Thesnow was just right for making snow houses, or for rolling big balls that grow in size the more you push them along. For the snow was wet—that is, the flakes stuck together. Sometimes, when the weather is cold, the snow is dry and almost like sand. Then is not a good time to try to make snow houses, snow men or big snowballs.
"But it's just right now!" cried Teddy, as he ran into the back yard with his sister and the other girl and boy. "We'll make a fine snow house!"
"First we'll make some big snowballs," said Tom Taylor.
"I thought we were going to make a snow house!" exclaimed Ted.
"So we are," agreed Tom. "But the way to start is to make big snowballs. Roll them as big as you can and they'll make the sides of the house. We'll pile a lot of snowballs together and fill in the cracks between. That's the way to start."
"FIRST WE'LL MAKE SOME BIG SNOWBALLS," SAID TOM TAYLOR.The Curlytops Snowed InPage 52
Ted and the others saw that this was a good way, and so they began. First they each made a little snowball. But as they rolled them along around the big yard the balls gathered the snow up from the ground, packing it around the little ball that had first been started, until Ted's was so big that he could hardly move it.
"It's big enough now!" called Tom. "Put it over here, where we're going to start the snow house, and I'll roll my big ball next to yours, Ted."
This was done. Then Jan's snowball, and that of Lola were put in a row and the four walls of the snow house were started. There was plenty of the snow to be had and the children worked fast. Before dusk they had the four walls of the house made, with a doorway and windows cut, but there was no roof on, though the walls of the white house were above Tom's head, and he was the tallest.
"Aren't we going to make a roof?" asked Ted.
"We'll do that to-morrow," answeredTom. "We ought to have some boards to lay across the top, and then we could pile snow on them. It's easier that way, but you can make a roof of just snow. Only it might fall in on our heads."
"We don't want that," said Janet. "Boards are better, Tom."
When it was too dark to see to do any more work on the snow building, the Curlytops went into the house and their playmates hurried to their home for supper.
"We'll finish the house to-morrow," called Teddy to Tom.
The next afternoon, when they came home from school, the children started to make the roof. Ted had asked his father to get him some boards, and this Mr. Martin had done. They were laid across the top of the four walls, and snow was piled on top of them, so that from the outside the house looked as if made entirely of snow. From the inside the boards in the roof showed, of course, but no one minded that.
The snow house was large enough for five small children to get in it and stand up, though Tom's head nearly touched the roof.
"But that doesn't count," laughed Ted. "You can pretend you're a giant and youcould lift the roof off with your head if you wanted to."
"Only you mustn't want to!" cautioned Jan.
"I won't," promised Tom.
"We ought to have a door so we could close it, and then it would be like a real house," Lola said.
"Couldn't we make one?" asked Ted.
"It would be hard to make a door fast to the snow sides of the house," answered Tom. "If we had a blanket we could hang it up for a curtain-door, though."
"I'll get one!" cried Janet, and she ran in to ask her mother for one.
The blanket was tacked to the edge of one of the boards in the roof, and hung down over the square that was cut out in the snow wall for the door. When the blanket was pulled over the opening it was as cozy inside the snow house as one could wish.
"And it's warm, too!" cried Ted. "I guess we could sleep here all night."
"But I'm not going to!" exclaimed Jan quickly. "Anyhow we haven't got anything to sleep on."
"We can make some benches of snow," Tom said. "Let's do it!"
"How?" asked Ted.
"Well, we'll just bring in some snow and pile it up on the floor along the inside walls. Then we can cut it square and level on top, as high as we want it, and we can sit on it or lie down on it and make-believe go to sleep."
"That'll be fun!" cried Lola.
With their shovels the Curlytops and the others were soon piling snow up around the inside walls of the white house. Then the benches were cut into shape, and they did make good places to sit on; though it was too cold to lie down, Mrs. Martin said when she came out to look at the playhouse, and she warned the children not to do this.
"We ought to have a chimney on the house," suggested Tom, after he had gone outside to see how it looked.
"We can't build a fire, can we?" asked Jan, somewhat surprised.
"No, of course not!" laughed Ted. "A fire would melt the snow. But we can make a chimney and pretend there's smoke coming out of it."
"Let's do it!" cried Lola.
"All right," agreed Tom. "You're the lightest, Teddy, so you get up on the roof.You won't cave it in. I'll toss you up some snow and you can make it square, in the shape of a chimney."
This Ted did, and with a stick he even marked lines on the snow chimney to make it look as if made of bricks.
"That's fine!" cried Tom. "It looks real!"
"It would look realer if we had something like black smoke coming out," declared Janet.
"Oh, I know how to do that!" exclaimed Lola.
"How?" asked her brother.
"Get some black paper and stick it on top of the chimney."
"Maybe my mother's got some," said Ted. "I'll go and ask her."
Mrs. Martin found an old piece of wrapping paper that was almost black in color, and when this had been rumpled up and put on top of the snow chimney, where Ted fastened it with sticks, at a distance it did look as though black smoke were pouring out of the white snow house.
"Now we ought to have something to eat, and we could pretend we really lived in here," said Janet, after a bit, when theywere sitting on the benches inside the house.
"You go and ask mother for something," suggested Ted. "I got the paper smoke. You go and get some cookies."
"I will," Janet promised, and she soon came running from the house with a large plate full of molasses and sugar cookies that Nora had given her.
"Um! but these are good!" cried Tom, as he munched some with the Curlytops and his sister.
"This is a fine house!" exclaimed Teddy. "I'm glad you helped us build it," he said to Tom.
"Only it wants some glass in the windows," said Ted, looking at the holes in the snow walls of the house.
"We don't need glass," immediately put in Tom.
"Why not?" asked Jan. "If we put wooden windows in we can't see through 'em."
"We can use sheets of ice!" cried Tom. "My father said that that's the way the Eskimos do up at the north pole. They use ice for glass."
"You can see through ice all right," saidTed. "But where could we get any thin enough for windows for our snow house?"
"All the ice on the pond and lake is covered with snow," added Lola.
