“Gosh! it’s cold this morning,” mumbled Tuttle. “Ground is froze stiff and puddles skimmed side of the road.”
“Yep,” answered Chipper; “there’ll be skating pretty soon. What you doing over here so early?”
Tuttle entered the shed. “I couldn’t sleep at all last night,” he confessed. “Don’t b’lieve closed my eyes once. Couldn’t help thinking about Rod Grant going clean off his nut.”
“’Sh!” hissed Chipper, tiptoeing up some steps and closing a door that led toward the kitchen. “I don’t want mother to find it out—yet. I s’pose she’ll have to know about it pretty soon. Sleep! Say, I never got a bit. Couldn’t help thinking all night long that Grant might be lost in the woods or drowned or freezing or something. Have you heard anything this morning, Chub?”
“No; I cut across back lots so’s not to come through the main street of the village. Four or five times last night I sat up in bed, thinking I heard people out searching for Grant. Jiminy, Chipper, didn’t he look just awful when Bern opened the closet door! I’ve never seen a crazy person before, but I knew he was stark daffy the minute my eyes fell on him.”
“So did I,” nodded Cooper. “We should have had sense enough to realize that, having a batty streak in his family, he was liable to go woppy like that.”
“Never occurred to me,” confessed Chub, turning the sawhorse on its side and seating himself on it. “Did you eat any breakfast?”
“Not a morsel.”
“Same here. Have some peanuts.”
Cooper declined the proffered handful of peanuts, and Chub, trying to swallow one, nearly choked over it.