BERT WENT ABOUT, PRETENDING HE WAS A PULLMAN WAITER.

The Bobbsey Twins Keeping House. Frontispiece ([Page 140])

The Bobbsey Twins
Keeping House

BY
LAURA LEE HOPE
AUTHOR OF “THE BOBBSEY TWIN SERIES.”

NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS

Made in the United States of America

Copyright 1925, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP

The Bobbsey Twins Keeping House

Contents

CONTENTS

THE BOBBSEY TWINS KEEPING HOUSE

CHAPTER I

DOWN IN A PIPE

“Now it’s Freddie’s turn!” called Nan Bobbsey. “Get ready to catch the ball,” and she motioned, showing that she was going to toss it to her small brother.

“No, I want to have it once more!” cried Flossie, who was Freddie’s twin sister. “Come on, Nan! Please throw it to me!” and she jumped up and down, her light, fluffy hair tossing about her head. It was cold out in the yard where the children were playing, and that is one reason why Flossie jumped up and down. Another reason was that she was excited about the ball game Nan had gotten up for the smaller twins. “Come on, toss it to me!” begged Flossie.

“But it isn’t your turn, dear!” objected Nan. “It’s Freddie’s turn. He wants to catch, too,” and she held the big rubber ball, looking at Flossie meanwhile.

“Oh, just one more turn for me!” Flossie begged, jumping up and down faster than ever.

“Oh, all right! Let her have it!” agreed Freddie, good-naturedly. “I’ll wait.”

“That’s kind of you,” said Nan. “All right, Flossie, you may have this next toss! Get ready!”

“One more turn for me!” sang Flossie gaily. “One more turn for me! Hurry up, Nan, please!”

Flossie stopped her jumping-jack movements, and with outstretched hands and shining eyes awaited the ball, which Nan tossed across an old flower bed. In the past summer bright blossoms had made this part of the garden very gay. But now, with winter coming on, the flowers had been killed by Jack Frost and the stalks were sear and brown.

“I got it!” cried Flossie. But she spoke a moment too soon, for the ball just touched the tips of her fingers, bounced off, and rolled across the frozen ground of the flower garden right to Freddie’s feet. He picked it up.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Flossie. She had so much wanted to catch the ball this last time, but she had missed it.

“You muffed!” cried Freddie. He had heard his older brother Bert speak like that when, in a real ball game, some boy failed to hold the ball. “You muffed it, Flossie!”

Then, seeing that there were tears in his twin sister’s eyes, Freddie did a very manly and generous thing.

“You can have another turn,” he said. “Toss it to Flossie again, Nan. I don’t mind waiting.”

“That’s nice of you, Freddie,” said Nan.

“Thank you!” cried Flossie, quickly “squeezing back” her tears. “I’ll give you some of my candy, Freddie!”

“Will you?” he exclaimed. “What kind is it, Flossie?”

“It isn’t any kind yet, ’cause I haven’t got it,” the little golden-haired girl explained as Nan took the ball from her small brother and got ready to throw it again. “But I mean, when I do get some candy I’ll give you a piece.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Freddie, somewhat disappointed. “Well, anyhow, you can have another turn to catch the ball.”

“Maybe if Nan should take us down town now she would buy us some candy,” went on Flossie, getting ready for this next attempt to catch the rubber ball. “Then I could give you some, Freddie.”

“Ho! Ho!” laughed Nan. “That’s a gentle hint, I suppose, Flossie, for me to take you after candy. But I’m afraid I can’t to-day. Now get ready. If you miss the ball this time it won’t be fair to make Freddie wait any longer.”

“I’ll catch it this time!” cried Flossie, and she did. Right in her hands she caught the bouncing rubber, and then she threw it back to Nan while Freddie got ready for his turns.

Meanwhile, Flossie danced about, waiting until the ball would again come to her. Flossie was a lively little girl—always dancing, running, singing, or doing something. And Freddie was about the same. In fact, the Bobbsey twins were a lively set of youngsters.

Freddie had caught the ball four times and Nan was getting ready to toss it to him for the fifth when a whistle was heard around the corner of the house.

“Here comes Bert!” cried Flossie, and she darted off to meet her older brother. Bert was Nan’s twin and these two were a few years older than the smaller Bobbsey twins.

“Maybe Bert will want to play ball,” suggested Freddie, as he caught the rubber sphere for the fifth time, making a perfect score for him.

“We’ll see,” replied Nan.

But when Bert came whistling around the corner of the house, Flossie holding him by one hand, he seemed to have something else in mind than playing toss-ball with his smaller brother and sister.

“You can’t guess what I know!” he called, swinging Flossie around in a circle by her two hands, her feet flying off the ground.

“Have you got candy?” the little girl demanded, when Bert had set her down.

“Candy? No!” he laughed. “But there’s a new horse in our garage.”

“A horse in our garage!” cried Nan. “Do you mean a runaway?”

“No, he isn’t running away—he’s just standing there,” Bert answered, with a grin.

“How did a horse get in our garage?” asked Flossie.

“A man put it there,” Bert answered.

“Oh, I don’t believe you!” exclaimed Nan.

“A horse couldn’t get in our garage!” added Freddie.

“Why not?” Bert wanted to know. “It’s big enough—our garage is. And, anyhow, it used to be a stable with horses in it before daddy made it over for automobiles. Of course a horse could be in our garage.”

“Well, maybe it could,” admitted Nan. “But what’s the horse doing there?”

“Just standing still.”

“Is he eating?” Flossie wanted to know.

Bert thought this over for a moment before he answered:

“No, the horse isn’t eating.”

There was something in her brother’s voice that made Nan look at him sharply. Then she cried:

“Look here, Bert Bobbsey, there’s something queer about this! What kind of a horse is it?”

Before Bert could answer Freddie asked:

“Has the horse four legs?”

“Yes, indeed, it has four legs! I’m sure of that for I just counted them!” and Bert seemed so very positive on this point that Nan didn’t know what to think.

“Come on and I’ll show you the horse if you don’t believe me,” offered Bert, moving off toward the garage.

All thoughts of keeping on with the ball game were now forgotten by Flossie and Freddie. They were eager to see the strange horse in their father’s garage. Nan could not imagine how the animal could have been put there.

“But maybe one of the store wagons broke and they had to leave the horse in our garage until they get the wagon fixed,” she thought to herself.

Into the garage ran the Bobbsey twins, Flossie and Freddie merrily laughing, Bert with a queer look on his face, and Nan ready for almost anything.

“Where’s the horse?” demanded Freddie, entering first and looking around.

“I don’t see any horse,” added Flossie, who had closely followed her small brother.

“There it is!” exclaimed Bert.

He pointed to a carpenter’s sawhorse in one corner of the building.

For a moment the smaller children looked at it in surprise. Then Freddie burst out laughing.

“Oh, ho! A sawhorse! A sawhorse!” he exclaimed.

“But it has got four legs—one, two, three, four!” counted Flossie. “Oh, isn’t it funny! I thought you meant a real horse, Bert.”

“So did I!” said Freddie.

“And I did, too, for a little while,” admitted Nan. “But pretty soon I thought it must be a joke. And I don’t think it’s a very good joke, either, Bert Bobbsey, so there!”

“Well, let’s see you think of a better joke!” laughed Nan’s twin brother. “Ha! Ha! I had you all fooled! It’s a sawhorse, and you all thought it was a real horse! Oh, ho!”

“I can get on the back of this sawhorse,” announced Freddie. “Look at me!” He ran toward the wooden thing.

“Don’t fall!” cautioned Nan. But this Freddie almost did in climbing up on the sawhorse, which was rather a high one. Bert caught him just in time.

“How did it get here?” Freddie asked, when he was seated on the back of the “animal.”

“The carpenters have been working here, and they left it,” Bert explained. “When I saw it I thought it would be a good joke to make believe it was a real horse. And I fooled all of you!”

Nan was going to say again that she had not been fooled very much when Flossie, looking out of the window, cried:

“Oh, it’s snowing! It’s snowing!”

“Is it? Really?” Freddie wanted to know. “Are you fooling like Bert was with the sawhorse, Flossie?”

“No, it’s really snowing!” the little girl answered.

“Oh, hurray! I want to see it!” cried Freddie, and he was in such a hurry to descend from the back of the sawhorse that this time he fell in real earnest. However, as there was a pile of shavings on the floor, left there by the carpenters, Freddie fell into them and was not hurt at all. But he was covered with the shavings.

However, Nan picked him up and brushed him off, and then he ran to the window out of which the others were looking.

“It really is snowing!” said Nan.

“Looks as if it would last, too,” added Bert.

“Oh, can I have my sled out?” begged Flossie.

“I want mine, too!” chimed in Freddie. “Oh, I’m so glad it’s winter and we’re going to have ice and snow! Come on, let’s go sleigh-riding! Hurray!”

“Don’t be in such a rush,” advised Bert. “There’ll have to be more snow than this before you can use your sleds.”

“But quite a lot has fallen, and it’s still snowing hard,” said Nan. “It must have started soon after we came in here.”

The twins had been in the garage some little time, laughing and talking about Bert’s joke and playing on the carpenter’s sawhorse, and in that period the ground had been whitened with the flurry of flakes.

“I’m going out and see how deep it is,” announced Freddie.

Before either Nan or Bert could stop him, if they had wanted to, the little fellow went to a side door of the garage and, opening this, rushed out. But he did not go far.

Right at the door a new drain was being put in. A large sewer pipe was set upright in the ground. Work around it was not yet finished, and that was why the side door had been closed.

But Freddie opened it. Then he slipped on the newly fallen snow and a moment later disappeared down the drain pipe!

CHAPTER II

A BROKEN WINDOW

For a moment following Freddie’s accident there was silence. Even the little fellow himself was so frightened that he forgot to cry out. But a second or two later he found his voice and set up a series of yells.

“Oh! Oh! Get me out! Help me, Bert!” he begged.

“Oh, Freddie, you poor boy!” gasped Nan.

“Is he dead? Will we ever get him up?” Flossie wanted to know, and she burst into tears.

“Yes! Yes! I’ll get him out! He can’t fall any farther!” shouted Bert. “I’ll lift him out in a minute! You’re all right, Freddie,” he went on. “Don’t cry any more!”

“I am not all right!” wailed the little chap. “I’m down in a pipe! How can I—be all—all right—when I’m in a pipe?”

He was crying and Flossie was sobbing. Nan did not know what to do.

Bert, however, seemed to know what he was about. He hurried to the edge of the drain pipe, down which his small brother had slipped, and began to consider the best way to get Freddie out.

And while Bert is doing that I shall take just a moment to tell my new readers something about the four children. They were first introduced to you in the book called “The Bobbsey Twins,” and in that you read about Mr. Richard Bobbsey and his wife, Mary, who lived in the eastern city of Lakeport on Lake Metoka. Mr. Bobbsey owned a lumberyard there.

There were two sets of twins. Bert and Nan were the older. They had dark brown hair and brown eyes. Flossie and Freddie had light hair and blue eyes. Thus the Bobbsey twins were quite a contrast, and when the four walked down the street together more than one person turned to look at them.

The children had good times and many adventures. They went to the country, to the seashore, and of course attended school. Once they visited Snow Lodge and were storm-bound. They had traveled on the deep blue sea, gone out West, spent some time in Cedar Camp, and had gone through some exciting times at a county fair. They had also camped out.

The book just before this one is called “The Bobbsey Twins and Baby May,” and tells how they found a strange little baby and what happened to it.

Now winter was coming on again, and the children counted on having more fun. Bert had played his joke about the sawhorse, and then had followed Freddie’s fall down the drain pipe.

“Can you get him up?” asked Nan anxiously.

“Sure I can!” Bert answered. “You stand over there, Nan, on the other side of him. Reach down in the pipe and put your hand under Freddie’s left arm.”

Nan did this while Bert did the same thing on the other side. The drain pipe was about as large as Freddie’s body. He had slid into it feet first, and his hands were down at his sides. The pipe was not large enough for him to lift his hands over the edge, or he might have pushed himself out.

But with Bert and Nan to lift him, he was soon pulled from the drain, more vexed than hurt. Though it was found later that he had skinned one shin rather painfully.

“There you are!” cried Bert, as he and Nan set their little brother on his feet out on the snow-covered ground. “You are all right, Freddie. And don’t go jumping down any more pipes!”

“I didn’t jump down!” declared the little fellow, with some indignation. “I slipped in!”

“You went in so quick,” observed Flossie, “it was as if the sawhorse kicked you in, wasn’t it, Freddie?”

“Yes, it was,” he said, and then he laughed. So did Bert and Nan. A moment later, however, a look of pain passed over Freddie’s face and he put one hand down on his left shin.

“What’s the matter?” Nan asked.

“My leg hurts!”

“Maybe it’s broken,” suggested Flossie.

“How could I walk if my leg was broken?” the little boy demanded, and he strutted about, though he limped a little.

“Let me look,” suggested Bert, and when he had pulled down Freddie’s stocking they all saw that the shin had been skinned and was bleeding slightly. It had been scraped on the edge of the drain pipe.

“Oh, look!” cried Flossie. “He’s got the nose bleed on his leg!”

Freddie had been going to cry at the sight of the blood. But when Flossie said this in such a funny way he laughed, and so did Bert and Nan.

“We’d better take him in the house and fix his leg,” said Bert to his twin.

“Yes,” Nan agreed.

“Can’t I go sleigh-riding?” Freddie wanted to know. “Look how nice it’s snowing!”

The white flakes were, indeed, swirling down faster than ever. For the first snow of the season, it was quite a storm, and the ground was now covered with the soft flakes.