"We can put some water out in pans," went on Tom. "If it's cold to-night it will freeze in a thin sheet of ice, and then to-morrow we can make windows of it for our snow house."
"Oh, that'll be fun!" cried Ted.
"It will be almost like a real house!" added Jan.
Mrs. Martin said, when the Curlytops asked her, that Tom's plan might work if the night turned cold enough to freeze. And as after dark it did get colder she put some water out in large shallow pans. In the morning the water was frozen into thin sheets of ice, clear as crystal, and Ted and Jan could see right through them as well as they could see through glass.
"They're great!" cried Tom when he saw them, and that afternoon when school was out, the ice windows were set in the holes in the walls of the snow house.
"'Dis nice place!" Trouble said, when he was taken out to it. "I 'ikes it here! I stay all night!"
"No, I guess you won't stay all night," laughed Tom. "You might freeze fast to the snow bench."
"How plain we can see out of the windows," said Lola. "Oh, see, Ted, here comes your goat! I guess he's looking for you."
"He must 've got loose and 've run out of his stable," said Teddy. "I'll go to fasten him up. Here, Nicknack!" he called as he walked out of the snow house toward his pet.
Nicknack kept on coming toward the white house. He walked up to one of the windows. The sun was shining on it and as Ted looked he cried:
"Oh, I can see Nicknack in the glass window just as if it was a looking glass. And Nicknack can see himself!"
This was true. The goat came to a sudden stop and looked at his ownreflectionin the shiny ice window. Nicknack seemed much surprised. He stamped in the snow with his black hoofs, and then he raised himself up in the air on his hind feet. At the same time he went:
"Baa-a-a-a! Baa-a-a-a-a!"
"Oh, Nicknack's going to buck!" cried Ted.
"Who's he going to buck?" asked Tom, sticking his head out of the blanket door of the snow house.
"I guess he thinks he sees another goat in the shiny ice window," went on Ted, "and he's going for that. Oh, look out! Come back, Nicknack! Come back!" Teddy yelled.
But with another bleat and a shake of his head Nicknack, having seen himself reflected in the ice window, and thinking it another goat, started on a run for the snow house, inside of which were Jan, Tom, Lola and Trouble.
Soundinghis funny, bleating cry, like a sheep, Nicknack gave a jump straight for the ice window in which he had seen himself as in a looking glass.
"Crash!" went the ice window.
"Oh, my!" screamed Lola, inside the snow house.
"What is it?" asked Jan, for Lola stood in front of her.
Trouble looked up from where he was sitting beside Tom on the snow bench, and just then the goat went right through the soft, snow side of the house and scrambled down inside.
"Dat's our goat!" exclaimed Trouble, as if that was the way Nicknack always came in. "Dat's our goat!"
For a moment Jan and Lola had been so frightened that they did not know what itwas. Luckily they were not in Nicknack's way when he jumped through, so he did not land on them.
But the snow house was so small that there was hardly room for a big goat inside it, besides the four children, even with Ted outside, and Nicknack almost landed in the laps of Tom and Trouble when he jumped through. In fact, his chin-whiskers were in Trouble's face, and Baby William laughed and began pulling them as he very often did.
"Baa-a-a-a!" bleated the goat and then he quickly turned around to see, I suppose, what had become of the other goat against which he had leaped, intending to butt him out of the way.
"Oh, Nicknack!" cried Jan. "What made you jump in on us like that?"
"Oh, my, I'm so scared!" gasped Lola. "Will he bite us?"
"Nicknack never bites," answered Janet reprovingly. "But what made him jump into the snow house and break the ice window?"
"'Cause he saw himself in it," answered Ted, coming in just then. "I knew what he was goin' to do but I couldn't stop him.Say, Tom, he made an awful big jump!"
"I should say he did!" exclaimed Tom. "I thought the whole place was coming down! You'd better call your goat out, Curlytop, or he may knock our snow house all to pieces."
"All right, I will," agreed Ted. "Here, Nicknack!" he called. "Come on outside!"
Nicknack turned at the sound of his little master's voice, and just then he saw another ice window. The sun was shining on that, too, and once more Nicknack noticed the reflection of himself in the bright ice, which was like glass.
"Baa-a-a-a-a!" he bleated again. "Baa-a-a-a!"
"Look out! He's going to jump!" cried Tom.
He made a grab for the goat, but only managed to get hold of his short, stubby tail. To this Tom held as tightly as he could, but Nicknack was not going to be stopped for a little thing like that.
Forward he jumped, but he did not quite reach the ice window. Instead his horns and head butted against the side wall of the snow house, and in it he made a great hole, near the window.
This made the wall so weak that the snow house began to cave in, for the other wall had almost all been knocked down when the goat jumpedthroughthat.
"Look out!" cried Ted. "It's going to fall!"
"Come on!" yelled Tom, letting go of Nicknack's tail.
"Take care of Trouble!" begged Jan of her brother.
Ted caught his little brother up in his arms. It was as much as he could do, but, somehow or other, Ted felt very strong just then. He was afraid Trouble would be hurt.
And then, just as the children hurried out of the door, pulling away, in their haste, the blanket that was over the opening, the snow house toppled down, some of the boards in the roof breaking.
"Oh, it's a good thing we weren't in there when it fell!" cried Lola. "We'd all have been killed!"
"Snow won't kill you!" said her brother.
"But the boards might have hurt us," said Lola. "Our nice house is all spoiled!"
"And Nicknack is under the snow in there!" cried Ted.
"No, he isn't! Here he comes out," answered Janet. And just as she said that, out from under the pile of boards and the snow that was scattered over them, came Nicknack. With a wiggle of his head and horns, and a scramble of his feet, which did not have any rubber on now, Nicknack managed to get out from under the fallen playhouse, and with a leap he stood beside the children.
"There, Nicknack! See what you did!" cried Janet.
"Spoiled our nice snow house!" added Lola.
"We'll build you another," promised Ted. "Say, I never knew our goat was such a good jumper."
"He's strong all right," agreed Tom.
"Nicknack a funny goat!" laughed Trouble, as his brother set him down on a smooth place in the snow.
