CHAPTERXIV
Bert Bobbsey at first thought something had happened to Nan when he heard her call out. But as he came in from the kitchen and saw her standing safely by the door, he asked:
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing is the matter with me,” answered Nan. “But the door is snowed fast. We can’t get out.”
“We can go to another door then,” said Bert, not much excited. “Once last winter we couldn’t get the back door open because a lot of snow had drifted against it, and we had to use the front door. That’s nothing.”
“Well, maybe it isn’t,” Nan agreed. “But listen to that!”
She pointed upward, and Bert heard Flossieand Freddie in the attic screaming and shouting.
“Those tykes again!” Bert cried with a laugh as he started for the stairs. “I’ll fix ’em!”
“Oh, Bert, you’ll have to be kind to them!” pleaded Nan. “If you’re cross and they start crying, they’ll want daddy and mother and then we can’t do a thing with them! And there’s so much trouble now, with Aunt Sallie in bed. Oh, dear!”
“Don’t worry,” replied Bert. “I’ll be kind to ’em, all right. I guess Freddie is just teasing Flossie. She always yells when he teases her. Don’t worry, Nan. Everything will be all right.”
“I hope so,” sighed Nan.
“And I’ll get a shovel and clear that snow away from the door when I see what’s the matter with those two tykes,” went on Bert, as he hastened upstairs. He liked to call his small brother and sister by the funny name of “tykes,” which means a mischievous little person.
Hurrying up to the attic, Bert found thecause of the trouble. Flossie and Freddie, tired of playing picnic in the “woods,” had started a circus game, each one pretending to be an animal. When Bert got up there he saw Flossie lying on the floor with one foot and leg thrust through the lower part of a chair. Freddie was pulling his sister by the arms, and as her leg was caught between the chair rounds, she could not get loose. The chair was being dragged along with Flossie. She was crying and Freddie was shouting.
“What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” called Bert. “Stop this kind of play!”
“This isn’t play,” Freddie explained. “We were playing, but Flossie got her foot caught and she couldn’t get it out and I can’t pull it out!”
“And it hurts me!” sobbed Flossie. “Oh, Bert, have I got to stay here forever?”
“Of course not,” answered Bert. “I’ll soon have you loose. Stop pulling, Freddie. You’ll only jam her foot in tighter. Let go!”
Freddie let go of Flossie’s arms and then, as she lay on the floor, Bert turned her foot a little way around, so that it was crosswayswith the chair rounds, instead of up and down against them, and a moment later Flossie was free.
“Goodness!” laughed Bert, when he saw that his sister was not hurt, though she still sobbed, “it sounded like a den of wild animals up here!”
“I was a wild lion,” explained Freddie.
“And I was an elephant,” said Flossie. “Freddie said I must be a bad elephant and kick the old chair over. So I kicked and my foot went in and I couldn’t get it out again.”
“I pulled her and pulled her, but it didn’t do any good,” explained Freddie.
“I should say not—the way you were pulling!” laughed Bert. “But I guess you’ve had enough of playing up here. Come on downstairs. You must have frightened Aunt Sallie out of her wits, banging around the way you did and yelling.”
“Could we see Aunt Sallie?” asked Flossie, as she and her brother followed Bert down the attic stairs.
“I guess so, if she isn’t asleep,” said Bert. “I’ll look in her room.”
When he did so he found the old lady sitting up in bed. She smiled at Bert and said:
“Are there any birds up in the attic? Seems to me, Bert, I heard birds fluttering around up there.”
The noise made by Flossie and Freddie had been very loud, so loud that Nan had heard it away downstairs. But the deaf old lady had thought it was only the twittering of birds. Bert wanted to laugh, but he did not. He just said:
“No, there weren’t any birds, Aunt Sallie. It was just Flossie and Freddie playing with a chair.”
“Oh, you say Flossie cut Freddie’s hair? She shouldn’t do that! She might cut him or herself with the scissors. Besides, she is such a little girl she can’t cut his hair straight. Flossie shouldn’t cut hair. Moreover, I never knew that hair-cutting made so much noise.”