“Oh, my dear, what has happened?” cried Mrs. Bobbsey, when she saw Freddie, covered with snow, limping toward the house, escorted by Nan, Bert and Flossie.

“I—I fell in a pipe!” Freddie answered.

“A pipe? What sort of game were you playing?” his mother wanted to know.

“It wasn’t a game,” said Bert, and then he explained.

Freddie’s leg felt better after his mother had bandaged it with some soothing salve, and then he was allowed to go out and play in the snow on his sled with Flossie.

Bert had thought the snow would not amount to much, but a little later he, too, got out his sled.

Nan did likewise, and the Bobbsey twins and some of their friends had a jolly time on a little coasting hill not far from the house.

“Winter’s come pretty early this year,” said Charlie Mason, one of Bert’s chums, as the two boys went down the hill together, bobsled fashion.

“Yes,” agreed Bert. “We’ll have a lot of fun at school to-morrow, making a snow fort. That is, if the snow doesn’t melt.”

But there was plenty of snow on the ground when the children awakened the next morning, though the storm had stopped and the sun was shining.

“I hope the sun doesn’t melt all the snow,” sighed Flossie, as she got ready to accompany her twin brother to school. They were in a lower class than Bert and Nan, but the smaller twins generally walked along with the older brother or sister.

It was when the Bobbsey twins were almost at school that John Marsh, a boy of about Bert’s age, came running around the corner of the street. John seemed rather out of breath and excited.

“What’s the matter?” asked Bert.

“Oh, that Danny Rugg and Sam Todd are pegging snowballs at me,” said John. “I wouldn’t mind soft ones, but they’re using hard balls. And they’re two to one—Sam and Danny both pegged at me.”

“That isn’t fair!” cried Bert. “They ought to fight square—even on both sides—and with soft balls. Come on, I’ll help you!”

Together the two lads went back and around the corner to the street where Danny and his rather mischievous crony were standing, leaving Nan to go with Flossie and Freddie on to school.

“Hi! There’s John again!” yelled Sam Todd, as he caught sight of the boy who had run away.

“Soak him!” shouted Danny Rugg.

But a moment later the two little bullies, for that is what they were, caught sight of Bert Bobbsey with John and the hands they had raised to throw the hard snowballs fell back at their sides.

“Hello, Danny!” called Bert, for they were on somewhat friendly terms.

“Hello,” said Danny, not very cheerfully.

“Do you want to snowball fight?” demanded Sam Todd.

“No, not now,” Bert answered. “But, anyhow, when you do fight you ought to use soft balls, and not two of you fellows go for one.”

“We didn’t use hard balls!” Danny declared.

“You did so!” cried John. “And you both pegged at me at once!”

“Aw, well, it was only in fun,” grumbled Danny. Now that Bert had joined John the odds were against the bullies, for Sam Todd was not a very large lad. “We’ll fight you after school if you like,” went on Danny. “Hard balls or soft balls, and the same number on each side.”

“And we’ll lick you, too!” boasted Sam.

“We’ll see about that!” laughed Bert. “I don’t know if I want a snowball fight or not. But I’m not going to throw any now, I know that. It’s too near the school,” for the boys had been walking along as they talked.

“We aren’t within a block yet,” declared Danny. “It’s only against the rule to throw snowballs within a block of the school,” and he rounded in his hands a ball he had been making.

“I’m not scared to throw one now,” declared Sam, and he tossed a ball at a signboard, hitting it a resounding whack.

“Neither am I!” exclaimed Danny, and he also threw. As he did so Bert and John saw something on Danny’s finger gleaming golden in the sun. The flash seemed to remind Danny of an important matter, for he held up his right hand and cried: “Look at that! Isn’t that a peach? It’s a new gold ring I got for my birthday.”

“You’re lucky,” remarked Bert, as Danny held the ring out to be admired.

“I guess I am,” boasted Danny. “No fellow in our school has a valuable gold ring like that! My father gave it to me.”

“I should think you wouldn’t like to wear it for fear you might lose it,” remarked John.

“Naw, I won’t lose it,” drawled Danny. “Go on, Bert!” he cried. “I dare you to throw a snowball at the signboard. You can’t throw as straight as I did!”

“Yes, I can!” said Bert, who did not like this said of him.

“Go on! Let’s see you!” cried Sam Todd.

As the lads were still more than a block away from the school, they could, without breaking the rule, throw snowballs.

Accordingly, Bert and John tossed a few, and Bert made much better shots than did either Danny or Sam, though John did not do so well.

“That’s because I ran and got out of breath when you two were pegging hard balls at me,” he said to the two bullies.

“Aw, we were only in fun,” Danny said.

“Two to one isn’t fair, though,” cried Bert.

“Well, you’re two now—do you want to fight?” asked Sam, who seemed eager for a battle in the snow.

Before Bert or John could answer the clanging of a bell sounded on the clear, frosty air, and Nan Bobbsey, who came through a side street with Flossie and Freddie, cried:

“That’s the next to the last bell! You’d better hurry if you don’t want to be late, Bert!”

“All right, I’m hurrying,” he said.

Even Danny Rugg, bold as he sometimes was, did not seem inclined to break the school rule and throw balls within the block limit set by Mr. Tarton, the principal. However, he still held one of the white missiles in his hand. This he tossed up and down, catching it before it had time to reach the ground. Danny’s new, gold birthday ring sparkled in the sun.

“Let me wear that ring of yours sometime, will you, Danny?” asked Sam, as he walked on beside his crony.

“Maybe,” was the answer.

“And if Bert and his crowd want to have a snowball fight after school,” went on Sam in a low voice, “I know where I can find a lot of horse-chestnuts.”

“What good’ll horse-chestnuts be in a snowball fight?” Danny wanted to know.

Sam looked around to make sure no one would hear him, then he said:

“We can put a horse-chestnut inside a soft snowball and make it sting like anything when it hits! I can get a lot of ’em. Shall I?”

“Maybe,” agreed Danny. He was a bully, but not quite as mischievous as was Sam.

On toward the school hurried the boys and girls. The echoes of the next to the last bell were ringing in their ears.

“Better get rid of our snowballs, I guess,” said Bert to John, as they crossed the street which would put them within one block of the school. “Mr. Tarton might see us.”

“That’s right,” agreed John. “Chuck your balls away, fellows!” he called. “We’re within a block.” He got rid of his own sphere of snow and Bert tossed his to one side. Several of the other boys who were near did likewise.

Then, suddenly, there was a crash of glass and the pupils looking up in startled amazement, saw that a snowball had gone through one of the beautiful stained-glass windows in a church near the school. A large piece was broken out from the window picture.

“Oh! Oh!” yelled many voices.

“Who broke the window?” cried the girls and boys.

Then, as the last bell began to ring, they all began to run so they would not be late.

CHAPTER III

THE LOST RING

Into the lower halls and corridors of the school poured the children. The last bell was still clanging, and they would not be marked late if they reached their classrooms before the last peal. The bell would ring for several minutes yet.

On all sides, as the boys and girls hurried in, could be heard talks and gasps of astonishment, not unmixed with fear, about the breaking of the church window.

“Oh, did you see it?”

“Did you hear it?”

“Didn’t it make a big crash!”

“What’ll the church people say?”

“I guess that window must ’a’ cost a thousand dollars!”

“Who did it?”

This last question was the one most often asked.

But no one seemed to know, or, if any one did, he or she was not telling about it. Nan hurried with Flossie and Freddie to their classroom, and then she hastened back toward her own. Bert was in Nan’s room, and, seeing her brother just before she entered the door, Nan whispered:

“Bert, did you break the church window?”

“No,” he answered, “I didn’t. Of course I didn’t do it!”

“Do you know who did it?”

Bert did not answer for a second or two. For the moment he and Nan were by themselves, just outside their classroom door. Then Bert looked down the corridor and saw Danny Rugg and Sam Todd coming along.

“Do you know who did it?” repeated Nan.

“Maybe I do,” Bert answered slowly. “And maybe I don’t,” he added, as Nan gave a gasp of surprise. “Anyhow, I’m not going to tell.”

That was all there was time to say. The last bell was giving its final strokes, and Bert and his sister hurried to their seats. Danny and Sam, with other boys and girls, also hastened in to their room; and then came silence, for they were not, of course, allowed to whisper in class.

The pupils had been sitting quietly a minute or two when an electric bell in the room rang. This was the signal for the children to march to the big assembly hall where the morning exercises were held.

“Attention!” called Miss Skell, who taught Bert and Nan. “Rise! Turn! March!”

There was the tramping of a hundred feet and the children were on their way to the auditorium.

It was at the close of the exercises, after the Bible reading and the singing of patriotic songs, that the principal, Mr. James Tarton, stepped to the edge of the platform and said:

“Boys and girls, I have an unpleasant announcement to make. I am very sorry to have to speak of it. But an accident happened this morning. Perhaps some of you may know what it was.”

By the gasps and murmurs that ran through the room it was easy to tell that a number of the pupils knew about what the principal was going to speak.

“Some one—a boy I think it must have been, for I doubt if a girl could throw so hard and straight. Some boy broke the rule about snowballing within a block of the school,” went on Mr. Tarton, “and threw a ball, or a chunk of ice, against one of the stained-glass windows of the church. The window was broken, and of course must be paid for. It is only right that the boy who broke it should pay for it. Now I am going to ask the boy who threw the snowball against the church window to be man enough to stand up and admit it. He will not be punished if he frankly confesses, but of course he or his father will have to pay for the broken glass.”

Mr. Tarton stopped speaking and waited. It grew very still and quiet in the room. If any one had dropped a pin it could have been heard in the farthest corner. But no one dropped a pin. Nor did any one speak. Nor did any boy stand up to say he had broken the window.

The silence continued. The teachers, sitting in a row back of Mr. Tarton on the platform, looked at the faces of the boys and girls in front of them.

“Well,” said the principal in a low voice, “I am waiting.”

Still no one got up. Some of the boys and girls began to shift uneasily in their seats and shuffled their feet. They were getting what an older person would call “nervous.”

“It does not seem,” went on Mr. Tarton, “that the boy who broke the window is going to be man enough to own up to it. I dislike to do this, but I must ask if any one here knows anything about it. I mean did any of you see any one throw a snowball at the church window?”

There was a further silence, but only for a few seconds. Then up went the hand of Sam Todd. Some of the girls gasped loudly, seeming to guess what was coming next.

“Well, Sammie,” said Mr. Tarton kindly, “what do you know about breaking the church window? Did you do it?”

“No, sir!”

“Do you know who did?”

“Yes, sir!”

More gasps of surprise.

“Who broke the window?” asked the principal.

“Bert Bobbsey!” said Sam in a firm voice, and Nan was so excited that she cried out:

“Oh!”

Nor did the principal or any of the teachers scold her. But Bert was not one to sit quietly and be falsely accused. In an instant he was on his feet, raising his hand that he might get permission to speak.

“Well, Bert,” said Mr. Tarton quietly.

“I didn’t break that window!” cried the Bobbsey lad. “I didn’t even throw a snowball toward it. I didn’t do it at all!” His face was very red.

“Sammie, did you actually see Bert Bobbsey throw a snowball at the stained-glass window and break it?” asked Mr. Tarton, and his voice was stern.

“No, sir, I didn’t really see him break the window,” Sam replied. “But I saw a snowball in his hand. I saw him raise his hand to throw the snowball, and right after that I heard the glass crack. Bert Bobbsey did it!”

“I did not!” exclaimed Bert.

“Quiet! That will do!” the principal called, raising his hand for silence. “We will not go further into the matter here. Bert, come to my office after school, and you also, Sam. We will talk about the broken window then. The classes will now go to their own rooms.”

The teacher at the piano began to play a lively march, but there was not much spring in the steps of Bert and Nan Bobbsey as they filed back to Miss Skell’s room. Bert was hurt and indignant that Sam should accuse him of breaking the window. Nan, too, felt sure that her brother had not done it.

“Don’t let him scare you, Bert!” whispered Charlie Mason, one of Bert’s best chums, to the Bobbsey lad in the corridor. “We know you didn’t do it.”

Of course it was against the rule for Charlie to whisper thus in the hall, but he was not caught at it. Bert was glad his chum had spoken to him.

“Now, children,” said Miss Skell, when her pupils were again in their seats, “we are going to forget all about the broken church window. Mr. Tarton will attend to that. And please forget that Bert has been mentioned as doing it.

“I, for one,” and Miss Skell smiled down at the blushing Bobbsey boy, “don’t believe Bert would do such a thing. I think Sammie must be mistaken. Now we shall go on with our lessons.”

Neither Danny nor Sam were in the room with Bert and Nan, and for this the two Bobbseys were glad. Sam and his crony were in the same grade with Bert and Nan, but, because of its size, the class recited in two different rooms under separate teachers.

It took a little time for the class to quiet down after the unusual excitement, but at length the recitations were proceeded with.

It was when Bert and Nan were hurrying home at the noon recess with Flossie and Freddie that Nan said to her brother:

“Who broke that window, Bert? If you know you ought to tell, especially since they say you did it.”

“Nobody says I did it except that sneak, Sam Todd, and he isn’t telling the truth!” exclaimed her twin.

“Do you know who did it?” persisted Nan. Flossie and Freddie had run on a little way ahead to play with children from their own class, and did not hear what the two older Bobbseys were saying.

“I’m not sure,” answered Bert, looking about to make certain no one was near enough to catch what he said, “I didn’t actually see him throw the snowball, but I believe Danny Rugg broke that window.”