"I guess Trouble thinks it was all just for fun," said Tom. "He isn't scared a bit."
"Oh, Trouble doesn't get scared very easy," answered Jan. "He's always laughing. Aren't you, Trouble?" and she hugged him.
"Well, shall we build the house overagain?" asked Tom, when Ted had taken the goat back to the stable and fastened him in so he could not easily get loose.
"It'll be a lot of work," said Lola. "You'll have to make a whole new one."
"Yes, Nicknack didn't leave much of it," agreed Tom. "Shall we make a bigger one, Ted—big enough for Nicknack to get in without breaking the walls?"
"Oh, I don't know," returned Ted slowly. "There isn't much snow left, and some of the boards are busted. Let's make a snow man instead."
"All right!" agreed Tom. "We'll do that! We'll make a big one."
"I don't want to do that," said Jan. "Come on, Lola, let's go coasting."
"An' take me!" begged Trouble.
"Yes, take him," added Ted. "He'll throw snowballs at the snow men we make if you don't."
So Baby William was led away by the two girls, and Tom and his chum started to make a snow man. But they soon found that the snow was not right for packing. It was too hard and not wet enough.
"It's too cold, I guess," observed Tom, when he had tried several times to roll abig ball as the start in making a snow man.
"Then let's us go coasting, too," proposed Ted, and Tom was willing.
So the boys, leaving the ruins of the snow house, and not even starting to make the snow man, went to coast with the girls, who were having a good time on the hill with many of their friends.
"Oh, it's snowing again!" cried Ted when the time came to go home, as it was getting dusk.
"We've had a lot of storms already this winter," added Lola.
"My grandpa wrote in a letter that a hermit, up near Cherry Farm, said this was going to be a bad winter for storms," put in Jan. "Maybe we'll all be snowed in."
"That'll be great!" cried Tom.
"It will not!" exclaimed his sister. "We might all freeze to death. I don't like too much snow."
"I do!" declared Ted. "And there's a lot coming down now!"
There seemed to be, for the white flakes made a cloud as they blew here and there on the north wind, and it was quite cold when the Curlytops and their friends reached their homes.
All the next day it snowed, and Ted and Jan asked their father and mother several times whether or not they were going to be snowed in.
"Oh, I guess not this time," answered Mr. Martin. "It takes a regular blizzard to do that, and we don't often get blizzards here."
Though they felt that possibly being snowed in might not be altogether nice, still Ted and Jan rather wanted it to happen so they could see what it was like. But that was not to come with this storm.
Still the wind and snow were so bad, at times, that Mrs. Martin thought it best for the Curlytops to stay in the house. Trouble, of course, had to stay in also, and he did not like that a bit. Neither did Jan or Ted, but there was no help for it.
"What can we do to have some fun?" asked Teddy, for perhaps the tenth time that day. He stood with his nose pressed flat against the window, looking out at the swirling flakes. "Can't I be out, Mother?" he asked again.
"Oh, no, indeed, little Curlytop son," she answered.
"But we want some fun!" chimed in Jan. "Isn't thereanythingwe can do?"
"Have you played with all your games?" asked her mother.
"Every one," answered the little girl.
"And we even played some of 'em backwards, so's to make 'em seem different," put in Teddy.
"Well, if you had to do that it must be pretty hard!" laughed Mrs. Martin. "I know it isn't any fun to stay in the house, but to-morrow the storm may be over and then you can go out. I know that won't help matters now," she went on, as she saw that Teddy was about to say something. "But if you'll let me think a minute maybe I can plan out some new games for you to play."
"Oh, Mother, if you only can!" cried Jan eagerly.
"Don't talk—let her think!" ordered Teddy. "We want to have some fun—a lot of fun!"
So he and his sister sat very quietly while his mother thought of all the things that might be possible for a little boy and girl and their baby brother to do when they had to stay in the house.
"I have it!" cried Mrs. Martin at last.
"Something for us to play?" asked Janet.
"Yes. How would you like to play steamboat and travel to different countries?"
"Not real?" cried Ted, with a look at the snow outside.
"Oh, no, notreal, of course," said his mother, with a smile. "But you can go up in the attic, and take the old easy chair that isn't any good for sitting in any more. You can turn that over on the floor and make believe it's a steamboat. In that you and Jan and Baby William can pretend to travel to different countries. You can say the floor is the ocean and you can take some blocks of wood to make the islands, and if any one steps in the make-believe water he'll get his feet wet."
"Make-believe wet," laughed Teddy.
"That's it," his mother agreed with a laugh. "Now run along up and play, and then you won't think about the snow and the storm. And before you know it—why, it will be night and time to go to bed and in the morning the storm may be over and you can be out."
"Come on!" cried Jan to her brother.
"Wait a minute," he said, standing still in the middle of the room, while Trouble, who seemed to know that something was goingon different from usual, jumped up and down, crying:
"We hab some fun! We hab some fun!"
"But you mustn't jump like that up in the attic," said his mother, shaking her finger at him. "If you do you'll rattle the boards and maybe make the plaster fall."
"Do you mean the plaster like the kind I had on when I was sick?" asked Jan.
"No, my dear, I mean the plaster on the ceiling," said her mother. "Well, Teddy, why don't you go along and play the game I told you about?" she asked, as she saw the little boy still standing in the middle of the sitting-room. "Play the steamboat game with the old chair. The chair will be the ship, and you can take the old spinning wheel to steer with, and maybe there's a piece of stovepipe up there that you can use for a smokestack. Only, for mercy's sake, don't get all black, and don't let Trouble getblack."
"Come on, Ted!" cried his sister to him.
"I was just thinkin'," he said thoughtfully. "Say, Mother, don't folks get hungry when they're on a ship?"
"I guess so, Ted."
"And even on a make-believe one?"
"Well, yes, I suppose they do. But you can make believe eat if you get make-believe hungry."
"But what if we getreallyhungry?" asked Teddy. "I'm that way now, almost. Couldn't we have something real to eat on the make-believe steamboat, Mother?"
