CHAPTER XVIILOST TREASURES
“Let’sgo out and look in the snow,” suggested Artie. “You must have dropped it between your house and ours.”
As the two boys opened the front door a whirl of snow flew in their faces. In the brief time they had been within doors a new snowstorm had gained headway.
“Who’s that?” called Fred, suddenly.
“Who’s that yourself?” Carrie Pepper’s voice retorted. “Your old snowman is enough to scare any one going by—they’ll think it is a giant.”
Carrie hurried across the street with the mail, and Fred tried not to think she might have been hunting around the snowman.
“Shewasstooped over,” he said to himself. “But she may have dropped a letter. Anyway, I don’t suppose she would take the bank if she found it.”
Then he remembered Polly’s pin.
“She might think it would plague me,” he thought. And he had to admit that if that was Carrie’s plan—always provided she had found the bank—she could not think of a better plan for teasing him.
“Well, it isn’t here, that’s all,” declared Artie, brushing the snow off his gloves after an unsuccessful grubbing about in the snow. “I don’t see what you could have done with it, Fred.”
“Oh, Fred!” Jess’s voice came to them out of the storm. “Is that you? I came back to look for my glove. I don’t suppose you’ve seen it?”
“Your glove?” repeated Fred. “Is that lost?”
“Yes, it is, and it’s a brand new one,” returned Jess, ready to cry. “Mother got them for me when she went to the city. They’re brushed wool, and they’re gauntlets, and they cost six dollars!”
“Gee, that’s tough luck,” said Artie, sympathetically. “But I don’t believe you lost it around here, Jess. I’ve been all around the snowman on my hands and knees, and I would have found it if it had been anywhere around.”
“Did you lose something, too?” asked Jess, surprised.
Fred was in no mood to hide his troubles.
“I’ve lost the bank,” he said abruptly. “And all the club money in it. I had it before westarted to build the snowman, and now I can’t find it.”
“Isn’t it in your house?” asked Jess.
Fred explained where he and Artie had looked.
“Well, I never heard of such a thing!” said Jess. “My good glove and your bank gone! Somebody must have picked them up—that’s all.”
“Carrie Pepper was out here when we started to look,” Artie announced.
“Then she found it!” cried Jess. “I’m going right over now to her house and ask her to give me back my glove. You come along, Fred, and make her give you the bank. That’s the same as stealing, to take things like that.”
“It isn’t stealing to take one glove,” protested Artie.
“’Tis, too,” insisted Jess. “What good is one glove? No good at all! Carrie Pepper knows those gloves are new. She has to give it back to me, that’s all there is to it.”
“Well, you take my advice and go mighty slow about accusing any one of taking your glove,” said Fred, earnestly. “I’d no more go to her and ask her for the bank than I’d fly. I might as well come right out and say she stole it.”
“She took Polly’s pin, didn’t she?” Jess demanded.
“That’s different. Lots of people might takea pin, and they wouldn’t take money. Besides, how do we know Carrie didn’t intend to give the pin back to Polly? Margy didn’t give her a chance to return it.”
“Jess! Jessie! Come in right away!” called Mrs. Larue.
Jess had to go in to supper without her glove, and Artie went home, too. Fred looked around in the snow for a few minutes longer, but the storm was increasing and he finally gave up. He could hardly touch his supper, and afterward he told his father what had happened.
“I’m sorry I didn’t put the money in the bank, as you said,” poor Fred concluded his story. “But I never thought I could lose a thing like a bank.”
“Well, Fred, it seems as though it must turn up,” Mr. Williamson said, trying to speak cheerfully. “I don’t see, myself, how a bank and its money contents could disappear, unless some one has stolen it. And we won’t think that.”
“Try to remember where you had it last, Fred,” his mother suggested.
“Why, IthoughtI took it over to the Marleys’ to leave in the clubroom,” said Fred. “I can’t remember letting it out of my hand. But the room was locked and Ward hadn’t been near it.”
“Perhaps you left it somewhere else in theMarleys’,” said Mrs. Williamson, “and you were in such a hurry to get out and build the snowman, you did not notice. If Artie or Polly find it, they’ll be over to tell you.”
But neither Polly nor Artie found the bank. Fred went over there before going to bed—and had to plough through several inches of fresh snow—but none of the Marley family had seen the bank.
In the morning the window sills were banked high with snow and there were no foot prints around the snowman, who stood tall and strong, a handsome guard for the street.