“Oh, Bert, do you, really?” gasped Nan.

“I sure do! I can’t prove it, for I didn’t see him. But he had a snowball in his hand and he chucked it away when he was near the church. And right after that the window broke. But I’m not going to tell.”

“Oh, Bert, maybe you ought to! Do you remember the time Mr. Ringley’s shoe store window was broken?”

“Yes,” answered Bert, “I remember that time.”

“They said you did that,” went on Nan. “But afterward old Mr. Roscoe said he saw Danny Rugg throw the chunk of ice that broke the window. And when Danny found out Mr. Roscoe had seen him, then Danny owned up that he did it. Don’t you remember?”

“Yes, he broke Mr. Ringley’s window,” admitted Bert, speaking of something that happened in the first book of this series, “The Bobbsey Twins.” In that volume you meet Danny Rugg as a bad boy, who was very unfriendly toward Nan and Bert. Then, after a fight, Danny seemed to have reformed, and he became a better boy.

“He’s as bad as ever—breaking windows and things like that!” went on Nan.

“We don’t know for sure that he did it,” cautioned Bert.

“It would be just like him to do it!” declared Nan. “Are you going to tell mother?”

“Sure!”

And when Mrs. Bobbsey heard what had happened she advised Bert to speak nothing but the truth and not to accuse Danny unless he was sure that lad had broken the window.

“That’s the trouble,” sighed Bert. “I can’t be sure, but I feel pretty certain that Danny did it.”

“It will all come out right,” his mother told him. “And of course you must not say that you broke the window if you didn’t. Mr. Tarton is too fair a man to let you be accused without good proof.”

And it was not very good proof that Sam Todd could give when later in the day he and Bert went to the principal’s office. Sam told his story over again.

“Yes,” Bert admitted, “I did have some snowballs in my hand. Danny Rugg and Sam had been throwing at John Marsh, and he ran to where I was. I was going to help John fight, but there wasn’t any need. And I tossed away my snowballs before I got within a block of the school.”

“So did I,” said Sam. “And I think I saw you throw yours at the church window, Bert. Maybe you didn’t mean to break it, but you did.”

“No, I didn’t!” insisted Bert stoutly.

“I think we had better have Danny Rugg in here to see what he knows about it,” suggested Mr. Tarton. “It would not be fair to punish Bert on just your say-so, Sammie. You might be honestly mistaken. Go out and see if you can find Danny and bring him in here.”

But there was no need to go after Danny Rugg. Just as Sam was leaving the principal’s office Danny came hurrying in, much excited.

“Oh, oh, Mr. Tarton!” he exclaimed.

“What is it?” asked the head of the school. And Bert found himself wondering whether Danny was going to confess having broken the stained-glass window of the church.

“Oh, Mr. Tarton!” gasped Danny. “I’ve lost my gold ring! My birthday ring is gone!” and he held up his hand. No longer did the gold band glitter on it.

CHAPTER IV

BAD NEWS

Mr. Tarton had not been principal of the Lakeport school a number of years without knowing how to deal with the boys and girls.

He was used to all kinds of excitement, having girls fall downstairs and stopping boys from fighting. And often the pupils lost things in school. So the news that Danny had lost his ring did not startle Mr. Tarton very much.

“Well, that’s too bad, Danny,” said the principal. “I’m sorry about your ring. I’ll announce before the school to-morrow that you have lost it, and perhaps some one has found it. What kind of ring was it?”

“A birthday ring.”

“Yes, I know. But was it gold or silver and did it have a stone in it?”

“It was gold, and all carved. It didn’t have any stone in it, but on top it had the letters of my name—D. R. For Danny Rugg, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” returned the principal, while Bert looked at Danny and Sam rather soberly. For Bert did not like being accused of having broken the window when he had not even thrown at it, and he thought Danny should be man enough to own up that he did it.

“I was just going to send for you, Danny, to ask you about the broken church window,” the principal went on. “But finish telling me about your ring, so I will know what to say when school starts to-morrow.”

“Well, I had my ring on when I came to school this morning,” Danny said. “And just now, when I was going home—I was waiting outside for Sam,” he explained. “Just now I saw it wasn’t on my finger. I went back in my classroom to look for it, but it wasn’t there.”

“Very likely you dropped it somewhere around the school,” said Mr. Tarton. “I will inquire about it. But now as to this broken window. Sam says he thinks Bert did it.”

“But I didn’t!” burst out Bert Bobbsey.

“Just a moment, please, Bert,” said Mr. Tarton, in a low voice. “Did you see Bert break the window, Danny?”

“No, sir, I—now—I didn’t exactly see him break it,” answered Danny slowly. “But I saw him have a snowball in his hand.”

“You had one yourself!” cried Bert. “And so did Sam!”

“I didn’t throw it at the church, though!” Sam cried.

“Neither did I!” declared Bert.

Danny said nothing, but he did not look at Bert.

The principal questioned the boys for a long time, but he could learn nothing more. Sam stuck to it that Bert had broken the window, and though Danny did not actually say so, it was easy to see that he wanted Sam’s story to be believed. And of course Bert said he did not break the stained glass.

“Well, Bert, do you know who broke the window?” asked Mr. Tarton, at last.

For a moment the Bobbsey boy was silent. Then in a low voice he said:

“Yes, sir, I think I know who did it. But I’m not going to tell.”

Danny Rugg’s face grew rather red at this, and he seemed very much interested in looking at something outside the window.

“Well,” said Mr. Tarton, at length, “I can’t make you tell, Bert, and I don’t know that I want to. I hope that the boy who broke the window will be man enough to confess and pay for it. Meanwhile, we shall let the matter rest. You boys may go.”

Danny and Sam hurried out ahead of Bert, who walked more slowly. Since morning many things had happened, and Bert no longer felt as friendly toward Danny as he had before.

“Danny’s a whole lot meaner since he got so thick with Sam Todd,” said Bert to himself, as he walked out of the school. He could hear the two cronies talking together just ahead of him.

“Did you really lose your gold birthday ring, Dan?” asked Sam.

“Sure I did!” was the answer. “Dad’ll scold me, too, when he finds it out. I wish I could get it back.”

“Don’t you know where you lost it?” Sam wanted to know.

What Danny answered Bert could not hear, for by this time the two boys had run on ahead. They were making snowballs and throwing them.

“Trying to break more windows, I guess,” murmured Bert, as he passed the church and looked up at the hole in the beautiful stained-glass window. Then he saw a man’s head thrust out of the hole—for it was large enough for that, and Bert recognized the church sexton, Robert Shull. Mr. Shull was about to fasten a piece of plain glass over the hole in the colored window.

“Hello, Bert!” called Mr. Shull, for the Bobbseys attended this church and the sexton knew the twins.

“Hello!” Bert answered.

“I’ve got to mend this hole to keep out the snow until this window can be fixed with new stained glass,” the sexton said. “It’s going to cost quite a lot of money, too.”

“Yes, I guess so,” agreed Bert.

“Some of you boys broke this,” the sexton went on, his head still out of the hole. He was picking from the window frame small bits of broken glass that had not fallen when the snowball crashed through.

“Yes, I guess one of our fellows did it,” admitted Bert.

“I heard it was you,” went on Mr. Shull.

“Well, I didn’t!” Bert cried.

“No, I don’t believe you did. You aren’t that kind of a boy. Maybe you know who did it?” Mr. Shull seemed to be asking a question.

“Yes, maybe I do,” Bert admitted. But that was all he would say. He walked on toward home.

When Bert reached his corner and was about to turn down the street on which he lived, he saw Danny and Sam throwing snowballs at a signboard. The two cronies caught sight of him and Danny called:

“Want to get up a snowball fight, Bert Bobbsey?”

“No, I don’t!” was the answer, not very pleasantly given.

“He’s afraid of being licked!” taunted Sam.

“I am not!” cried Bert. “I’ll snowball fight you any time I feel like it, Sam Todd, but I don’t feel like it. And you needn’t go around saying I broke that church window, for I didn’t!”

“It looked just like you did it,” Sam said, not quite so sure of himself as he had been.

“Aw, stop talking about it,” advised Danny Rugg. “And say, Bert, if you find my gold ring I’ll give you a reward.”

“All right,” answered Bert in a low voice, and passed on. He did not feel much like talking to Danny and Sam.

“I’ll give you twenty-five cents!” Danny called after him. But Bert did not turn his head or answer.

On reaching home, Nan told her mother why Bert had been kept in. Mrs. Bobbsey felt sorry for her son, but she knew he had not broken the window, and she felt sure that in time the truth would be known.

So when Bert finally reached home, half an hour later than usual, he found his mother waiting for him. She asked him what had happened, and Bert told her.

“Do you really think Danny did it?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

“I’m almost sure of it,” Bert answered. “If I could only prove it I’d be glad, for then everybody would know I didn’t do it.”

“Never mind,” soothed his mother. “Perhaps, some day, you can find a way of making sure that Danny did it. Then your name will be cleared. But until you are sure, don’t say that Danny broke the window.”

“No, Mother, I won’t,” promised Bert.

“Did you say Danny lost his new birthday ring?” went on Mrs. Bobbsey.

“Yes and he was all excited about it.”

“Well, of course it’s too bad,” said Bert’s mother. “But he shouldn’t have worn a valuable ring to school—especially at snowballing time. Things lost in the snow are hard to find.”

Bert went out to play in the snow with his brother and sisters. He looked up at the evening sky and saw it covered with clouds.

“There’s going to be more snow,” Bert decided. “If a lot falls we can coast on the big hill, and we can make snow forts and snow men and everything!”

Bert, like the other Bobbsey twins, liked the fun that came with winter. He liked summer fun, also. In fact, Bert and the other three Bobbsey twins liked all kinds of fun, just as you and I do.

It was after the evening meal, when Mr. Bobbsey was telling Bert not to mind so much being accused of breaking the church window, that the doorbell rang. Dinah, the colored cook, big, fat and jolly, answered and came back with a yellow envelope in her hand.

“A telegram!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. “I hope it isn’t any bad news!”

Every one grew quiet while Mr. Bobbsey opened the message.

“Well, it is bad news—of a sort,” he said.

“What?” asked his wife.

“Uncle Rossiter is very ill,” answered Mr. Bobbsey. “He wants you and me, Mary, to come to him at once. I think we’ll have to go. It may be his last illness. We’d better start in the morning.”

“Oh, will you take us with you?” begged Nan. “I remember Uncle Rossiter. Can’t we go with you?”

“Take us! Take us!” begged Flossie and Freddie.

Mr. Bobbsey shook his head.

“No,” he answered slowly, “it would be out of the question to take you twins. You’ll have to stay at home and keep house by yourselves. Mother and I will need to leave in a hurry. We can’t take you.”

Sad looks were on the faces of all the Bobbsey twins.

CHAPTER V

AUNT SALLIE PRY

Mr. Bobbsey got out some railroad time-tables and began looking at them, trying to decide how early he and his wife must leave the next day to get to Uncle Rossiter’s home, which was several hundred miles away.

“Is Uncle Rossiter very sick?” asked Bert of his mother, who was again reading the telegram that had arrived.

“I’m afraid he is,” was the answer. “Poor old man! He is all alone in the world. Your father and I are the only relations he has left, so that’s why he wants to see us.”

“I do wish we could go with you,” sighed Bert.

“You wouldn’t want to quit school, would you?” asked his father, looking up from the time-tables.

“School isn’t so nice when a lot of fellows in it think you broke a window,” grumbled Bert.

“Nonsense!” laughed Mr. Bobbsey. “You know you didn’t do it. We know you didn’t do it, and so do your friends. The others don’t matter. And in time it will be found out who really smashed the glass.”

“But if you and mother are going away and leave us here all alone, it won’t be any fun,” said Bert.

“Oh, I think it will!” cried Nan. “We can keep house by ourselves. I love to cook and wash the dishes.”

“You won’t be alone,” Mrs. Bobbsey said. “Dinah will be here to cook and look after you. Sam will shovel the snow, if any more falls, and he’ll look after the fires. You’ll be all right with Sam and Dinah.”

Sam Johnson was Dinah’s husband, and though he was not as fat as was she, he was quite as good-natured and jolly.

“Besides,” went on Mrs. Bobbsey, “I will ask a woman to come in to help you keep house, Nan.”

“Who, Mother?”

“I’ll send for Mrs. Pry.”

“Oh, Aunt Sallie!” exclaimed Bert.

“Yes, Aunt Sallie,” his mother answered. “She is a very good housekeeper and will look after you very well. She is a little deaf, it’s true, but if you speak a little louder than usual and quite plainly, she will hear you. Flossie and Freddie aren’t going to mind staying at home and keeping house while daddy and mother are gone, are you?” and she looked at the smaller twins.

“I like to keep house,” said blue-eyed Flossie. “I’ll help Nan wash the dishes.”

“I like Aunt Sallie,” said Freddie. “She makes nice cookies, and maybe she’ll tell us stories.”

“Oh, that’ll be fun!” cried Flossie.

Mrs. Pry was an elderly lady who went about doing housework, and Mrs. Bobbsey had engaged her on other occasions when it was necessary for her to leave home for a time.

“I won’t worry about the children when Aunt Sallie is with them,” Mrs. Bobbsey said. “And now, if we are to leave early in the morning, Dick,” she said to her husband, “we had better begin packing now. You do that and I’ll telephone to the boarding house where Mrs. Pry lives and leave word for her to come early to-morrow.”

Then began a busy time in the Bobbsey house.

“My, what a lot of things have happened since yesterday!” said Nan a little later when she was helping her mother put Flossie and Freddie to bed. “Freddie fell down a drain pipe, it snowed, the church window was broken, and now you’re going away, Mother!”

