“I’m coming with you!” shouted Freddie.
“So am I!” echoed Flossie.
“Not much, you aren’t!” exclaimed Bert. “You’d freeze your ears off. It’s cold out!”
He could tell this, even though he had not been out of doors, by listening to the “squeak” of the snow as wagons were drawn along the street in front of the house. For the snowfall had been so sudden that few sleighs were out as yet.
“Well, I don’t want to freeze my ears,” said Freddie.
“I don’t, either,” agreed Flossie. So they no longer teased to be allowed to go out and play.
Nan got breakfast and then gave Bert Mrs. Pry’s liniment bottle to have filled at the drug store. She also told her brother what to bring from the store, besides bread. Then, well wrapped up and wearing his rubber boots, Bert started out. The snow was deep, and it was cold, as he had said. But he did not mind even though it took his breath to plow through it.
He stopped in the drug store first, and handed Mr. Renner the bottle to fill with liniment.
“How’s everybody up at your house, Bert?” asked the druggist.
“We’re all right—what there is of us,” Bert answered. “My father and mother are away, and so are Sam and Dinah. And Mrs. Pry’s in bed with lumbago. The liniment is for her.”