Mrs. Martin laughed.
"Why, yes, I suppose you could," she answered. "You children go on up to the attic and get the old chair ready to play steamboat, and I'll see what I can find to bring up to you to eat."
"Now we can have some fun!" cried Ted, and he no longer looked out of the window at the snow, and wished he could be in it playing, even though that was not exactly good for him.
Up the stairs trooped the Curlytops, followed by Trouble, who grunted and puffed as he made his way, holding to the hem of Jan's dress.
"What's the matter, Trouble?" asked Jan, turning around.
"Maybe he's making believe he's climbing a mountain," said Ted. "You always have to breathe hard when you do that."
"Did you ever climb a mountain?"
"No, but I ran up a hill once," answered her brother, "and that made my breath come as fast as anything. I guess that's what Trouble is doing."
"No, I isnot!" exclaimed the little boy, who heard what his sister and brother were saying about him. "I 'ist is swimmin', like I did at Cherry Farm," he said. "I play I is in the water."
"I guess he's ready to play steamboat, all right," laughed Jan. "Come along, little fat Trouble!" she called, and she helped him get up the last of the steps that led to the attic.
The children found an old easy chair. It was one Mr. Martin had made some years before, and was a folding one. It had a large frame, and could be made higher and lower by putting a cross bar of wood in some niches. The seat of the chair was made of a strip of carpet, but this had, long ago, worn to rags and the chair had been put in the attic until some one should find time to mend it. But this time never seemed to come.
Often, before, Ted, Jan and Trouble had played steamboat with it. They laid it down flat, and then raised up the front legs andthe frame part that fitted into the back legs. These two parts they tied together and could move it back and forth, while they made believe the carpet part of the chair was the deck of the boat.
"All aboard!" called Janet, as Teddy laid the chair down on the floor.
"Wait a minute!" called her brother.
"What for?" Janet wanted to know.
"'Cause I haven't got the steerin' wheel fixed. I got to get that, else the boat will go the wrong way. Wait until I get the old spinning wheel for a steerer."
Up in the attic, among many other things, was an old spinning wheel, that used to belong to Mrs. Martin's mother's mother—that is the great-grandmother of the Curlytops. The spinning part of the wheel had been broken long before, but the wheel itself would go around and it would make something to steer with, just as on the real large steamers, Ted thought.
The spinning wheel was put in front of the chair steamboat, and then Jan got on "board," as it is called.
"Wait for me!" cried Trouble, who was hunting in a corner of the attic for something with which to have some fun.
"Oh, I won't forget you," laughed Jan, and then all three of the children were ready for the trip across the make-believe ocean.
They crowded together on the carpet deck of the chair boat while Ted twirled the wheel and Jan moved the legs back and forth as if they were the engine. Trouble cried "Toot! Toot!" he being the whistle, and they rode about—at least they pretended they did—and had lots of fun, stopping at wooden islands to pick cocoanuts and oranges from make-believe trees.
"Here comes mother with something real to eat!" cried Teddy, after a bit, and up to the attic did come Mrs. Martin with some molasses cookies. The children had lots of fun eating these and playing, and before they knew it, night had come, bringing supper and bedtime.
Toward evening of the second day it stopped snowing, and the next day was quite warm, so that when Ted and Jan went out to play a bit in the snow before going to school, Ted found that the white flakes would make fine snowballs.
"Oh, it packs dandy!" he cried. "We can make the snow man this afternoon!" and hethrew a snowball at Nicknack's stable, hitting the side of it with a bang.
"Yes, this will make a good snow man," said Tom after school, when he and Ted tried rolling the large balls. "We'll make a regular giant!"
And they started at it, first rolling a big ball which was to be the body of the snow man.
Aroundand around in the back yard, near what had once been a snow house, but which was only a big drift now, went Ted and Tom, rolling balls to make the snow man. Finally Ted's ball was so large that he could not push it any more.
"What'll I do?" he asked Tom. "Shall I leave it here and make the snow man right in this place?"
"No. I'll help you push it," Tom said. "We want that for the bottom part of the snow man, so it will have to be the biggest ball. Wait, I'll help."
The two boys managed to roll the ball a little farther, and it kept getting larger all the while, for as it rolled more snow clung to it and was packed on.
"There, I guess it's big enough," panted Tom, after a while. "Now, we'll pile myball on top and then we'll put a head on our man."
"Where's his legs goin' to be?" asked Jan, who came out of the house just then to look on for a while, bringing Trouble with her.
"Oh, we'll carve them out of the lower part of the big snowball," answered Ted. "I'll show you."
With a shovel he and Tom cut away some of the snow, making big, fat, round, white legs for the man, who, as yet, had neither eyes, a nose nor a mouth, to say nothing of ears.
"Now we've got to have some buttons for his coat and some eyes for his head," said Tom, when the legs were made. On them the snow man stood up very straight and stiff.
"What do you want for eyes?" asked Ted.
"I saw a snow man in Grace Turner's yard last year," said Jan, "and that one had pieces of coal for eyes."
"That's just what we'll use!" cried Tom.
"I'll get the coal in our cellar," offered Ted, as he ran away to get the black lumps.
"Bring a lot and we'll make some buttons for his coat," called Tom.
"I will," Ted answered.
"Don't get the lumps too big!" shouted Jan.
"No, I won't," replied Ted; then he ran on to do his errand.
Two of the largest chunks of coal were stuck in the snow head of the man, and now he really began to look like something. The rest of the coal was stuck in the larger snowball and the black lumps looked just like coat buttons in two rows.
"There's his nose!" exclaimed Tom, as he fastened a lump of snow in the middle of the man's fat face. "And here's his mouth," he went on as he made a sort of cut in the snow with a stick.
"Oh, that doesn't look like a mouth," cried Janet. "I know a better way than that."
"Pooh! girls don't know how to make snow men!" exclaimed Ted. "You'd better go and get your doll, Janet."
"I do so know how to make a snow man, Theodore Martin! And if you think I don't I won't tell you the best way to make a mouth! So there!" and Janet, with her head held high in the air, and her nose up-tilted, started away, taking Trouble with her.