“Yes, but daddy and I won’t be gone any longer than we need be, my dear. And I know you will help Dinah and Aunt Sallie keep house.”

“Oh, yes, I’ll help—I love to!” answered Nan.

After the first shock of it was over and Bert and Nan had passed the disappointment of not being allowed to make the journey with their father and mother, the older Bobbsey twins rather began to like the idea of keeping house.

“I guess Aunt Sallie will give me all the cookies I want,” thought Freddie, as he went to bed.

Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey remained up later, to pack in readiness for the early morning start. Word came from Mrs. Pry that she would come as soon as she could.

“Now, doan you all worry, Miz Bobbsey,” said Dinah to the children’s mother when the taxicab came to take the travelers to the railroad station. “Sam an’ me we’ll look after de chilluns jes’ same’s if you all was heah!”

“I know you will, Dinah,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “Now, you be good children, won’t you?” she asked, kissing them all again.

“We will,” promised Nan.

“I’m going to make a snow man!” declared Freddie.

“An’ I’m going to make a snow lady,” said Flossie.

“I’ll write you a letter,” promised Bert, “and let you know everything is all right.”

“Yes, Son, do that,” begged his father. “And if it is found out who broke the window, put that in your letter.”

Bert promised he would do this. More good-byes were said, Mrs. Bobbsey kissed the children for the third time all around, and then, trying not to let them see that her eyes were shining with unshed tears, she ran out to the taxicab, followed by her husband.

“Doan you worry now!” were Dinah’s parting words. “Everyt’ing am gwine to be all right!”

But little did Dinah, nor any of the others, know what was going to happen when the Bobbsey twins began keeping house.

So early had breakfast been served that morning, in order that Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey could take the train, that it was not yet time for school. So Bert went out to the garage where Sam Johnson was at work, for Bert wanted to fix something on his sled.

“I believe it’s going to snow more,” Bert said, looking up at the clouded sky, “and I want my clipper in shape for the big hill.”

“Yes,” agreed Sam, “I shouldn’t wonder myse’f but whut we’d hab mo’ snow. Feels mighty like it! Come in, Bert, an’ shut de do’,” he added, for Bert was standing in the garage with the door partly open as he scanned the sky.

“If it’s going to storm,” said the boy, as he got out his sled to mend one of the runners that was loose, “I hope it doesn’t get too bad before dad and mother reach Uncle Rossiter’s.”

“Yes,” agreed Sam. “’Twouldn’t be no fun to hab dem snowed in—fo’ a fac’ it wouldn’t!”

Nan wanted to help Dinah wash the dishes, as she said she had time before school. But the fat, good-natured cook chuckled and said:

“Nebber mind, honey lamb. I got loads ob time. You jes’ see dat mah odder two sweethearts am ready fo’ school, bress dere hearts!” She meant Freddie and Flossie.

So Nan looked after the younger twins and then, as the hands of the clock pointed toward half past eight, the Bobbsey twins—all of them—went to their classes.

“But what about Aunt Sallie Pry?” asked Bert of Nan. “I thought she was coming to keep house for us.”

“I guess she’ll be at the house when we come home to lunch,” Nan said.

That morning, before the assembled classes, Mr. Tarton mentioned Danny Rugg’s lost birthday ring, speaking about the gold initials on top.

“If any of you children find Danny’s ring,” went on the school head, “either give it to him or bring it to my office.”

Danny Rugg raised his hand for permission to speak.

“What is it, Danny?” asked the principal, while the whole school wondered what was coming next. Bert Bobbsey had a wild idea in his head.

“Maybe Danny’s going to confess that he broke the window,” said the Bobbsey boy to himself.

But what Danny said was:

“I’ll give twenty-five cents to whoever finds my lost ring.”

Some of the teachers laughed a little at this, and even Mr. Tarton smiled, but he said:

“All right, Danny. You have heard the offer of the reward,” he went on to the school. “And now about another matter. Yesterday it was said here that Bert Bobbsey broke the church window. I want to say that there is no proof of this. Bert says he did not do it, and we are bound to believe him.

“I do hope that whoever broke the stained glass will be manly enough to admit it, and pay for the damage to the church. I have heard from Mr. Shull, the sexton, that it will cost about ten dollars to repair the window.”

Several of the children gasped at this. To most of them ten dollars was a great deal of money. And Bert thought Danny looked a trifle pale on hearing this news.

But nothing more was said about the broken window, and the classes marched to their several rooms and the school day went on.

Hurrying home at noon, the Bobbsey twins were rather surprised to find that Aunt Sallie Pry had not yet arrived to help Dinah take charge of the house.

“Maybe she isn’t coming,” suggested Bert.

“Oh, yes, she’s suah to come!” Dinah stated. “Mrs. Pry, she done tellyfoam me dat she’d be ober dis ebenin’.”

“Is anything the matter?” Nan wanted to know.

“She done say she got a li’l touch ob de misery in her back,” Dinah explained.

“What’s misery?” Freddie wanted to know.

“A sort o’ pain,” Dinah told him. “Now eat you lunch, honey lambs, so’s you kin git to de head of de class when you goes back to school.”

“I’m head of the class now, Dinah,” said Freddie. “That is, I’m head of the boys. Flossie is head of the girls’ side.”

“Aw right, honey lamb!” chuckled Dinah. “Den you all had done bettah eat a good lunch so’s you all kin stay at de head!”

Back to school went the Bobbsey twins, and when the classes were out later in the afternoon they hurried home again. As they reached the house a few flakes of snow began to fall.

“Oh, look!” cried Freddie. “More snow! Hurray!”

“Hurray!” cried Flossie. “Oh, won’t we have fun!”

The wind began to blow and the snow fell more thickly.

“It’s going to be quite a storm,” said Bert.

“I wonder if mother and daddy won’t be snowed in on the train?” said Nan. “Trains do get snowed up, don’t they, Bert?”

“Sometimes they do, I guess,” he answered. “But maybe mother and dad are at Uncle Rossiter’s by this time.”

“No, they won’t get there until late to-night,” Nan said. “It’s a long journey.”

“Oh, well, maybe they won’t get snowed in,” said Bert.

“I’m going to play with my sled!” cried Flossie. Then she opened her mouth wide, trying to catch snowflakes on her rosy tongue.

“So’m I!” added Freddie.

“Well, you may play out for a time,” said Nan, acting the part of a “little mother.” Then she told the two smaller twins to go in and get on their rubber boots and old coats, so if they fell down, as they often did when playing, no damage would be done.

After some jolly fun out of doors the Bobbsey twins entered the house by the side door to get ready for the evening meal. As they did so the bell at the front door rang.

“I guess that’s Aunt Sallie,” said Nan. “She telephoned that she’d be here about this time.”

“Is the misery in her back better?” asked Freddie.

“I guess so,” Nan answered as she went to the door, followed by the two smaller twins. And when Nan opened the door, there stood Aunt Sallie, her bag in her hand, and the snowflakes swirling around her.

“Well, my dears, here I am,” she announced.

“We’re glad you came,” said Nan politely.

“How’s your back?” asked Freddie.

“What’s that?” cried the old lady. “You say the train ran off the track? Good gracious! I hope your folks weren’t hurt! Oh, dear!”

“No, no!” exclaimed Nan, trying not to laugh. “Freddie didn’t say anything about the train running off the track. He asked how was your back.”

“Oh, my back! That’s a lot better, thank goodness,” said the old lady, as she entered the hall, shaking off the snowflakes.

Bert came out to greet the visitor, who was to remain several days—until Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey returned—and said:

“It’s going to be quite a storm, isn’t it?”

“What’s that? You say your clothes are torn?” cried the old lady. “Well, don’t worry. I brought needles and thread with me. I’ll soon mend your torn clothes.”

“No,” chuckled Bert, “I said it’s quite a storm!”

“Oh! Storm! Yes, indeed!” murmured Mrs. Pry. “I’m afraid I’m getting a little deaf,” she went on. “You children will need to talk a bit louder.”

“A lot louder, I’ll say,” murmured Bert to himself.

CHAPTER VI

LOST TWINS

Mrs. Pry was a “little deaf,” as she called it. She also was a good-natured person. And she was no stranger to the Bobbsey twins. She had worked in their house many times before, and knew her way about very well.

“I suppose, Nan,” she said, “that I’m to take the room I always have?”

“Yes, Aunt Sallie,” answered Nan, for Mrs. Pry wanted to be called by the more affectionate name. “Mother said your old room was ready for you.”

“Then I’ll just take my bag up and be right down to help get supper,” and she started up the stairs.

“I guess Dinah has everything all cooked, ready to eat,” Nan said.

“Oh, you’re going to have boiled beets, are you? That’s good! I’m very fond of boiled beets,” and Mrs. Pry smiled and went on upstairs, not knowing that she had misunderstood Nan. But Nan did not take the trouble then to correct the old lady. She had all she could do, did Nan, to keep Flossie and Freddie from laughing out loud at Mrs. Pry’s queer mistakes.

Bert and Nan at first felt a trifle lonesome because their father and mother had gone away, but this feeling wore off as the evening advanced. There was a jolly little party at the table when the evening meal was served, and Mrs. Pry made many more queer mistakes because she did not catch just what the children or Dinah said. And as the Bobbsey twins were nearly always laughing, anyhow, a few laughs, more or less, at Mrs. Pry’s mistakes did not matter. She did not know they were laughing at her, and, really, it did no harm.

“Anyhow, you can’t help it,” said Bert to Nan afterward. “I thought I’d burst right out snickering when I asked her to pass the bread and she thought I was saying I couldn’t move my head!”

“Yes, that was funny,” agreed Nan. “Is it still snowing, Bert?” she asked, as she got out her books, ready to do some studying for the next day.

“Yes, snowing hard,” Bert reported as he held his hands to the sides of his face so he could peer out into the darkness. “Going to be a regular blizzard, I guess.”

“Oh, Bert! I hope not that!”

“Why not?”

“Because, I don’t want father and mother snowed-up.”

“Oh, I guess a train can get through pretty big drifts before it’s stuck. Don’t worry.”

Flossie and Freddie had gone to bed earlier, and about all they talked of was the fun they would have in the snow the next day.

“If it snows too hard they ought not to go to school,” said Nan to Bert, speaking of the smaller twins.

“No, I guess it would be better for them to stay at home with Aunt Sallie and Dinah—if the snow’s too deep,” he agreed. “But maybe it won’t be.”

Flossie slept in Nan’s room, while Freddie “bunked,” as he called it, with Bert. Just how long she had been asleep Nan did not know, but she was awakened by hearing her sister calling her.

“Yes, dear, what is it?” asked Nan sleepily.

“I’d like a drink of water,” Flossie answered.

“All right,” Nan said kindly. She often got up in the night to get Flossie a drink. Now she slipped on her robe and slippers and went into the bathroom. “It’s still snowing,” said Nan to herself, as she listened to the wind blowing the flakes against the window. “I do hope mother and daddy will be all right.”

Nan was carrying the water in to her sister when the door of Aunt Sallie’s room, farther down the hall, opened, and the old lady put out her head. Nan noticed the old-fashioned night-cap Mrs. Pry wore.

“Is anything the matter, Nan?” asked Mrs. Pry. “Has anything happened? Are burglars trying to get in? If they are, telephone for the police at once. Don’t try to fight burglars by yourself.”

“It isn’t burglars,” answered Nan. “I was just getting Flossie a drink.”

“What’s that?” exclaimed the old lady. “You say Flossie has fallen into the sink? Poor child! But what is she doing at the sink this hour of the night?”

“Not sink—drink!” exclaimed Nan, trying not to laugh. “I am getting Flossie a drink.”

“Oh—drink! Why didn’t you say so at first, my dear? Well, I must get in bed or I’ll have that misery in my back again.”

Flossie turned over and went to sleep once more after taking the water. But Nan was a bit longer finding her way to dreamland. Somehow or other, she felt worried, just why she could not say.

“But I feel as if something were going to happen,” she told herself.

However, Nan was a strong, healthy girl, and when you are that way you do not lie awake very long at night. So Nan soon dropped off to sleep and then the house remained quiet until morning.

“Oh, it snowed a lot!” cried Flossie, running to the window to look out.

“Get back into bed!” ordered Nan. “You’ll catch cold in your bare feet. Is it still snowing, Flossie?”

“No, it isn’t snowing but there’s a lot on the ground.”

“Well, I’m glad the storm is over,” said Nan, as she got up to dress, after which she would look after Flossie.

So much snow had fallen in and around Lakeport that, though it was still early in the season, it looked as if winter had come to stay. Of course all the boys and girls liked this, though when Sam Johnson went out to shovel paths it can not be said that he liked the snow.

“Makes too much wuk!” Sam said to his wife.

“You ought to be glad you has yo’ health, Sam!” chuckled fat Dinah. “An’ when you comes in I’s gwine to hab hot pancakes an’ sausages an’ maple syrup fo’ you!”

“Yum! Yum!” murmured Sam. “Dat’s good!”

“Are we going to have pancakes, too?” asked Freddie, overhearing this talk.

“Indeed you is, honey lamb!” said Dinah, smiling at him.

On the way to school, Danny Rugg and Sam Todd began throwing snowballs at Bert and John Marsh. Bert did not mind this much, since Danny and Sam were using soft balls. But pretty soon Joe Norton, a chum of Sam’s, happened along, and he joined forces with Danny. This made three against two, and Bert and John were getting the worst of it when Charlie Mason, with whom Bert was very friendly, ran up.