“No, no!” explained Bert. “Nobody was cuttinghair. I said Flossie and Freddie were playing with achair!”
“Oh! Chair!” repeated Mrs. Pry. “You should speak a little more plainly, Bert, my dear. Don’t mumble your words. But how are Flossie and Freddie, anyhow? I haven’t seen them all day.”
“They’re out in the hall now,” explained Bert. “They’d like to see you if you’re not too sick.”
“Bring them in, Bert. I’m feeling a little better now. Nan is a good nurse. The hot flatiron she brought me helped the lumbago in my back. Bring the children in.”
Flossie and Freddie looked curiously at Aunt Sallie. They had never before seen her in bed, and as she sat up, propped against the pillows with a blanket around her and a cap on her head, Flossie exclaimed:
“Oh, you look just like the pictures of little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother!”
“Do I, my dear?” asked the old lady. “Well, if I’m the grandmother, the lumbago in my back must be the wolf. Not a real wolf,” she added. “Just make believe, you know.”
“I know,” said Freddie. “I was playing I was a lion up in the attic.”
“And I was an elephant,” explained Flossie. “And I got my foot caught in a chair and I couldn’t get it out!”
“Well, you’re all right now,” said the old lady, with a smile. “Be good children now, for you’ll have to help Nan and Bert keep house until I get better. It’s a sad time.”
“Oh, we like it,” laughed Freddie. “We can stay at home and don’t have to go to school.”
“You say somebody lost his mule?” asked Mrs. Pry. “That’s too bad! The mule was lost in the storm, I expect.”
Flossie and Freddie looked at each other wonderingly, and then at Bert. They were not quite so used to the misunderstandings of the old lady as were Bert and Nan. So Bert, before his brother and sister should laugh at Mrs. Pry, made haste to say:
“They didn’t say anything about a mule, Aunt Sallie. Freddie said he was glad there wasn’t any school!”
“Oh, school! Yes! Well, there’s no sensein going to school when its such a bad storm. But I guess it will soon stop!”
However, it did not soon stop. The small Bobbsey twins went downstairs from Mrs. Pry’s room, and the snow was still falling and the wind was still blowing. Not that the little twins minded this—they liked it all the more, snug and warm as they were in the house.
But Nan, getting the lunch and putting another flatiron on to heat for Mrs. Pry’s back, shook her head more than once as she looked out of the window.
“What’s the matter?” asked Bert as he noticed how serious his twin sister seemed.
“I’m beginning to get worried about mother and daddy,” answered Nan. “I don’t see why we haven’t had some word from them—a letter or a post card.”
“I guess the mails are late on account of the storm,” Bert remarked. “If we don’t get any to-day, and I guess we won’t, for I haven’t heard the postman’s whistle, to-morrow I’ll go down to the post-office and ask if there are any letters for us.”
“You can’t go if it storms this way,” Nan said.
“It will stop by to-morrow,” declared Bert.
With her brother’s help Nan managed to get up a nice little lunch for the family, consisting of some baked potatoes, an omelet, and some bread and preserves. She made toast for Mrs. Pry and took it up to her with a cup of hot tea. Flossie and Freddie begged to be allowed to help, so Nan let them carry the toast—each one had a slice wrapped in a napkin.
“They can’t hurt the toast, even if they drop it,” Nan whispered to Bert. But the small twins were very careful, and the toast arrived safely in the invalid’s room.
“You are very good to me, Nan,” sighed Aunt Sallie. “I think I will try and get around to-morrow.”
“No, you must stay in bed until your lumbago is all gone,” insisted Nan. “I’ll bring you up another hot iron as soon as you take your toast and tea.”
“Yes, heat is the best thing for lumbago,” said Mrs. Pry. “That and my liniment willcure me, I expect. But my liniment is nearly gone. And how to get more I don’t know.”
“Bert will get it for you,” offered Nan kindly.
The afternoon passed. Bert got out on the porch in his big coat and rubber boots and cleared away some of the snow. Flossie and Freddie wanted to go out with him, but Nan would not allow this. She got the smaller twins into a room where they could not see Bert at work with the snow shovel, and told them stories.
