CHAPTERXIX
There was no help for it. If the doctor was to come to Aunt Sallie to help her, Bert must go after him. The telephone would not work.
“It isn’t far,” Bert said to Nan when he had tried several more times to get an answer from the telephone operator. “I can soon push my way down to Dr. Martin’s office.”
“Maybe he won’t come back with you,” suggested Nan. “Maybe he’ll think the storm is too bad for him to come out in.”
“Doctors aren’t that way,” declared Bert. “They go out in any kind of a storm when anybody is sick.”
So he made ready to go out, again putting on his boots and getting out his long overcoat and mittens.
In order to leave his legs free, when he waschopping at the tree branch Bert had put on a short “pea jacket,” as sailors call them. But now to venture out on the streets in the storm, he decided his longer overcoat would be best.
Inside the warm, cosy house the storm had not seemed quite as terrible as it was to Bert when he stepped outside. At first the wind nearly took away his breath, and the snowflakes, tossed this way and that way by the wintry blast, stung the boy’s cheeks.
But he laughed and shouted, pretending that he was a soldier fighting the storm, and he floundered out into the drifts and down toward Dr. Martin’s house. There were very few persons out in the tempest, which was, in fact, a blizzard. Bert saw no one whom he knew, but a man who was tramping his way through the snow called to the boy:
“Quite a storm!”
“That’s right,” panted Bert, stopping to get his breath.
“More wires down than before,” the man went on. “And a lot of trains are stuck in the snow.”
Bert felt a sinking feeling in his heart, and he hoped his father and mother had not started back from Uncle Rossiter’s only to be snowed-in. Bert decided he would say nothing to Nan about what this man had told him.
Floundering on through the snow, falling down once, but getting up quickly again with a laugh, Bert at last reached the doctor’s house and rang the bell. A maid let him in the office.
“The doctor will see you in a few minutes,” she said.
“I don’t want him to see me,” replied Bert. “I’m not sick. It’s Aunt Sallie Pry. She’s staying at our house and she has the lumbago.”
The maid smiled at the boy, and the doctor, who happened to be in the next room, opened the door, for Bert had spoken rather loudly.
“Oh, Bert, it’s you, is it?” asked Dr. Martin, for he knew the Bobbsey twins. “What’s the trouble at your house?”
Bert told him, mentioning that his fatherand mother, as well as Sam and Dinah, were away.
“And you twins are keeping house all alone, are you?” asked the doctor.
“Sure we are,” said Bert, a bit proudly.
“Well, you’re a fine family of children, I’ll say that for you!” said Dr. Martin admiringly. “I’ll come over and see what I can do for Aunt Sallie in a little while.”
“Bring something for the lumbago,” advised Bert.
“Yes, I’ll do that,” the doctor promised, laughing. “And don’t get stuck in a snowdrift going back, Bert.”
“I won’t,” said the boy. “But I was stuck in one early this morning,” and he told about having fallen off the roof.
Out again into the storm stepped Bert Bobbsey. Back over the way he had come he floundered again. When a little way from home he heard a faint mewing sound.
“It’s a cat!” cried Bert. “I wonder if that could be our cat Snoop come back?” For Snoop, with Snap, the dog, had been sent away to an animal doctor’s for a time. Themewing of the cat sounded more plainly, and Bert looked around.
Then, up in a tree, but not far above the ground, he saw a little maltese kitten.
“Oh, you poor little cat!” exclaimed Bert. “I guess you’re lost in the storm. I’ll take you home.”
He reached up, and, by standing on his tiptoes, managed to get hold of the pussy. She dug her claws into the bark of the tree, for she was afraid of falling. But Bert gently pulled her loose, and then cuddled her in his arms, murmuring:
“Oh, you’re a nice little kitten! I’m glad I found you! Flossie and Freddie will just love you and Nan will give you some warm milk. I guess you got out of some house and don’t know how to get back.”
However, there were no houses very near the tree in which Bert had found the little cat. So, not knowing to whom she belonged he took her home with him. At first the pussy mewed pitifully as Bert cuddled her in his arms. But soon she began to purr contentedly.
“Now you’re happy,” said the boy.
Nan opened the side door for Bert, for she was watching for him to come back, and at first she did not see the cat.
“Is the doctor coming?” Nan wanted to know.
“He’ll be here in a little while,” was the answer.
Then the pussy in Bert’s arms moved and Nan caught sight of the bright eyes and the little tail waving.
“Oh, the darling!” she cried. “Where did you get her, Bert?”
“Found her mewing up in a tree.”
By this time Flossie and Freddie, having heard Bert enter, ran to greet him, and they, too, saw the pussy.
“Oh, can I have her?” Flossie wanted to know, reaching up to stroke the animal in Bert’s arms.
“Is that Snoop growed little?” Freddie asked, for Snoop was a very big cat.
“This is Snowflake—a new cat,” Bert answered. “I named her Snowflake because I got her out in the snowstorm.”
“Oh, I just love her!” cried Flossie. “Please let me hold Snowflake!”