“Let me get a shot at ’em!” cried Charlie, and he made snowballs so fast and threw them so straight, hitting Danny, Sam and Joe, that though the sides were even, Danny and his two chums turned and ran away.

“Ho! Ho!” taunted John. “You’re afraid to stay and fight!”

“We are not,” said Danny. “But it’s almost time for the last bell.”

“That’s a good excuse!” laughed Charlie.

“I’ve got some horse-chestnuts in my pocket,” said Sam to Danny as they ran on. “This afternoon we’ll put some inside snowballs and we’ll soak Bert and his gang good and hard.”

“All right,” agreed Danny.

Though the snow had stopped falling, the skies had not cleared and the storm did not appear to be over, except for a little while. And there was so much snow on the ground that Mr. Tarton announced at the morning exercises that the children of the primary grades would be excused from returning in the afternoon.

“I also want to add,” the principal went on, “that we shall do this winter as we have done in past years. If on any morning the weather is too bad, or the storm too heavy, to make it safe for you to come out, the bell will be rung three times, five strokes each time, as a signal that there is to be no school. Then you need not start.

“So, children, in case of a storm, listen about half past eight o’clock. And if the bell rings five times, then is silent, then rings five times more, then is silent, and then rings a last five strokes, that means there will be no school.”

“I wish it would ring that way every day,” whispered Danny Rugg to Sam, as they were marching back to their room.

“So do I,” agreed Sam. “I hate school!”

And the worst of it was that his teacher heard him and Danny whispering, and each one had to remain in ten minutes later than the others that afternoon when school was dismissed.

Bert and Nan took Flossie and Freddie home at noon and left the smaller twins, who at once said they would go out and play in the yard which was covered with snow.

“Well, don’t get your feet wet, my dears,” cautioned Mrs. Pry. “The reason the principal let you stay at home was so you wouldn’t get wet in the snow. And if you’re going out in the yard to get wet feet, you might just as well go back to your classes.”

“We’ll be careful,” promised Freddie.

“And if any snow gets down my rubber boots, I’ll take ’em off and empty the snow out,” said Flossie.

It was Freddie who, a little later, thought of a way to have some fun. Floundering about in the snowy yard he saw back of the garage the big kennel in which Snap, the dog, used to sleep. A few weeks before this story opens, Snap had been taken sick, and had been sent to a dog-doctor to be cured. He was to remain away several months. So Sam had cleaned out the kennel and put it back of the garage.

“I know how we can have lots of fun, Flossie,” said Freddie.

“How?” asked the little girl.

“We’ll play we’re snowed-in at Snap’s kennel,” went on the little boy. “We’ll crawl inside and make believe we’re at the north pole. It’ll be nice and warm in the dog house, ’cause there’s a blanket nailed over the door. It’s like a curtain.”

“All right—let’s do it!” agreed Flossie. “And if we could have something to eat in the dog house it would be like a picnic.”

“I’ll get something to eat,” offered Freddie.

“What’ll you get?”

“Some of Aunt Sallie’s molasses cookies. She just baked a lot of ’em!”

“All right—get some, and we’ll play snowed-up in the dog house,” said Flossie.

Mrs. Pry was glad to have Freddie ask for some of her cookies, since the old lady was rather proud of the way she made them.

“What are you going to do with them?” she asked, as she handed Freddie the cookies.

“Eat ’em,” he answered.

“Of course, my dear, I know that!” laughed Aunt Sallie. “But where are you going to eat them?”

“Out by the garage.” Freddie didn’t want to say anything about the dog house, for fear Mrs. Pry or Dinah would say he and Flossie couldn’t play in it.

“Dat’s aw right,” announced Dinah. “De honey lambs will be safe out by de garage, ’case as how my Sam’s out dere. But don’t stay out too late, Freddie.”

“We won’t,” he promised.

With the cookies, he and Flossie crawled into Snap’s kennel. It was plenty large enough for them, and they could almost stand up in the middle, though the sloping roof made it lower on each side.

As Flossie had said, there was a curtain, an old piece of carpet, tacked over the front to keep the cold wind out. And Sam had put some clean straw in the kennel, ready for the time when Snap should come back.

“Oh, this is a lovely place!” exclaimed Flossie, as she snuggled down in the straw.

“It’s fun!” agreed her brother. “Now we’ll pretend there’s a big snow storm outside and it’s all piled up against our house and we can’t get out to find anything to eat.”

“We don’t have to,” said Flossie. “’Cause you got cookies, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” answered Freddie. “I got a lot of cookies.”

“Then we’ll make believe some is roast turkey and some is cranberry sauce, and it’s ’most Christmas,” went on Flossie. Soon the two children were pretending in this jolly way.

Bert and Nan were a bit late coming home from school that afternoon. Bert stayed in to do something for Mr. Tarton, and Nan helped Miss Skell clean off the blackboards.

But when the two older Bobbsey twins reached home they noticed that Flossie and Freddie were not in the house. It was getting dark, too—getting dark earlier than usual because of storm clouds in the sky.

“Where are Freddie and Flossie?” asked Nan of Mrs. Pry.

“Playing out in the garage,” was the answer.

But when Nan went out there Sam was locking the garage for the night.

“Flossie an’ Freddie?” repeated the colored man. “No, Nan, I haven’t seen ’em. Dey haven’t been out heah all dis afternoon!”

“Then where can they be?” faltered Nan. “Oh, I wonder if they can have wandered away and are lost! Oh, Sam!”

CHAPTER VII

SAM GOES AWAY

“Dose chilluns aren’t lost!” declared Sam Johnson when he heard what Nan said.

“Are you sure?” asked the Bobbsey girl.

“Cou’se I is!” replied Sam. “Where could dey be losted at?”

“They might have gone away over the fields to roll a big snowball, or something like that,” suggested Nan. “And then they might have wandered to the woods and now can’t find their way back.”

“No, I don’t believe dat,” said Sam. “You say dey came out to play in de garage?”

“That’s what Mrs. Pry says,” answered Nan. “Freddie came in to get some of her cookies, and when she asked him what he was going to do he said he and Flossie were going to play in the garage.”

Sam shook his head.

“I been out here ’most all de afternoon,” he said. “I didn’t see Flossie or Freddie. Cou’se dey might hab slipped in when I went to de house to git a bucket of hot watah. I’ll take a look around to make suah!”

He opened the garage again and turned on the electric lights, for it was so equipped. Then Nan and Sam looked all over the first floor without finding a sign of the children.

“What’s the matter?” asked Bert, hurrying out to the garage, having heard from Mrs. Pry and Dinah that Nan had gone to bring in the smaller twins.

“Oh, Flossie and Freddie are lost!” half sobbed Nan.

“I don’t zackly believe dey’s lost,” Sam stated. “Dey’s jest in some place we don’t know. I’ll take a look upstairs. Maybe dey went up dere to play house.”

“Oh, maybe!” eagerly exclaimed Nan. There was a sleeping room over the garage, but it was seldom used, Dinah and Sam having quarters in the Bobbsey house. But Flossie and Freddie had often gone to this bedroom to play.

However, they were not up there now, and Nan cried some real tears when several more minutes passed and her little brother and sister could not be found.

“Is anything the matter?” asked Mrs. Pry, who had thrown a shawl over her head and hurried outside.

“We can’t find Flossie and Freddie,” stated Bert.

“What’s that? Is supper almost ready?” inquired the deaf old lady. “Why, yes, it will be in a minute. Bring the little ones in and we’ll eat.”

“We can’t find them! We can’t find Flossie and Freddie!” called out Bert, this time so loudly that Mrs. Pry heard.

“Oh, my goodness!” she exclaimed. “Why, they came in and got some cookies—at least, Freddie did. Have you called for them? Maybe they’ve fallen asleep in the snow. I’ve heard that being out in the snow makes one sleepy.”

“Say, we haven’t called!” said Bert. “I’ll give a shout!”

He did, several of them. He called at the top of his voice for Flossie and Freddie, standing outside the garage.

And then, to the surprise of all, Freddie’s voice answered:

“Here we are! What’s the matter?”

“Where are you?” asked Bert, for he could not locate the voice.

“In the dog house!” answered Freddie, and a moment later he and Flossie, rubbing their eyes—for they had fallen asleep—came around the corner of the building. Bits of straw were clinging to the children.

“Where in the world have you been?” cried Nan. “We’ve been looking all over for you!”

“We were in Snap’s kennel,” explained Freddie. “We went in there to play snowed-in.”

“And we made believe the molasses cookies were turkey and cranberry sauce,” went on Flossie. “And then we went to sleep.”

“For the land sakes!” cried Mrs. Pry.

Sam Johnson was laughing. He picked up Flossie and Freddie in his strong arms and carried them to the house. Dinah was just getting ready to come out and see what the trouble was.

“Mah good land ob massy!” exclaimed the fat colored cook when she heard the story. “To t’ink ob mah honey lambs bein’ out in de dog house!”

“It was a nice place, with clean straw,” stated Freddie.

“An’ the cookies were awful good!” added Flossie. “But we ate ’em all up and I’m hungry again.”

“Suppah’s ready,” Dinah announced.

“And you mustn’t go in the dog house again,” said Mrs. Pry. “Next time we might not find you, or maybe you couldn’t get out.”

“Oh, we could get out easy enough,” said Freddie.

Thus the lost ones were found, and though Nan laughed at how funny the two twins looked as they came, sleepy-eyed, out of the dog house with straw clinging to them, she had been anxious for a time.

That evening Flossie and Freddie went to bed early, for they were still sleepy from having been out in the fresh air nearly all afternoon. Grace Lavine came over to see Nan, and Charlie Mason called to play some games with Bert.

“I came past Danny Rugg’s house on the way over,” Charlie said to Bert. “What do you think he was doing?”

“Breaking more church windows?” asked Bert.

“Breaking church windows? What do you mean? Do you think Danny smashed the one near our school?” asked Charlie.

“Yes, I do,” said Bert in a low voice. “But don’t say anything about it. I’m trying to find a way to prove that he did it so I’ll be cleared.”

“All right, I won’t say anything,” promised Charlie. “But that isn’t what I saw Danny doing.”

“Was he looking for his lost gold ring?”

“No, it was too dark for that. But he was out in the lots near his house—he and Sam and Joe and some other fellows—and they’re making a big snow fort.”

“Getting ready to have a snowball fight, I guess,” suggested Bert. “Well, I’m not going to fight, if he asks me. I’d rather have a fight with some other crowd.”

“So’d I,” agreed Charlie. “And I know something else.”

“What?”

“Well, I saw Sam Todd taking a lot of horse-chestnuts into the fort they’re building. They’re going to put ’em in snowballs to make ’em harder.”

“It’s just like Danny Rugg and his crowd!” growled Bert. “They never do anything fair! Well, none of our fellows will take sides against ’em.”

“I guess not!” agreed Charlie.

Grace Lavine laughed when Nan told her about Flossie and Freddie having been “lost” in the dog house that afternoon.

“Oh, I think they’re the cutest children!” exclaimed Grace. “Don’t you just love them, Nan?”

“Yes, of course. But they’re always into some mischief or other. I was glad mother wasn’t here to be worried about them.”

“When is she coming back?”

“I don’t know—not until Uncle Rossiter is better, I guess.”

“And are you twins keeping house all by yourselves?”

“Oh, no, we have Aunt Sallie Pry.”

Just then Charlie, who was playing a game of checkers with Bert, made such a sudden “jump” with one of his kings that he kicked over a chair near him. It fell to the floor with a crash.

“What’s that?” asked Aunt Sallie from the kitchen where she was helping Dinah with the last of the evening’s work.

“It was only a falling chair,” said Nan.

“Somebody combing their hair! Well, they made noise enough about it, I must say!” exclaimed the old lady, and Grace and Nan had to stuff their handkerchiefs in their mouths to keep from laughing aloud.

Charlie and Grace went home about nine o’clock, and soon after that the older Bobbsey twins went to bed. Nan was feeling lonesome and wished for her mother’s return. However, she said nothing about it.

It was the next afternoon when Bert came hurrying home from school that more news awaited him and Nan.

“Where’s Sam?” Bert called to Dinah, as he hurried into the kitchen. “I want him to fix that runner on my sled. It came loose again. Where’s Sam, Dinah?”

Nan gave a quick look at the colored cook and guessed at once that something had happened.

“Is anything wrong, Dinah?” asked Nan, for she noticed a sad look on the kindly black face.

“Yes, honey lamb, dey is somethin’ wrong,” Dinah answered.

“Is it Uncle Rossiter?” asked Bert. “Or is it——”

He was afraid to ask about his father and mother.

“No, honey, ’tisn’t quite as bad as dat,” said Dinah. “But Sam, he done had to go away.”

“Sam had to go away!” gasped Nan.

“Is he sick?” inquired Bert.

“No, he isn’t sick,” Dinah answered. “But his brother down South is terrible sick, an’ a tellygram come sayin’ dat Sam mus’ come right off quick. So he went on de noon train.”

“Oh, well, maybe Sam’s brother will get better,” replied Bert.

“’Tisn’t dat I’s worryin’ so much about,” explained Dinah. “But wif Sam gone dey isn’t no man around de house now, an’ we’s likely to hab mo’ bad storms. Dey isn’t any man heah!”

“I can look after things!” cried Bert. “I can shovel snow ’most as good as Sam. And I can shovel coal, too.”

“Oh, we’ll be all right,” added Nan. Though, deep in her heart, she had a feeling that keeping house with Sam, the big, strong protector gone, was not going to be as much fun as it had seemed at first.

