“It sounds like almost anything,” Bert answered as he made haste in putting on his clothes.
In her room Aunt Sallie had caught the word “chimney,” spoken by Flossie and Freddie, but she had not heard what else the small twins said. She did hear the banging sound, however, and she called:
“Oh, Nan, what is it? Is the chimney on fire? If it is, throw a lot of salt in the stove. Salt will put out chimney fires,” which was true enough, only the chimney was not blazing—at least, Bert and Nan hoped it was not.
Nan answered the old lady, saying:
“We don’t know what it is, Aunt Sallie. I don’t believe the chimney is on fire. Bert is going to look.”
“Oh, Bert dropped a book, did he?” exclaimed Mrs. Pry. “Well, that’s all right—you can’t help dropping things once in a while, and you can’t break a book by dropping it. But it must have been a very large book to make so much noise.”
“Ho! Ho!” silently laughed Freddie as he was dressing with his brother. “She thought Nan said a book, but she said you were going to look.”
“Don’t laugh,” whispered Bert. “Aunt Sallie can’t help being deaf.”
And as they did not want to agitate the old lady, neither Nan nor Bert told her that something worse had happened than the mere dropping of a book.
That some danger was at hand Nan and Bert were very sure. The crashing, banging sound kept up, and at times the whole house shivered and shook, and it was not the wind which was doing this, either.