“I want to hold her, too,” broke in Freddie.
“Now look here!” said Bert, somewhat sternly. “There must be no pulling this pussy apart by you two to see who’s going to hold her. You must take turns. As soon as I hear you disputing over the pussy I’ll put her back in the tree where I found her.”
This was such a terrible thing to think of having happen that Flossie and Freddie were quite alarmed.
“I won’t pull the pussy,” promised Freddie.
“And I won’t, either,” said Flossie. “Freddie, you can take her now for a little while, if you like. And I’ll take a turn afterward.”
“All right, Flossie, thank you,” said Freddie politely.
Very gently he took the pussy in his arms, and Nan and Bert looked at each other, smiling over the heads of the smaller Bobbsey children.
“It’s a good thing you said that to them, or else they’d be disputing all the while,”whispered Nan. “Now they’ll be quiet for a time.”
Dr. Martin came in a little while and went up to see Mrs. Pry.
“Where does it hurt you the most?” he asked the old lady.
“What’s that?” cried Aunt Sallie, sitting up in bed. “You say you fell over a post? I hope you didn’t get hurt, Dr. Martin.”
“No, I didn’t fall over a post,” said the doctor, and then he looked up to see Nan behind Mrs. Pry’s back motioning to her ears, to let him know the old lady was deaf. “I asked you where the pain hurtmost?”
“Oh, the pain—yes. You don’t speak as loudly as you used to, Dr. Martin, or else my hearing is getting bad. Why, the pain mostly is in my back.”
The doctor then asked her other questions and left some medicine for her, saying he thought she would be better in a few days.
“Keep her warm,” he told Nan, as he was leaving, having promised to come the next day. “Heat is the best thing for lumbago.”
“I’ve been giving her hot flatirons for her back,” Nan explained.
“That’s a good idea—keep it up,” said Dr. Martin. “And how are you getting on with your housekeeping, alone as you are?”
“Oh, pretty well,” Nan said. “Of course we’re lonesome without father and mother. And when the window got smashed early this morning we were all frightened. But Bert fixed it.”
“Yes, and he nearly fixed himself at the same time,” laughed the doctor as he remembered what Bert had told him about falling off the porch roof. “Well, good-bye and good luck,” he said, as he went out into the storm. “And keep Aunt Sallie warm.”
Nan felt better, now that the doctor had called, and she was glad Flossie and Freddie had the kitten to play with. But soon Freddie came to Nan in the kitchen and said:
“Snowflake is hungry. She wants some milk, I guess.”
“We haven’t any milk, except sweetened condensed, and I don’t believe she’ll like that,” Nan said. “I wish we had some freshmilk and some other things from the store.”
“I’ll go,” offered Bert. “It isn’t snowing quite so hard now.”
This was true. The flakes were not falling quite so fast and the wind had gone down a little. So Nan thought it would be all right for Bert to venture out. Freddie, of course, wanted to go, but it was not hard to persuade him to stay in to help Flossie look after Snowflake.
Nan told Bert what to buy at the store and gave him a basket in which to carry the groceries.
“I’ll stop at the post-office and see if there’s any mail in yet,” decided the Bobbsey boy as once more he went out into the snow.
He went to the post-office first, and was much disappointed when he learned that there were no letters for him or Nan.
“The trains snowed up yet?” asked Bert.
“Most of them must be,” said the postmaster. “Anyhow, no mail has come in. Maybe there’ll be some to-morrow.”
Bert certainly hoped so, and he could not help worrying about his father and mother.They might be in a train that was buried deep in a great heap of snow, and there might be nothing to eat in the cars.
“I wish they’d come home,” sighed Bert.
He found several men and boys in the store, buying things to eat, for it had not been possible to make any deliveries. Charlie Mason was there, getting things for his folks.
“Say, it’s fun, not to have to go to school, isn’t it?” asked Charlie.
“Yes, some fun,” Bert admitted. “But I guess it will open in a few days now. This storm can’t last much longer.”
“No, I guess not,” answered Charlie. “Seen anything of Danny Rugg?”
“Yes, I saw him the other day,” Bert answered. “But I don’t like him any more.”
“Nor I,” agreed Charlie. “Danny is getting bad again—like he used to be.”
The two boys parted outside the store, Charlie going one way with his basket of food, and Bert the other. And it was when Bert came in front of the church—the same church where the window had been broken—that Bert once more saw Danny Rugg.
This time the young bully did not see Bert, for Danny was intent on slipping in the side door of the church, which was open. Danny also had a basket of food.
“Say, this is queer!” murmured Bert to himself. “What’s he going into the church again for? I’m going to find out. Maybe he’s going to try to mend that broken window,” and Bert looked up at the stained glass. It had not yet been repaired, a plain piece of white glass having been put over the hole.
Waiting a moment, until Danny was inside the church, Bert softly followed. He set his basket of groceries down in the vestibule, stood still and listened.
He heard Danny tramping up to the balcony.
“Now I’ll catch him at whatever he’s up to,” whispered Bert to himself. “And I’m not going to fall down any trapdoors, either!”