CHAPTER VIII

BERT’S TUMBLE

Truth to tell, Dinah had worried more on the children’s account than on her own when it was found necessary for Sam to go to his brother, after a telegram had been received calling him to the South.

“I kin git along by myse’f, without any man,” Dinah had said to Mrs. Pry when they had talked it over before the children came home from school. “But wif Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey away, I don’t want mah honey lambs to git frightened.”

“I don’t believe they will,” said the old lady. “The Bobbsey twins—especially the older ones—seem quite able to look after themselves, even if Sam has to go.”

And so it proved. Bert took a manly stand nor did Nan seem much worried, or, if she was, she did not show it.

As for Flossie and Freddie, nothing worried them very much nor for very long at a time. In fact, they did not pay a great deal of attention to the going of Sam Johnson. They had seen him around in the morning, and he was gone when they came home. That was all there was to it. If Dinah had had to leave—well, that would be quite a different thing.

The short early winter afternoon was fading. It would soon be dark. Sam had brought in a lot of wood and had carried up a whole box full of coal before he went away, so Bert did not have this to do.

“But I’ll go out and lock up the garage,” he said to Nan. “Sam always does that the last thing at night, even if none of the cars have been taken out. Now I’ll do it.”

Mr. Bobbsey kept two automobiles, but neither was in use now that he and his wife had gone to Uncle Rossiter’s.

“And be sure the house is locked up well, too, Bert,” warned Mrs. Pry. “Go over every door and window to make sure. We don’t want any burglars coming in, with Sam away.”

“Huh! If any of dem burglar men come in, I’ll fix ’em!” declared Dinah.

“What would you do?” asked Bert, looking at Nan.

“Hit ’em wif mah rollin’ pin—dat’s whut I’d do!” cried Dinah, shaking the rolling pin, with which at that moment she was flattening out the dough for a batch of biscuits.

“I guess that would fix ’em!” laughed Bert. “But I’ll lock up everything so the burglars can’t get in.”

That evening when Flossie and Freddie had, as usual, gone to bed early and while Bert and Nan were studying their lessons, a knock sounded on the side door.

“My goodness! what’s that?” cried Mrs. Pry, almost jumping out of the chair in which she was sitting mending stockings. Dinah was out in the kitchen, “setting” the pancakes for the next morning.

“Some one’s at de side do’,” said the colored cook. “I’ll go see who ’tis.”

“What’s that?” cried deaf Mrs. Pry. “Did you say you fell on the floor, Dinah?”

“No’m, Miz Pry. I said I’d go to de do’!”

“I wonder who it is and why they didn’t ring the front door bell?” asked Nan of Bert in a low voice. “Do you suppose it could be a tramp?”

“Supposing it is?” asked Bert. “I’m not afraid. Tramps won’t hurt anybody.”

“No. But he’d be awfully cold and want to come in,” returned Nan.

But it was no tramp. The next-door neighbor, Mr. Flander, having seen Sam leave that day with a valise, guessed that the colored man had been called out of town. And knowing that Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey had left, Mr. Flander called to see if the Bobbsey twins needed anything.

“Oh, thank you, we’re all right,” said Bert, when he learned who it was.

“That’s good,” Mr. Flander said. “No, I won’t come in, Mrs. Pry. I just ran over the side garden instead of ringing the bell at the front door. Well, if you want anything just let me or my wife know. Don’t let the Bobbsey twins go hungry or cold, you know.”

“I guess there’s no danger of that,” laughed Mrs. Pry.

The kind neighbor took his departure, and soon after that Nan and Bert went to bed.

One of the first things Bert did the next morning when he came downstairs to breakfast, was to put on his cap and run out on the porch.

“Where are you going?” asked Mrs. Pry, who let Dinah do the cooking while she managed the house and saw to it that the twins had plenty to eat.

“I’m just going out to look and see if it’s going to snow any more,” Bert answered.

“Land sakes! do you want more snow?” laughed the old lady.

“Sure we do,” Bert answered. “There isn’t quite enough for good sleigh-riding, and it takes a lot to make snow houses and snow forts.”

When he came back into the house, Nan and the other children having in the meanwhile taken their places at the table, Bert shook his head.

“I don’t believe it will snow to-day,” he said. “We’ll have to go to school.”

“Of course you’ll have to go to school,” said Mrs. Pry. “You don’t stay at home just because it snows, do you?”

“Well, if it was a bad storm we wouldn’t have to go,” explained Bert. “If it snows so hard in the morning that it’s bad for going to school, we must stay home, Mr. Tarton said. The bell will ring five strokes, three times, and we stay home. But I guess it won’t ring that way to-day.”

“I guess it won’t,” agreed Nan. “But maybe the postman will bring us a letter from daddy and mother to-day.”

“Oh, I hope he does!” exclaimed Bert. “It seems as if they’d been away a week, doesn’t it, Nan?”

“Longer than that,” Nan answered.

Just then Flossie began to tap her fork on her plate and exclaim:

“Make him stop! Make Freddie stop!”

“Make him stop what?” Bert wanted to know. “He isn’t doing anything, Flossie.”

“He was looking over at my plate,” went on the little girl. “Make him stop it! Now you quit, Freddie Bobbsey!”

“Looking at your plate! The idea!” laughed Nan. “As if that did any harm! What’s the matter with you this morning, Flossie? Why don’t you want Freddie to look at your plate?”

“’Cause he looks at it so hungry-like,” Flossie explained. “He’s eaten his own griddle cake all up, and the maple syrup, too, and maybe he’s going to take mine.”

“I am not!” cried Freddie.

“Well, you looked so!” insisted Flossie. “Now you stop looking at my plate!”

“Oh, don’t be so fussy,” said Nan. “Dinah will give Freddie another griddle cake, and you, also, Flossie, if you want one.”

“I want one,” Freddie quickly said. “I was looking at hers,” he admitted; “but I wasn’t going to take it.”

Then Dinah came in with another plate of the smoking, brown cakes and peace was restored between the two small Bobbsey twins. A little later breakfast was over and the four children started for school.

“If a letter comes from mother, please put it where we’ll see it the first thing when we come in, Mrs. Pry,” said Nan to the old lady.

“What’s that? You’ve lost your ring?” exclaimed Aunt Sallie. “Oh, my dear, you must look for it. Lost your ring—that’s too bad!”

“No, I didn’t say anything about a ring!” answered Nan, speaking more loudly. “I said put mother’s letter, if it comes, where we can see it the first thing.”

“Oh, yes, my dear, I’ll do that. I thought you spoke of a ring. I don’t seem to hear so very well this morning. I think it must be going to snow again. My hearing is always worse just before a storm. But I hardly believe your folks would have had time to write yet. They’ll be very busy with your sick uncle. But if a letter does come I’ll take care of it.”

“It’s funny she thought I said ring,” remarked Nan to Bert as they walked along to school. “And that reminds me—did Danny Rugg find his ring?”

“Not that I heard of,” answered Bert. He looked down at his bundle of books and suddenly exclaimed: “Oh, I forgot and left my arithmetic at home. I’ll run back and get it. You go on with Flossie and Freddie.”

“Don’t be late!” cautioned Nan.

“No, I won’t,” promised her brother, as he sped back toward the house, only a few blocks away. Flossie and Freddie wanted to know where Bert was going, and Nan told them. Then she hastened on with them toward school.

But Bert did not find his book as quickly as he thought he would, not remembering where he had put it the night before, and when it was found, and he was hurrying back on his way to school, Nan and the others were out of sight.

However, Bert still had plenty of time, though he kept to a jog trot which soon brought him within sight of the school. But Nan and the others had taken a short cut, and were already inside the building.

Just as Bert was approaching the church, the stained-glass window of which had been broken by a snowball, the Bobbsey boy saw ahead of him Danny Rugg. Danny was alone, and before the trouble Bert would have run up and joined him, for he and Danny were friendly. But that was before the window was broken. Now Bert did not care to be friends with this boy, and so he hung back.

“I’ll wait until he turns into the school yard before I go in,” said Bert to himself.

But there was a surprise in store for him. Instead of keeping on to school, when he got in front of the church, a short distance from the school, Danny gave a quick look around. Just then Bert happened to be behind a tree. From here he could see Danny, but Danny could not see him.

And, as it happened just then, no other boys or girls were near the church. Seeing this, Danny Rugg gave a quick little run and darted inside the church, a side door of which was open.

“Well, what do you know about that!” exclaimed Bert, half aloud. “Why is Danny Rugg going into the church this time of morning? Maybe he’s going to ring the bell for a joke.”

But as he thought of this, Bert did not believe it could be done. The rope of the church bell was high in a belfry and the door was kept locked. Bert knew this because once some boys had gotten in and rung the bell in the middle of the night. Since then the bell rope room had been kept locked.

“But why did Danny go in the church?” asked Bert of himself again.

There was only one way which the question could be answered, and so Bert decided on doing a bold thing. He looked at the clock in the church steeple. It was barely half past eight, and he had plenty of time.

So, waiting until Danny should have had a chance to get well within the church, Bert followed, walking softly to make no noise. And all the while Bert was puzzling over the reason why Danny had entered.

Coming in from out-of-doors, with the ground covered with snow, which dazzled him, Bert could see hardly a thing in the dark church entry. The side door opened into a vestibule in the rear of the church.

Unable to see where he was going, Bert stood still a moment. He knew that his eyes would become accustomed to the gloom in a little while, and he would be able to see better.

He listened, and heard Danny walking about.

“Why, he’s going upstairs—to the balcony!” whispered Bert. “I can hear him going upstairs! I wonder why he’s doing that?”

Bert took a few steps forward and then suddenly felt himself falling.

“Oh! Oh!” he gasped as he realized what had happened. He had stepped into an open trapdoor in the center of the vestibule floor, and was tumbling into the cellar of the church!

CHAPTER IX

NAN IS WORRIED

Bert Bobbsey was not a long while falling through the trapdoor. In fact, it took hardly a second. But in that short time the boy had time to hear Danny Rugg come clattering down the stairs that led to the balcony of the church. And from the speed with which Danny ran, Bert guessed that the other boy was frightened.

“I guess the noise I made when I stumbled and yelled scared Danny,” thought Bert. Later he learned that this was so.

But poor Bert did not have time to think of much. He felt himself falling, he heard Danny’s frightened rush out of the church, and then Bert landed on what seemed to be a pile of old bags in the basement of the church.

Then Bert felt a sharp pain in his head, which struck something hard, and a moment later stars seemed to be dancing in front of his eyes—stars in the darkness. Then Bert knew nothing more. He was unconscious, just as if he had fainted.

And there the poor lad was, alone in the dark basement.

Danny Rugg did not know who or what it was that had made the noise. He did not stop to inquire, but darted to the side door of the church, and, making sure by looking up and down the street that no one saw him, he slipped out and ran on to school.

Nan Bobbsey, with the smaller Bobbsey twins, had gone in some time before. Leaving Flossie and Freddie in their classroom, Nan went to hers to do a little early studying. She expected Bert to come in soon, and when it got to be a quarter of nine and her brother had not yet entered, though several other pupils had, Nan was not worried. She thought Bert, after going back after his arithmetic, had met some of his chums and was having fun with them on the way to school.

Bert was seldom late, but often he and some of his chums entered the classroom just as the last bell was ringing its last strokes.

But when the hands of the clock pointed to five minutes of nine, when Miss Skell was at her desk, and most of the other boys and girls were in their seats, Nan began to get uneasy. Each time footsteps sounded in the hall outside the room she hoped it would be Bert who was coming. But he did not enter.

The last bell began to ring. Nan moved uneasily in her seat. She did not want her brother to be late.

The last bell stopped ringing.

“Oh, dear!” thought Nan, with a sinking heart. For now Bert could not enter without being marked tardy. And to Nan, as well as to many other pupils, this was a sad thing to have happen.

Miss Skell took out her roll book and began to call the names of the pupils. They were arranged in alphabetical order, beginning with those whose last name started with the letter A. And of course Bobbsey, beginning with B, was soon reached.

“Bert Bobbsey!” called Miss Skell.

There was no answer. The teacher raised her eyes from the book and looked around the room.

“Bert Bobbsey!” she called again, for Bert was seldom absent and Nan could not remember when he had been late.

There was no answer, of course. For at that moment, though none in the room knew it, poor Bert was lying unconscious in the church basement.

Then Miss Skell looked at Nan, whose name was next on the list. She marked Nan as being present, and then asked:

“Is Bert sick to-day, Nan?”

“Oh, no, Miss Skell,” said Nan, very seriously. “He started for school the same time I did. Then he didn’t have his arithmetic and went back after it. I don’t know what happened to him. I don’t know why he isn’t here.”

Nan’s voice began to tremble a little. A thought entered her mind that perhaps, when Bert went back to get his book, something had happened at home—either to Dinah or Mrs. Pry—and Bert had had to stay to look after things.

“Or,” thought Nan to herself, “maybe a telegram came with bad news about Uncle Rossiter—or mother or daddy—and Bert had to go out there.”

But on second thoughts she hardly believed this possible. Bert would not start alone on a long journey without telling her.

Miss Skell saw that Nan was troubled, so the teacher said:

“Probably Bert had an errand to do that detained him. Or, after coming to school, Mr. Tarton may have met him downstairs and asked him to do something. I think that is it—Bert has gone on an errand for the principal. In that case I will not mark him tardy. I will wait until after the morning exercises.”

Nan Bobbsey breathed a sigh of relief. After all, Bert might have been sent somewhere by the principal. The Bobbsey boy had often gone on errands for the head of the school, and this, of course, always excused one from being marked tardy.