"Oh, I didn't mean anything!" protested Ted. "I was only foolin', Jan!"
"That's right!" added Tom. "Go on, tell us how to make a good mouth. Mine doesn't look much like one, but that's the way I always make 'em when I build a snow man."
"Well, I'll tell you," said Jan, turning back. "You want to take a piece of red flannel or red paper. Then it looks just like the snow man had red lips and was stickin' out his red tongue. I mean sticking," she added, as she remembered to put on her "g."
"Say! thatisa good way to make a mouth, Ted!" cried Tom. "We'll do it. But where'll we get the red flannel?"
"I've got a piece of red cloth left over from my doll's dress," went on Janet. "I'll get that for you."
"Thanks," murmured Ted. "I guess girls do know something about snow men," he added to Tom.
"Course they do," the other boy agreed. "I like your sister Janet."
Ted began to feel that, even if Janet was a year younger than he, she might be smarter in some ways than he was. He was sure of it when he saw how well the snowman looked with his red tongue and lips which Tom made from the scarlet cloth Jan gave him.
"Now if we only had a hat for him he'd look great!" cried Ted, when the last touches were being put on the snow man, even ears having been given him, though, of course, he could not hear through them.
"I know where there's an old hat—a big stovepipe one," said Jan. She meant a tall, shiny, silk hat.
"Where is it?" asked Tom.
"Up in our attic. Daddy used to wear it, mother said, but it's too old-fashioned now. Maybe she'd let us take it."
Mrs. Martin said the children might have the old tall hat, which was broken in one place, but the snow man did not mind that. It was soon perched on his head and then a very proper figure indeed he looked, as he stood up straight and stiff in the yard back of the house.
More than one person stopped to look at what the Curlytops had made and many smiled as they saw the tall silk hat on the snow man. He even had a cane, made from a stick, andhe was altogether a very proper and stylish snow man.
Trouble seemed to think the white man with his shiny black hat, was made for him to play with, for no sooner was it finished than Baby William began throwing snowballs at "Mr. North," as Mrs. Martin said they ought to call the gentleman made from white flakes.
"Oh, you mustn't do that!" cried Ted, as he saw what his little brother was doing. "You'll hit his hat," for one of Trouble's snowballs came very near the shiny "stovepipe" as Jan had called it.
"Trouble 'ike snow man," said the little fellow, laughing.
"Well, we like him, too," answered Janet, "and we don't want you to spoil him, baby. Don't throw snowballs at Mr. North."
"Here, I'll help you make a little snow man for yourself," offered Ted to his brother.
"Oh, dat fun!" laughed the little fellow. "I want a biggest one."
"No, a small one will be better, and then you can throw as many snowballs at it as you want," went on Ted.
Jan helped Ted make the snow man for Trouble, for Tom and Lola were called home by their mother. In a short while Trouble'swhite image was finished. Jan found more red cloth to make the lips and tongue, Ted got more coal for eyes and coat buttons and then he made a paper soldier hat for the small snow man.
"Do you like it, Trouble?" asked his brother, when it was finished.
"Nice," answered Baby William. "Bring it in house to play wif!"
"Oh, no! You mustn't try to do that!" laughed Janet. "If you brought your snow man into the house he would all melt!"
"All melt away?" asked the little fellow.
"Yes, all melt into water. He has to stay out where it's cold. Play with him out here, Trouble."
So Trouble did, making a lot of snowballs which he piled around the feet of his man, so that they might be ready in case the snow man himself wanted to throw them.
Then Teddy and Janet went coasting just before supper, coming home with red cheeks and sparkling eyes, for it was cold and they had played hard.
"Well, Trouble, is the snow man all right?" asked Ted, as he and Jan sat down to supper a little later.
HE WAS ALTOGETHER A VERY STYLISH SNOW MAN.The Curlytops Snowed InPage 82
"Iss. Big snow man in yard," answered Baby William.
"He'll take care of your little snow man all night," added Janet. "Then your little snow man won't be afraid to stay out in the dark, Trouble."
"Trouble's snow man not be in dark," was the answer. "He gone bed. Trouble's snow man gone bed."
"What does he mean?" asked Ted.
"Oh, I presume he's just pretending that he put his snow man to bed in a drift of snow," said Mrs. Martin. "The poor child is so sleepy from having played out all the afternoon that he can't keep his eyes open. I'll put you to bed right after supper, Trouble."
"Trouble go to bed—snow man go to bed," murmured Baby William. He was very sleepy, so much so that his head nodded even while he was eating the last of his bread and milk. And then his mother carried him off to his room.
Ted and Janet sat up a little later to talk to their father, as they generally did.
"Did you hear any more from Grandpa Martin?" asked Ted, after he had finished studying his school lesson for the next day.
"What about?" asked Mr. Martin.
"About the big snowstorm that's coming."
"Oh, you mean about what the hermit said," laughed his father. "No, we haven't had any more letters from grandpa."
"But we will have enough to eat even if we are snowed in, won't we?" Jan queried.
"Oh, yes, I guess so," answered Daddy Martin. "Don't worry about that."
"Can those hermits really tell when there's going to be a big storm with lots of snow?" asked Ted.
"Well, sometimes," admitted Mr. Martin. "Men who live in the woods or mountains all their lives know more about the weather than those of us who live in houses in towns or cities most of the time. Sometimes the hermits and woodsmen can tell by the way the squirrels and other animals act and store away food, whether or not it is going to be a hard winter. But don't worry about being snowed in. If we are we'll make the best of it."
A little later Ted and Jan, still thinking what would happen if a storm should come heavy enough to cover the house, started for their bedrooms. As Janet undressed andturned back the covers of her bed she gave a scream.
"What's the matter?" asked her mother from the hall.
"Maybe she saw a baby mouse!" laughed Ted.
"Oh, no. Mother! Daddy! Come quick!" cried Jan. "There's somebody in my bed!"
Mrs. Martin ran into her little girl's room, and there, on the white sheet, half covered, she saw a strange bedfellow.