“We’ll give him a tree to hold before Harry Worden comes to take his picture,” said Ward, eagerly.
But Fred felt little interest in the snowman. He could think of nothing but the missing bank.
“I’ll resign as treasurer,” he said to Polly, on their way to school.
The sun was out and the snow had stopped. A white world, brilliant and beautiful, was spread before their eyes.
“I’ll resign,” said Fred. “I’m not fit to be treasurer and take care of other people’s money. I’m too careless. And I’ll save every cent of my allowance and pay all the money back to the club.”
“Don’t be silly, Fred,” Polly told him loyally.“We don’t want you to resign. No one will be as good a treasurer as you are.”
“I’m no good at all,” said Fred, bitterly.
“Yes, you are, too!” flashed Polly. “You’re fine. It isn’t exactly your fault that the bank is lost. Every one is likely to lose things. You don’t have to have to make the money up, either. If one of us had lost it, you wouldn’t make him pay the money back. Besides, Mother says she is sure the bank will be found.”
“Did she say that?” asked Fred, hopefully. “Daddy thought so, too. I wish it would be found, but I feel it is gone for good. And the worst of it is, I can’t remember putting it down anywhere.”
“What do you suppose Carrie Pepper will say when she sees me wearing my pin?” said Polly, hoping to take Fred’s mind off his troubles.
Instead, she only succeeded in starting his thoughts on another tack. Had Carrie Pepper found anything in the snow the night before? Or was she merely feeling around for a letter or parcel she might have dropped?
“I hate these ugly old mittens,” Jess was complaining to Margy. “They’re not a bit pretty, and they’re not nearly as warm as my lovely gloves. Mother says maybe she’ll get me a new pair for my birthday in February, but I’ll have towear these horrid old things till then, because I’m so careless.”
Margy, not having lost any treasure, felt free to keep an eye on Carrie and observe the effect of Polly’s pin on her. Polly had the pin in its usual place—above the pocket of her middy blouse, and Carrie apparently did not notice it until Polly went to the board during the arithmetic lesson.
“There—she’s seen it,” said Margy to herself, as Carrie stared.
Then, heedless of the lesson, Carrie began to rummage through her desk. She pulled out the box of cough drops, the pencils, the handkerchief, and an apple she had brought for recess. Then, keeping her eye on the board as though she were following the example, her hands began to explore the desk. She was feeling for the pin.
Perhaps the intensity of Margy’s gaze made her glance over her shoulder. Margy’s eyes were dancing. A sudden, deep flush spread over Carrie’s face.
“Now she knows,” said Margy to herself. “And the next time she finds anything that doesn’t belong to her, I hope she’ll give it up.”
Harry Worden came that afternoon and took a picture of “Riddle Chap,” but Fred could think only of his bank and Jess was looking for herglove all the time the snapshots were being taken. It was lucky that something happened to distract their attention and, in the case of Fred, it was doubly welcome. He felt so bad to think he had lost the money belonging to the club that his mother was afraid he would worry himself sick.
“You try to get the prize riddle, Fred,” Mrs. Williamson told him. “That will give the treasury a good start again.”
Fred said he would try, but that noon he came home from school, excited and eager.
“The principal was telling us this morning in assembly, Mother,” said Fred, “that there is a family in River Bend who is just about starving to death. The town is going to take care of them, but there are six children in the family and they want to give them a real Christmas. The day before school closes they’re going to take up a collection.”
“And I suppose you want me to tell you and Margy how to earn some money,” said Mrs. Williamson, smiling.
“No, I have a new scheme,” said Fred. “We’re going to have a session of the Riddle Club before Christmas. I haven’t had a chance to talk this over with Polly yet, but I thought it would be fine if we had an open meeting and askedthe fathers and mothers to come. The way you did in camp this summer, you know.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with the Christmas collection,” said Margy, who was listening.
“It has a lot to do with it,” Fred retorted. “I thought that, instead of paying forfeits when Mother and the others missed a riddle, they could pay money, and we could give the money to the poor children. And if we missed riddles, we’d pay, too.”
“Why, Fred, I like that plan very much,” said his mother. “I’m sure Polly will like it, too. Tell her as soon as you can, so you’ll all have time to study up hard riddles.”
“You won’t mind not being able to guess them, will you, Mother?” laughed Margy. “You like to help people along.”
When Mr. Williamson heard of this plan, he was even more enthusiastic than his wife. He said he had a plan of his own, but that he would keep it a secret till the meeting.