Miss Skell went on calling the roll, and soon the boys and girls marched to the big assembly hall where the morning exercises were held. Mr. Tarton was in charge, as usual, and as Nan looked at the principal, up on the platform, she wished she could ask him whether or not he had sent Bert on an errand.

Miss Skell, however, seemed to know what was going on in Nan’s mind, for when the class was back in its room the teacher said:

“Nan, you may go to Mr. Tarton’s office to ask whether he sent Bert on an errand. Then come back and tell me.”

The Bobbsey girl hurried down the stairs and into the office where Mr. Tarton sat at his desk. Many books were in cases about the room. The principal’s office was rather a solemn place, and especially so for any of the boys or girls who were sent there when they had done something against the rules. However, Nan was easy in her mind on this point, though she was worried about her brother.

“Well, Nan, what is it?” asked Mr. Tarton. Though he had a large school, he knew nearly every pupil in it by his or her first name. “Did Miss Skell send you with a note to me?” he went on.

“No, sir,” answered Nan. “But she said I might come to ask about my brother Bert.”

“What about Bert?” asked the principal, with a smile. “Has he been throwing any more snowballs? I won’t ask if he has broken any more windows, for, even though Sam Todd says Bert did it, I have doubts in my mind on that point. But what about Bert?”

“Did you send him on an errand?”

“Why, no, Nan. What do you mean?”

“Bert isn’t in his class. He didn’t come to school. He started with me and ran back to get his arithmetic, and I—I don’t know what has happened to him.”

Nan’s voice faltered and she was about to cry. Mr. Tarton noticed this and said kindly:

“Don’t worry. We’ll find Bert for you. Very likely when he got back home your mother sent him to the store. He may come a little late, but if he does, and has a good excuse, he will not be marked tardy.”

“Oh, my mother couldn’t send Bert to the store, because she and my father have gone away!” exclaimed Nan.

“Well, then some one at your house may have sent Bert to the store.”

“Yes, Mrs. Pry or Dinah might,” admitted Nan.

“We can soon find out,” went on the principal. “You have a telephone, haven’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I will call up and ask if Bert went anywhere. Wait a moment.”

The principal was about to call up the Bobbsey house when he happened to think of something.

“Perhaps I had better not do this,” he said to Nan. “It might be that Bert went off by himself. I don’t mean that he played truant, Nan,” he said, as he heard the girl gasp. “I mean he might have met some one from your father’s office, or something like that. Those at your house—the servant or this old lady that you told me was helping you keep house—would know nothing about it, and it might worry them if we asked about Bert.”

“I’ll tell you what to do. I’ll ask Miss Skell to excuse you, and you may go home to see if Bert is there. If he isn’t, come back and let me know. Then I will do something else. You need not alarm Dinah or Mrs. Pry. I will ask you to go home to get me a certain book. Let me see, I remember Bert once brought to school a book of your father’s containing a number of fine poems for recitation. I’ll send you home to get that book. Then you won’t worry the old lady. How will that do, Nan?”

“It will be a good plan, I think,” Nan answered. “And I hope I’ll find Bert there.”

“Yes. Or at least learn whether or not he has been sent on an errand,” added the principal. “Give this note to Miss Skell.”

He hastily wrote one, and when Miss Skell read it she said to Nan:

“Get on your hat and coat and go.”

The boys and girls in the room, noting that Bert was not present and seeing Nan go out, did not know what to think. It was very mysterious.

But it was more than mysterious to Nan Bobbsey when she reached home and saw nothing of Bert. Mrs. Pry saw the girl coming up the steps and opened the door for her.

“Why, my dear, school isn’t out already, is it?” asked the old lady.

“No, I came back to get a book for Mr. Tarton,” Nan answered. “Did Bert get his arithmetic?” she inquired.

“Yes, he found it,” said Mrs. Pry, “and he hurried right out with it. I told him to hurry so he wouldn’t be late for school.”

So Nan learned, without really asking, that Bert had not been sent on an errand by either Mrs. Pry or Dinah.

“Oh, where can he be?” thought poor Nan, as she hurried back to school with the book of poems. “What has happened to him? How can Mr. Tarton ever find him?”

CHAPTER X

A CALL FOR DINAH

How long Bert Bobbsey lay unconscious in the basement of the church he did not know. It seemed a very long time to him, but it was probably not more than an hour—perhaps not that long.

The last thing he remembered was seeing a lot of what appeared to be brightly dancing stars in front of his eyes. And he saw them even though it was very dark in the basement. This was caused when his head struck something. And Bert also remembered, as among the last things that sounded in his ears, the footsteps of Danny Rugg as he hurried out of the church.

And now, as Bert recovered consciousness, or “came to,” as it is sometimes called, he heard some one moving about near him in the basement. He also saw a light glinting about.

At first the lad thought this was Danny Rugg, and Bert felt so ill and helpless that he would have been glad of help even from Danny.

“Hey! Hey!” Bert faintly called.

Then a voice answered—a voice which wasn’t that of Danny—it was the voice of the church sexton, Mr. Shull. Bert remembered this voice very well.

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Mr. Shull. “What’s that? Is any one here in the basement?” he asked.

Bert saw the light coming nearer and then he knew the sexton was moving about with one of those small electric flashlights.

“Is anybody here?” asked the sexton again.

“Yes, I am,” answered Bert, but his voice was so weak that the man, as well as he knew Bert, did not recognize the tones.

“Who are you?” called Mr. Shull, coming nearer with the light.

“Bert Bobbsey,” was the answer.

“Good gracious! how did you get here? Why, you’re hurt!” the man cried, as he flashed the light on Bert. “How did it happen?”

He saw Bert lying huddled on a pile of bags and old pieces of carpet just beneath the open trapdoor. But for the moment the sexton did not think of the opening in the floor above. So Bert said:

“I came in here——” He was going to tell why he entered, then he happened to think perhaps this would not be wise. He did not want to mention Danny Rugg. “I saw the door open and I came in,” went on Bert. “It was dark, and I walked across the vestibule, and then I fell down the trapdoor. I guess I’ve been here a long while.”

“You poor boy!” exclaimed Mr. Shull, laying his flashlight down on a box and leaving it still glowing as he raised Bert up. “I’m so sorry! I opened the trapdoor to throw down some old bags and pieces of carpet. Then I had to fix the furnace and I forgot about the trap being open.

“But you haven’t been here so very long, Bert, for I only opened the church about two hours ago. It’s only a little after ten o’clock now, maybe not quite that.”

“Then I’ve been here about two hours,” decided Bert, for he remembered it was about half past eight when he followed Danny into the church.

“Well, you don’t seem to be hurt much,” the sexton went on, as he saw that Bert could stand up. Mr. Shull flashed the light over the boy from head to foot. No bones were broken, though Bert’s clothes were a bit dusty and covered with cobwebs. The boy put his hand to his head.

“Is that where it hurts you?” asked Mr. Shull.

“Yes, sir. I hit my head on something when I fell.”

“It was this box,” and the sexton focused his light on one that rested on the floor just below the opening of the trapdoor. “Let me see, Bert.”

Very gently, while he held the light in one hand, so it was shining on Bert’s head, the sexton passed his fingers over the lad’s scalp.

“It isn’t even cut,” he said. “You’re all right. The blow made you unconscious for a time, but that’s all. I’m very sorry it happened. I’ll help you upstairs and get you a drink of water. That will make you feel better.”

Bert did feel decidedly better after drinking some water, and then the sexton turned on an electric light in the vestibule and made Bert sit down in a chair.

“The first thing I’ll do is to close that trapdoor,” said Mr. Shull. “I don’t want any one else falling down there.”

Bert wondered how it was that Danny Rugg hadn’t fallen down, but he decided the other boy must have passed to one side of the opening.

“There!” exclaimed Mr. Shull, as he slammed the trapdoor shut. “I shouldn’t have left that open but I didn’t expect anybody to come in the church at this time of day. And it’s mighty lucky for you, Bert, that I had tossed those old bags and carpets down right under the trap. Falling on them probably saved you from having broken bones.”

“Yes, I guess so,” Bert said. He was glad the sexton did not think to ask him why he had come into the church. To tell that would mean to mention Danny Rugg. And, somehow or other, Bert wanted to keep this a secret. He had an idea that Danny had a secret reason for going into the church.

“And maybe I can find out why,” thought Bert to himself.

He was feeling much better now, and when the sexton gave him another drink and then got a whisk broom and flicked the dust and cobwebs off Bert’s clothes, the Bobbsey boy was almost himself again.

There was a lump on his head where it had struck against the edge of the box, and his head felt sore, while one of his shoulders ached. But Bert had been hurt worse than this playing football, and he was not going to mind now.

“Do you want me to take you home Bert?” asked the sexton.

“Oh, no! I have to go to school!” the boy exclaimed.

“I guess they’ll excuse you from school when they hear what’s happened,” said Mr. Shull. “But do you feel able to go back to your class?”

“Oh, yes, I think so,” Bert said. His head was clearer now and did not ache so badly. “I’ll be late, though, I suppose,” he added.

“Just a little,” chuckled the church sexton. “But I’ll tell Principal Tarton about it, and he’ll excuse you, I’m sure.”

Making certain that Bert’s clothes were now well brushed, Mr. Shull started for the side door of the church, keeping near the boy in case he felt “tottery on his pins,” as the sexton spoke of it afterward, meaning that Bert might be weak in his legs. But he wasn’t, and when he got out in the fresh, cold air he felt quite himself again.

Mr. Shull walked with Bert as far as the schoolyard gate, and there saw Henry Kling, the school janitor.

“Hello, Bert!” exclaimed Mr. Kling. “What’s the matter? Your sister just came in. She’s been back home looking for you.”

“Nan has been looking for me!” cried Bert.

“Yes. You didn’t come to school and she was worried. Mr. Tarton let her go home, thinking maybe you’d been sent on an errand some place. But Nan just came back. She was ’most crying and I asked her what the matter was. So she told me. Where in the world have you been?”

“Down in the church basement,” Bert answered, with a smile.

“Not playing hookey? Don’t tell me you tried to play hookey!” cried the janitor, who liked Bert.

“No, I fell through a trapdoor,” the boy said, and he briefly explained what had happened.

“Well, you’d better hurry right into Mr. Tarton’s office and tell him about it,” advised Mr. Kling. “The whole school will be looking for you if you don’t.”

You can imagine how glad Nan was to learn that Bert had been found.

She went back to tell Mr. Tarton that her brother had not gone on any home errand. Then, by telephoning to the lumber office, they learned that none of the men there knew any reason why Bert should not be at school. The principal did not know what to think. And then Bert came in, much to the surprise, but also to the joy, of his sister.

“Well, the lost boy is found!” exclaimed the principal. He smiled at Bert, for he could see that it was not the boy’s fault that he was late for school.

Bert explained matters and again he was glad that no one asked him why he had gone into the church.

“I think you may be excused for the remainder of the morning, Bert,” said the head of the school. “And you needn’t come back this afternoon unless you feel quite well.”

“Oh, I feel all right!” Bert was quick to say. “I’d rather stay now than go home. If I go home, Mrs. Pry will think I’m sick, and she might make me take some medicine.”

“Oh, I see!” chuckled Mr. Tarton. “Well, suit yourself. Here is a note to Miss Skell, telling her not to mark you tardy,” and he hastily wrote a few lines on a piece of paper.

“Thank you,” said Bert.

Then he and Nan went to their room, where their entrance created no little excitement. All the other boys and girls wondered why Nan had gone out and why Bert came in late.

They found out at noon time, for Bert told his story. But still he did not say anything about having followed Danny Rugg into the church.

Of course Danny heard the story of Bert’s tumble, and Danny must have known that it was the sound of Bert’s fall that had caused the noise which frightened him away.

But Danny said nothing to Bert on the subject, nor did Bert mention it to Danny. In fact, he and Danny did not play together any more. They were not exactly “bad friends,” but they were not on good terms, and hardly did more than nod or say “hello!” when meeting.

“I’m just as well satisfied,” Bert said to Nan when they were on their way home to lunch that noon. “I don’t like Danny any more.”

“Why did he go into the church, do you think?” asked Nan, for of course Bert told his twin about following the other lad inside.

“I don’t know why he went in,” Bert answered. “It was queer. I wanted to find out. That’s why I went in after him. But I didn’t think there’d be a hole for me to fall into.”

Nothing was said at home about Bert’s fall, for he did not want Dinah or Mrs. Pry to worry needlessly. And he felt all right again, especially after a good lunch.

“Did any letter come from mother or daddy?” asked Nan.

“No, my dear,” answered Mrs. Pry. “Perhaps one will come to-morrow. Don’t worry—your folks are all right.”

But that afternoon when it began to snow again, though Bert and the boys greeted the swirling flakes with shouts of joy, Nan felt much worried.

As the storm seemed likely to be a heavy one, as soon as she was out of school Nan hurried home with Flossie and Freddie. The younger twins had not heard the talk about Bert’s fall, and so would not mention it to either Mrs. Pry or Dinah.

Bert did not go home with Nan and the smaller children. He stayed to have some fun in the snow with Charlie Mason and John Marsh. And he had so much fun and felt so much better, after his fall, to be out in the air that it was not until it was almost dark that he ran home.

“Oh, Bert!” cried Nan, meeting him at the door. “Something has happened!”

“Uncle Rossiter!” cried Bert. “Is he——”

“No, it isn’t about Uncle Rossiter,” answered Nan. “Oh, I’ve been waiting and waiting for you to come home to tell you! Dinah has gone away!”