"Oh, what is it? What is it?" cried Jan, backing into the farthest corner of her room. "What's in my bed?"
"It's a man!" cried Ted, who had run in from his room. "Oh, Daddy, there's a man in Jan's bed!" he shouted down the stairs.
"It can't be—it isn't large enough for a man!" said Mrs. Martin, who was going toward the gas jet to turn it higher.
Her husband dropped the paper he had been reading as the children were getting ready for bed, and came racing up the stairs. Into Jan's room he went, and, as he entered, Mrs. Martin turned the light on so that it shone more brightly.
Daddy Martin gave one look into Jan's bed and then began to laugh.
"Oh, Daddy! what is it?" cried the little girl. "Is it a man in my bed?"
"Yes," answered her father, still laughing. "But it's a very little man, and he couldn't hurt anybody."
"Not if he was a—a burglar?" asked Ted in a whisper.
"No; for he's only a snow man!" laughed Mr. Martin.
"Asnowman!" exclaimed Mrs. Martin.
"A snow man in my bed!" gasped Jan. "How did he get there?"
By this time so much noise had been made that Trouble, in his mother's room, was awakened. He came toddling into Jan's room, rubbing his sleepy eyes and holding up his little nightdress so he would not stumble over it.
"Dis mornin'?" he asked, blinking at the bright lights.
"No, it isn't morning, Trouble," answered his mother with a laugh. "But I guess Jan will have to sleep in your bed and you'll have to come in with me. The snow man has melted, making a little puddle of water and her sheets are all wet. She can't sleep in that bed."
They all gathered around to look at the strange sight in Jan's bed. As her motherhad said, the snow man, which was about two feet long, had melted. One of his legs was half gone, an ear had slid off and his nose was quite flat, while one of the pieces of coal that had pretended to be an eye had dropped out and was resting on his left shoulder.
"Datmysnow man!" announced Trouble, after a look. "Me put him s'eepin's in Jan's bed!"
"You did?" cried Mother Martin. "Well, it's a good thing you told us, for I was going to ask Ted if he had done it as a joke."
"No'm, Mother; I didn't do it!" declared Ted.
"And it is the little snow man we helped Trouble make," added Jan, as she took another look. "I couldn't see good at first 'cause it was so dark in my room. But it's Trouble's snow man."
"Did you really bring him in and put him to sleep in Jan's bed?" asked Baby William's father.
"Iss, I did," answered Trouble, still rubbing his eyes. "My snow man not want to stay out in dark cold all night alone. Big snow man might bite him. I bringed him in wif my two arms, I did, and I did put him in Jan's bed, I did. He go s'eepin's."
"Well, he's slept enough for to-night," said Mr. Martin, still laughing. "Out of the window you go!" he cried, and raising the sash near the head of Jan's bed he tossed the snow man—or what was left of him—out on the porch roof.
"Here, Nora!" called Mrs. Martin. "Please take the wet clothes off Jan's bed so they'll dry. The mattress is wet, too, so she can't sleep on it. Oh, you're a dear bunch of Trouble!" she cried as she caught Baby William up in her arms and kissed his sleepy eyes, "but you certainly made lots of work to-night. What made you put the snow man in Jan's bed?"
"So him have good s'eepin's. Him very twired an' s'eepy out in de yard. I bringed him in, I did!"
"Well, don't do it again," said Mr. Martin, and then they all went to bed, and the snow man—what was left of him—slept out on the roof, where he very likely felt better than in a warm room, for men made of snow do not like the heat.
"Well, Trouble, what are you going to do to-day?" asked his father. He was just finishing his breakfast and Baby William had just started his.
"Trouble goin' make nudder snow man," was the answer.
"Well, if you do, don't put it in my bed," begged Jan, with a laugh.
"Put him in wif Nicknack," went on Trouble.
"Yes, I guess our goat doesn't mind snow, the way he butted into our house," observed Ted.
"Oh, aren't we going to build another ever?" asked Jan. "It was lots of fun. Let's make another house, Ted."
"All right, maybe we will after school. It looks maybe as if it would snow again."
"We have had more snowstorms than we usually do at this time of the year," remarked Mrs. Martin. "I guess Grandpa Martin's old hermit told part of the truth, anyhow."
"Come on, Jan!" cried Ted to his sister, as they left the table to get ready for school. "We'll have a lot of fun in the snow to-day."
"Will we go coasting or skating?" Janet asked.
"There isn't any skating, unless we clean the snow off the pond," replied Ted. "And that's an awful lot of work," he added."When we come home from school we'll build a great big snow house, if the snow is soft enough to pack."
"On your way home from school," said Mrs. Martin to Ted and Jan, "I want you to stop at your father's store. He'll take you to get new rubber boots. Your old ones are nearly worn out, and if we are to have much snow this winter you'll need bigger ones to keep your feet dry. So stop at daddy's store. He'll be looking for you."
"New rubber boots!" cried Ted. "That's dandy!"
"Oh, may I have a high pair?" asked Jan. "I want to wade in drifts as high as Ted does, and I can't if you get me low boots."
"Your father will get you the right kind," said Mrs. Martin. "The boot store is near his, and he'll go in to buy them with you."
Jan and Ted were very glad they were going to have new rubber boots, and Ted was thinking so much about his that when his teacher in school asked him how to spell foot he spelled "b-o-o-t!"
The other boys and girls laughed, and at first Ted did not know why. But, after a bit, when he saw the teacher smiling also,he remembered what he had done. Then he spelled foot correctly.
"Theodore was thinking more of what to put on his foot, than about the word I asked him to spell," said the teacher.
Mr. Martin's store was not far from the school, and Ted and Jan hurried there when their lessons were over.
"Where you goin'?" asked Tom Taylor, as he came running out of the school yard. "Come on, Curlytop, and let's make another snow man."
"I will after I get my new rubber boots," promised Ted. "You can start making it in our yard if you want to. But don't let Trouble make any more little snow men. He put one in my sister's bed last night."
"He did?" laughed Tom. "Say, he's queer all right!"
