.
With the small twins thus out of the way for a while and with Mrs. Pry feeling better because of the hot flatiron and the liniment, Nan and Bert had a chance to do some of the housework.
“How do you like keeping house, Nan?” asked Bert, as he dried the cups and saucers.
“Well, it’s fun, but it’s a little bit lonesome,” she answered.
“I feel that way, too,” Bert said. “If Dinah and Sam were here it wouldn’t be so lonesome. But with them gone, and daddy and mother away, it isn’t so nice. But we’ve got to stick it out, Nan.”
“Of course we have,” she said. “I wonder what I had better cook for lunch?”
“Bacon,” quickly answered Bert.
“Ho! Ho!” laughed his sister. “You’d have bacon three times a day, I guess.”
“Well, it’s what fellows always have in camp, and this is like camp,” Bert explained.
“It is, a little,” agreed Nan. “My, how the snow keeps up!”
“And the wind, too!” added Bert as a sudden gust howled around the corner of the house, sending the hard snowflakes rattling against the windows.
With Bert to help her, Nan tidied the rooms and set the house to rights. Then she looked in the pantry and saw that they had enough food for another day. She caught sight of a package of prepared flour, out of which she had often seen Dinah make griddle cakes.
“We’ll have griddle cakes and maple syrup for lunch,” decided Nan.
“Hurray!” cried Bert. “That’s better than bacon. But can you bake griddle cakes, Nan?”
“Of course,” she answered.
“Let me turn them for you,” begged Bert.
“I’ll see,” was all Nan would promise.
It was shortly before noon that Nan went to the side door to look out and see if, by any chance, the belated milkman had been along. But the door would not open, though Nan tugged at it. Then, looking from a side window, she saw that a big drift of snow had piled up on the steps against the door, to which, as well as to the door jambs, the snow had frozen.
“Oh, Bert, we’re snowed-in!” cried Nan. “We’re snowed-in, Bert!”
Bert came running from the kitchen at the sound of his sister’s voice. At the same time, up in the attic sounded loud shouts from Flossie and Freddie.
“Oh, what else has happened?” wailed poor Nan.