“Well, maybe it isn’t,” Nan agreed. “But listen to that!”
She pointed upward, and Bert heard Flossie and 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 the cause 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!”