"Well, Curlytops, did you come to buy out the store?" asked Mr. Martin with a laugh as he saw his two children come in and walk back toward the end, where he had his office.
"We want rubber boots," said Ted.
"And I want big high ones, just like those he's going to have," begged Jan, pointing to her brother.
"We'll get them just alike and then you won't have any trouble," laughed her father. "Only, of course, Ted's will have to be a little larger in the feet than yours, Jan."
"Oh, yes, Daddy! That's all right," and she smiled. "But I want mine high up on my legs."
Telling one of his clerks to stay in the office until he came back, Mr. Martin took Ted and Jan to the shoestore a few doors down the street. There were many other boys and girls, and men and women, too, getting boots or rubbers.
"Well, Mr. Martin," said the clerk who had come to wait on the Curlytops, "I see you're getting ready for a hard winter. If you get snowed in out at your house, these youngsters can wade out and buy a loaf of bread."
"We're going to have a lot to eat in our house," put in Ted, "'cause a hermit my grandpa knows said we might get snowed in."
"Indeed!" exclaimed the clerk. "Well, it looks as though we would have plenty of snow. We've had more so far this year than we did in twice as long a time last season.Now about your rubber boots," and he took the measure of the feet of Ted and Jan, and soon fitted them with high boots, lined with red flannel.
"Do they suit you, Jan?" asked her father.
"Yes, they're just right," she answered. "I like 'em!"
"They're fine!" cried Ted, stretching out his legs as he sat on the bench in the shoestore. "Now I can wade in deep drifts," for the boots could be strapped around his legs at the top, as could Jan's, and no snow could get down inside.
"Well, run along home and have fun in the snow!" said their father. "Oh, I forgot something! Come on back to the store a minute. I bought a new kind of chocolate candy to-day and I thought maybe you might like to try it."
"Oh, Daddy! We would!" cried Jan, clapping her hands.
"Mind you! I'm notsureyou'll like it," her father said, trying not to smile, "but if youdon't, just save it for Nicknack. He isn't particular about candy."
"Oh, we'll like it all right!" laughed Ted. "Hurry, Jan. I'm hungry for candy now!"
The chocolate was very good, and Ted and Jan each had as large a piece as was good for them, and some to take home to their mother, with a little bite for Trouble. As the Curlytops were getting ready to leave their father's store the clerk came from the office and said:
"While you were gone, Mr. Martin, a lame boy came in here to see you."
"A lame boy?" Mr. Martin was much surprised.
"Yes. He said he had been in a Home up near Cherry Farm, where you were last summer," went on the clerk.
"What did he want?" asked Mr. Martin.
"I don't know. He didn't say, but stated that he would wait until you came back. So I gave him a chair just outside the office. He seemed to know about you and Ted and Jan."
"A lame boy! Oh, maybe it was Hal Chester!" cried Jan.
"But Hal isn't lame any more," Mr. Martin reminded her. "At least he is only a little lame. Did this boy limp much?" he asked the clerk.
"Well, not so very much. He seemed anxious to see you, though."
"Where is he?" asked Mr. Martin. "I'll be glad to see him. Where is he now?"
"That's what I don't know. I had to leave the office a minute, and when I came back he was gone."
"Gone?"
"Yes, he wasn't here at all. And, what is more, something went with him."
"What do you mean?" asked Mr. Martin.
"I mean the lame boy took with him a pocketbook and some money when he went out," answered the clerk.
Mr. Martinsaid nothing for a few seconds after hearing what his clerk told him. Ted and Jan looked at each other. They did not know what to say.
"Are you sure the lame boy took the pocketbook and the money?" asked the Curlytops' father of his clerk.
"Pretty sure; yes, sir. The pocketbook—it was a sort of wallet I had some papers in besides money—was left on this bench right near where he was sitting while he was waiting for you. I went away and when I came back he was gone and so was the pocketbook. He must have taken it."
"Was there much money in it?"
"Only about fifteen dollars."
"That's too bad. I wonder what the boy wanted. Didn't he say?"
"Not to me, though to one of the otherclerks who spoke to him as he sat near the bench he said he was in need of help."
"Then it couldn't have been Hal Chester," said Mr. Martin, "for his father is able to provide for him. Besides, Hal wouldn't go away without waiting to see Ted and Jan, for they had such good times together at Cherry Farm and on Star Island.
"Hal Chester," went on Mr. Martin to the clerk, who had never been to Cherry Farm, "was a lame boy who was almost cured at the Home for Crippled Children not far from my father's house. He left there to go to his own home about the time we broke up our camp. I don't see why he would come here to see me."
"Maybe his father lost all his money and Hal wanted to see if you'd give him more," suggested Jan.
"Or maybe he wanted to get work in your store," added Ted.
"I hardly think so," remarked his father. "It is queer, though, why the boy should go away without seeing me, whoever he was. I'm sorry about the missing pocketbook. I know Hal would never do such a thing as that. Well, it can't be helped."
"Shall I call the police?" asked the clerk.
"What for?" Mr. Martin queried.
"So they can look for this lame boy, whoever he was, and arrest him for taking that money."
"Maybe he didn't take it," said Mr. Martin.
"He must have," declared the clerk. "The pocketbook was right on the bench near him, and after he went away the pocketbook wasn't there any more. He took it all right!"
"Well, never mind about the police for a while," said the children's father. "Maybe the lame boy will come back and tell us what he wanted to see me about, and maybe he only took the pocketbook by mistake. Or some one else may have walked off with it. Don't call the police yet."
"I'm glad daddy didn't call the police," said Ted to Jan, as they went home a little later, carrying their fine, new, rubber boots.
"So'm I," agreed his sister. "Even if it was Hal I don't believe he took the money."
"No, course not! Hal wouldn't do that. Anyhow Hal wasn't hardly lame at all any more. The doctors at the Home cured him," said Ted.
"Unless maybe he got lame again in the snow," suggested Janet.
"Well, of course he might have slipped down and hurt his foot," admitted Ted. "But anyhow I guess it wasn't Hal."