“How is it outside, Bert?” asked Nan when her brother came in, having cleared the side door against which the big drift had blown.
“Pretty bad,” he answered. “It seems to snow harder than ever, and the wind is blowing and it’s getting colder. I’m glad we’re inside with a warm fire and plenty to eat.”
“That’s just the trouble,” said Nan in a low voice. “We haven’t plenty to eat, Bert.”
“Not enough to eat—what do you mean?”
“Well, I mean we haven’t any bread. I toasted the last of it for Mrs. Pry. There’s no bread for supper.”
“I’ll go to the store and get a loaf,” Bert offered.
“No!” cried his sister quickly. “I don’t want you to go out in the storm. You might get lost!”
“But what’ll we do for supper?” asked Bert. “I’ve got to have bread and butter.”
“We have plenty of butter,” explained Nan. “I’ll make a batch of biscuits,” she added. “They’re as good as bread.”
“Better!” declared Bert. “But can you make biscuits, Nan?”
“I guess so. Mother’s told me how and I’ve watched Dinah make them lots of times. You just mix up some flour, milk, baking powder, water and lard and roll it out and then cut the biscuits into round shapes and put them in a pan and bake them in the oven.”
“It sounds easy,” remarked Bert. “I’ll help you.”
When Flossie and Freddie heard what Nan was going to do, they, also, wanted to help.
“We can’t all do it,” laughed Nan. “Butyou can come in the kitchen and watch me.”
“Can I have some sugar on my bikset when it’s baked?” asked Flossie.
“Ho! Ho!” laughed Freddie. “Listen to what she called ’em! Bikset! Bikset!”
“That’s their name,” insisted Flossie.
“’Tisn’t!” cried Freddie. “It’s buskit! Guess I know!”
“You’re both wrong!” laughed Bert. “But no matter how you call them, they’re going to be good when Nan bakes them. Now you two sit down in chairs where you’ll be out of the way.”
Nan told Bert what to bring her from the pantry so she could make the biscuits, and then, putting on an apron and rolling up her sleeves, she began.
As she had seen Dinah do, she mixed the flour and lard together first, kneading it with her hands.
“It’s just like making mud pies,” said Freddie.
“’Cept it isn’t brown mud—it’s white,” said Flossie.
“I wish I could squeeze ’em like that,” went on Freddie, as he saw Nan working up the dough.
“Well, you can’t, so just you sit still!” Nan told him, with a laugh.
Remembering what her mother had told her, and what she had seen Dinah do, Nan soon had rolled the biscuit dough out on the floured board, and then with a shiny tin thing, she cut out little round, flattened bits of dough, which she put in a buttered pan, ready for the oven.
“I’ve got enough dough for two pans of biscuits,” said the little cook. “So I’ll set this first pan down in a chair and get another pan ready for the oven. Then they’ll both bake at the same time.”
“We’ll have lots of buskits!” said Freddie. “I’m glad, because I like buskits!”
“And I’m going to have sugar on my bikset, ain’t I, Nan?” asked Flossie.
“We’ll see,” said the young cook, giving all her attention to cutting out the second batch.
Flossie and Freddie both liked to watch this part of the work, so they left their chairsto stand beside the table. They stood on their tiptoes, so eager were they.
“Now I’ll put these in the pan, and pop them into the oven,” said Nan, when the last of the biscuits had been cut out. “Sit down in your chairs, Flossie and Freddie, so you won’t be in my way when I open the oven door.”
Flossie and Freddie went back to where they had been sitting, and all would have been well if Flossie had taken the same chair out of which she had slid a little while before to watch Nan. But, instead, Flossie backed up to the wrong chair.
It was the chair on which Nan had set the first pan of biscuits, and a moment later Flossie “plopped” herself down right on top of the soft bits of dough!
“Oh! Oh!” yelled Freddie, but too late. “Look! Look! Flossie sat on the buskits! Flossie’s sitting on the buskits!”