Neither of the Curlytops liked to think that their former playmate would do such a thing as to take a pocketbook that did not belong to him. Mother Martin, when told what had happened at the store that day, said she was sure it could not be Hal.
"There's one way you can find out," she said to her husband. "Write to Hal's father and ask him if he has been away from home."
"I'll do it!" agreed Mr. Martin, while Ted and Jan were out in the snow, wading in the biggest drifts they could find with their high rubber boots on. Their feet did not get a bit wet.
In a few days Mr. Martin had an answer from the letter he had sent to Mr. Chester, Hal's father. The letter was written by a friend of Mr. Chester's who was in charge of his home and who opened all the mail. Mr. Chester, this man wrote, was traveling with his wife and Hal, and no one knew just where they were at present.
"Then it might have been Hal, after all, who called at your office," said Mrs. Martin to her husband. "He may have been near here, and wanted to stop to see the children, and, not knowing where we lived, he inquired for your store. But if it was Hal I'm perfectly sure he didn't take the pocketbook."
"So am I," said Mr. Martin. "And yet we haven't found it at the store, nor was there anyone else near it while the lame boy was sitting on the bench. It's too bad! I'd like to find out who he was and what he wanted of me."
But, for the present, there seemed no way to do this. Ted and Jan wondered, too, for they would have liked to see Hal again, and they did not, even for a moment, believe he had taken the money. Hal Chester was not that kind of boy.
The Curlytops had much fun in the snow. They went riding down hill whenever they could, and made more snow men and big snowballs. Ted and Tom Taylor talked of building a big snow house, much larger than the first one they had made.
"And we'll pour water over the walls, and make them freeze into ice," said Ted."Then Nicknack can't butt 'em down with his horns."
But there was not quite enough snow around the Martin yard to make the large house the boys wanted, so they decided to wait until more of the white flakes fell.
"There'll be plenty of snow," said Ted to his chum. "My father had another letter from my grandfather, and he says the hermit said a terribly big storm was coming in about two weeks."
"Whew!" whistled Tom Taylor. "I guess I'd better go home and tell my mother to get in plenty of bread and butter and jam. I like that; don't you?"
"I guess I do!" cried Ted. "I'm going in now and ask Nora if she'll give us some. I'm awful hungry!"
Nora took pity on Ted and the other boy who was playing in the yard with him, and they were soon sitting on the back steps eating bread and jam.
They had each taken about three bites from the nice, big slices Nora had given them, when around the back walk came a man who was limping on one leg, the other being of wood. Though the man's clothes were ragged, and he seemed to be whatwould be called a "tramp," he had a kind face, though as Ted said afterward, it had on it more whiskers than ever his father's had. Still the man seemed to be different from the ordinary tramps.
"Ah, that's what I like to see!" he exclaimed as he watched the boys eating the bread and jam. "Nothing like that for the appetite—I mean to take away an appetite—when you've got more than you need."
"Have you got an appetite?" asked Tom Taylor.
"Indeed I have," answered the man. "I've got more appetite than I know what to do with. I was just going to ask if you thought I could get something to eat here. Having an appetite means you're hungry, you know," he added with a smile, so Ted and Tom would understand. The man looked hungrily at the bread and jam the boys were eating.
"Would you—would you like some ofthis?" asked Teddy, holding out his slice, which had three bites and a half taken from it. The half bite was the one Ted took just as he saw the man. He was so surprised that he took only a half bite instead of a whole one.
"Would I like that? Only just wouldn't I, though!" cried the man, smacking his lips. "But please don't ask me," he went on. "It isn't good for the appetite to see things and not eat 'em."
"You can eat this," said Teddy, as he held out his slice of bread and jam. "I've taken only a few bites out of it. And I cleaned my teeth this morning," he added as if that would make it all right that he had eaten part of the slice.
"Oh, that part doesn't worry me!" laughed the tramp. "But I don't want, hungry as I am, to take your bread and butter, to say nothing of the jam."
He turned aside and then swung back.
"There is butter on the bread, under that jam, isn't there?" he asked.
"Yes," answered Tom. "It's good butter, too."
"So I should guess," went on the man. "I can most always tell when there's butter on the bread under the jam. There's always one sure way to tell," he said.
"How?" asked Ted, thinking it might be some trick.
"Just take abite!" laughed the man, and the two boys on the back steps laughed, too.
"Are you sure you don't want this?" the tramp went on, as he took the partly eaten slice Ted held out to him. "I wouldn't for the world, hungry as I am, take your slice——"
"Oh, Nora'll give me more," said Ted eagerly. He really wanted to see the man bite into the slice. Ted said afterward that he wanted to know how big a bite the man could take.
"Well, then, if you can get more I will take this," said the man, as he eagerly and, so it seemed to the boys, very hungrily bit into the slice—or what was left of it after Ted had taken out his three and a half nibbles. What Ted took were really nibbles alongside the bites the man took.
"Were you in a war?" asked Tom, as he watched the tramp take the last of Ted's bread.
"No. Why did you think I was—because I have a wooden leg?"
The boy nodded.
"My leg was cut off on the railroad," went on the tramp. "But I get along pretty well on this wooden peg. It's a good thing in a way, too," he added.
"How's that?" asked Tom.
"Well, you see havin' only one leg there isn't so much of me to get hungry. It's just like having only one mouth instead of two. If you boys had two mouths you'd have to have two slices of bread and jam instead of one," went on the tramp, laughing. "It's the same way when you only have one leg instead of two—you don't get so hungry."
"Are you hungry yet?" asked Tom, as he saw the tramp licking off with his tongue some drops of jam that got on his fingers.
"I am," the man answered. "My one leg isn't quite full yet—I mean my one good leg," he added. "You can't put anything—not even bread and jam into this wooden peg," and he tapped it with his cane.
"Take my slice of bread," said Tom kindly. "I guess I can get some more when I get home."
"Nora'll give you some same as she will me," said Teddy. "Go on and eat—I like to watch you," he added to the tramp.
"Well, you don't like to watch me any more than I like to do it," laughed the ragged man, as he began on the second slice of bread and jam.