“Dinah gone away!” cried Bert blankly. “What for?”

It seemed as if the bottom had dropped out of everything with the faithful colored cook away from the house and with Sam also gone.

“What happened?” asked Bert.

CHAPTER XI

LUMBAGO

“Come on in and shut the door,” said Nan before she took time to answer her brother’s question about what had caused Dinah to go away. “Mrs. Pry doesn’t like the cold. We must keep the house warm for her, she says.”

“’Tisn’t cold!” declared Bert, whose cheeks were rosy red from having been playing in the snow. But he hurried in, closed the door, and then, turning to Nan, while he listened to the voices of Freddie and Flossie having one of their endless disputes in the playroom, the lad asked: “What happened to Dinah? What made her go away?”

“It’s on account of Sam,” answered Nan.

“Do you mean Sam came back and took Dinah away?”

“Oh, no, Sam didn’t come back,” went on Nan. “That’s the reason Dinah had to go—because Sam didn’t come back.”

“Say!” cried Bert with a little laugh, though he could see by the look on his sister’s face that she did not feel very jolly, “this is like one of the puzzles Charlie Mason asks. Where in the world is Dinah, anyhow?”

“She had to go down South—I don’t remember just where—to look after Sam,” explained Nan. “Something has happened to him—he’s sick, or something—and a telegram came for Dinah. She must have got it while we were at school, for when I got home, and I came ahead of you, I found Mrs. Pry all excited and Dinah was packed up, all ready to go. She wanted to wait until you got back, to tell you good-bye, but I told her to go, or else she’d miss her train.”

“That’s right,” agreed Bert. “But how did she know Sam was sick? Who told her?”

“A telegram came, I told you.”

“Oh, that’s so—you did. So many things are happening that I forget about some of them. But did Dinah have to walk to the station and carry her bag? I wish I’d been here—I’d ’a’ carried it for her.”

“She didn’t have to walk,” explained Nan. “Just before it was time for her to go Mr. Batten called up from the lumber office. Daddy left word before he and mother went to Uncle Rossiter’s that Mr. Batten was to call up every day and find out if we were all right.

“So when Mr. Batten called, I told him about Dinah having to go down South where her husband, Sam, was sick, and Mr. Batten said he’d have one of the men stop around in an auto and take her to the station, and he did. So Dinah went down in style all right.”

“I’m glad of that,” Bert said. “But say, Nan, we’re almost all alone, aren’t we?”

“Yes, only Mrs. Pry left to keep house for us.”

“Oh, I guess we could keep house all by ourselves if we had to,” Bert said. “Don’t you think so, Nan?”

“I guess so. But is your head all right now, Bert?”

“Oh, yes, it doesn’t hurt at all.”

“Why do you s’pose it was that Danny Rugg went into the church?”

“I don’t know,” answered Bert, as he thought the matter over for a second or two. “Maybe he went in to see if he could mend the broken window so he wouldn’t have to pay for it.”

“How could he mend a broken window, Bert? It’s got all different colored pieces of glass in it. Danny couldn’t mend it, even if he could find all the bits of broken glass. They wouldn’t stick together.”

“No, I guess that’s right. Well, I don’t know why Danny went in. But if he goes again maybe I’ll find out next time.”

By this time the voices of Flossie and Freddie had become high and shrill. They were evidently having trouble of some kind. And as Bert and Nan stood talking in the hall, Mrs. Pry was heard to say:

“Freddie! Freddie! Stop that!”

Then Flossie’s voice joined in with:

“Give me my doll, Freddie Bobbsey! Give me my doll else I’ll tell mother on you.”

“Mother isn’t at home, so you can’t tell her!” taunted Freddie.

“Well, I’ll tell her when she does come home. Give me my doll!”

“I guess we’d better go see what it is,” suggested Nan.

“Yes,” agreed Bert. “Dinah could make Flossie and Freddie mind better than Mrs. Pry can. But Dinah isn’t here, so we’ll have to do it.”

The two older Bobbsey twins hurried up to the playroom on the second floor. There they saw Mrs. Pry standing in the middle of the carpet, looking helplessly at Flossie and Freddie. The little girl was trying to pull one of her dolls away from her brother, who held on to it with all his might.

“Here, Freddie, you let go of Flossie’s doll!” ordered Bert.

“Yes, make him give her to me!” begged Flossie.

“Shame on you, Freddie Bobbsey!” cried Nan. “Why do you want to tease your sister—and you’re a big boy? Daddy used to call you his fireman, but he wouldn’t call you that now!”

“Oh, well, I wasn’t going to hurt her old doll,” answered Freddie, as he slowly let go his hold on the doll’s legs. Nan’s appeal to him, and the mention of “fireman,” which was his father’s pet name for the little chap, made Freddie feel a bit ashamed of himself. “I wasn’t going to hurt the doll,” he said.

“Oh, he was too!” cried Flossie. “He was going to make her stand on her head.”

“Well, that wouldn’t hurt her,” Freddie answered, with a laugh.

“It would so!” declared Flossie. “Once I stood on my head and it may me feel funny and my face got red and Dinah said the blood would come out of my ears if I didn’t stand up straight, so I did. I don’t want my doll to have blood come out of her ears.”

“I don’t believe that would happen,” said Nan. “But Freddie should leave your doll alone and play with his own things. Now don’t tease Flossie any more.”

“All right, I won’t,” Freddie promised, for he was not a bad little fellow, only mischievous at times. And so was Flossie, for that matter. She wasn’t a bit better than Freddie. Being twins, they were much alike in many things.

“I’ve been trying to keep peace between them, but I don’t seem to know how to do it,” sighed Mrs. Pry. “I hope now, with Dinah and Sam gone, as well as your father and mother, that you will be good children,” she added.

“I think they will,” said Nan.

“What’s that? You’re going to take them out on the hill?” cried the old lady. “Oh, I wouldn’t do that! Don’t take them coasting now. It’s almost dark and supper is nearly ready.”

“I didn’t say I’d taken them to the hill,” answered Nan. “I said they will be good children now.”

“Oh, yes! Well, I’m sure I hope so,” sighed Aunt Sallie Pry. “I must see the doctor about my ears,” she went on. “I can’t hear half as good as I could five years ago, or else people don’t speak as plainly as they used to. Well, now that Bert is home, we’ll have supper. Oh, dear, I hope we don’t get any more snow.”

“When’s Dinah coming back?” asked Freddie, as he came out of the bathroom, where he washed his hands ready for the meal.

“Oh, pretty soon, I guess,” answered Nan.

“When are mother and daddy coming back?” Flossie wanted to know.

“Well, I guess they’ll come home pretty soon, too,” said Bert, with a look at his sister. A little later, while Flossie and Freddie were taking their places at the table, Bert whispered to Nan: “Don’t you think it’s queer we haven’t had a letter from mother since she went away?”

“Yes, it is queer,” agreed Nan. “I wish we’d get some news. But maybe Uncle Rossiter is too sick for them to have time to write.”

“Well, couldn’t they send a telegram?” Bert inquired.

“Maybe they thought a telegram would scare us,” suggested Nan. “Dinah was frightened when that one came about Sam.”

“That’s so,” agreed her brother. “I guess maybe that’s why mother didn’t telegraph us.”

“Or maybe the snow’s so deep where they are that the mail can’t get through,” went on Nan. “Lots of times, in winter, they can’t deliver the mail on account of snow.”

“That’s right,” said Bert. “I guess maybe they’re all right. Anyhow, there’s no good of worrying. And we’ll have fun keeping house by ourselves, won’t we?”

“Lots of fun,” agreed Nan.

However, a little later, it did not seem quite so much fun, for something happened that would not have happened, very likely, if Mrs. Bobbsey had been at home.

With Dinah away, it made more work for Mrs. Pry, who got the evening meal, though Nan and Bert helped all they could. They knew how to do many things about the kitchen and the dining room, for their mother had allowed them to help Dinah so they would have good training.

It happened that when Mrs. Pry was coming from the kitchen with a plate of slices of bread, Flossie saw her. All at once it entered into the mind of the little girl that she ought to help, as she had seen Nan doing. So, climbing down out of her chair, Flossie, with the kindest heart in the world, ran to Mrs. Pry, calling:

“I’ll help you, Aunt Sallie! Let me help! I’ll carry the plate of bread for you.”

“No, no, my dear!” objected the old lady. “You might spill the bread off the plate.”

“Oh, no I won’t!” cried Flossie.

“If she spills the bread, that wouldn’t break,” laughed Freddie.

“No, but she might drop the plate, and that would crack,” Nan said. “Flossie, dear, go back to your place!”

But Flossie did not want to do this. She had made up her mind to help about the meal in some way. So she reached up to take the plate away from Mrs. Pry, and the old lady, naturally, held the plate out of Flossie’s grasp.

“I’ll jump up and get it!” the little girl cried. “Mother said I was to be good and help Dinah all I could. And now Dinah’s gone, I’ll help you, Aunt Sallie!”

“But I don’t need to be helped, my dear,” said Mrs. Pry. “I can carry this plate of bread.”

“Oh, let me do it!” begged Flossie.

Her first jump was not quite high enough, so she leaped a second time, and, though Mrs. Pry held the plate above Flossie’s head, the little girl got hold of it. She pulled it from the old lady’s hands, but, instead of keeping hold of it herself, Flossie let it slip from her fingers.

Down fell the plate of bread to the floor. The slices tumbled off and the plate itself was broken in three pieces.

“Oh, now you’ve done it!” cried Freddie. “Oh, look what Flossie did! She broke a plate! Flossie broke a plate! Flossie broke a plate!” he cried in a sing-song voice.

Flossie looked at the damage she had done and then her lips began to quiver, her eyes filled with tears, and a moment later she burst out crying.

“Oh, don’t tell mother!” she begged. “Don’t tell mother! I didn’t mean to break the plate! I wanted to help!”

“Don’t cry, my dear,” said Aunt Sallie kindly. “Of course you didn’t mean to do it. It’s all right. I guess it was only an old plate.”

“The bread didn’t bust, anyhow,” observed Freddie. “I can pick that up and we can eat it!”

“Freddie Bobbsey, you stay right in your chair!” cried Nan. “Something else will happen if you get down. And, Flossie, never mind. You can help with something else. Go to your chair and we’ll eat.”

Bert picked up the pieces of plate while Nan gathered up the bread. Luckily the slices had fallen in the same sort of pile that Mrs. Pry had put them in on the plate, and only the bottom slice had to be laid aside because there might be dirt on it from the rug.

“I’ll feed that to the birds to-morrow,” said Bert, as he laid this slice aside.

Flossie stopped her crying and soon supper was going on merrily—that is, as merrily as was possible when the Bobbsey twins were without father, mother, Dinah and Sam.

Mrs. Pry did her best, and though she misunderstood a number of things that were said, on account of not hearing well, the children did not laugh at her. They felt sorry for the old lady.

Nan helped clear away the supper dishes, with Bert lending a hand now and then. Flossie and Freddie, forgetting all about their little dispute, played together until it was time for them to go to bed.

Bert and Nan did their studying for the next day, and then Bert went about locking the doors and windows, Mrs. Pry telling him to be especially careful.

“For burglars might come in, now that we’re more alone than ever before,” said the old lady.

“Do the burglars know we’re alone?” asked Bert, grinning at his sister, for neither of them felt any fears.

“They might. You never can tell,” answered Mrs. Pry. “Anyhow, don’t leave any doors open.”

And of course Bert would not do that.

Just before he and Nan went up to their rooms, Bert went to the front door to look out.

“Is the weather doing anything?” Nan asked.

“It feels like snow,” Bert answered. “It’s cold and sharp out, and it’s cloudy. Maybe it’ll snow to-morrow. I hope it does.”

“I don’t,” Nan said.

“Why not?” her brother wanted to know.

“Because if it does maybe we’ll not get a letter from mother or daddy for a long time. Maybe they’re snowed-up now and if it storms again they’ll be snowed-up worse. I don’t want any more.”

“Well, maybe it’ll come anyhow,” Bert said with a laugh, as he closed and locked the door.

The children were soon sound asleep and were not disturbed during the night. Even Flossie did not wake up as usual and want Nan to get her a drink.

Nan awakened first the next morning. She looked at a little clock on her bureau and was surprised to note that it was half past eight.

“Oh, we’ll be late for school!” she cried, jumping out of bed. “Mrs. Pry must have forgotten to call us. Oh, dear!”

Nan hurried about, putting on her gown and slippers, to go and call Bert and also to arouse Freddie. Flossie had opened her eyes when she heard Nan moving. Then a voice from Mrs. Pry’s room said:

“Nan! Nan, dear!”

“Yes, Aunt Sallie, what is it?” asked Nan. “Are you sick?” The old lady’s voice sounded different, somehow.

“Yes, Nan, I’m afraid I’m sick,” was the answer. “That’s why I wasn’t able to get down and cook the breakfast. The lumbago has hold of me in the back. The lumbago has gotten a bad hold of me. Oh, dear!”

While Nan stood in the middle of the floor, hardly knowing what to do, Flossie burst into tears.

CHAPTER XII

THE SCHOOL BELL

Poor Nan was upset by hearing that Mrs. Pry was ill in bed when the old lady should have been up getting breakfast, and Nan was also rather worried about not hearing from her father and mother, so that when Flossie burst out crying it seemed as though too many things were happening.

“Why, Flossie, what’s the matter?” asked Nan of her little sister. Nothing special had happened, as far as Nan could see. Flossie had not fallen out of her bed, that was certain. “Are you sick, too, Flossie?” asked Nan.

“No-oo-oo, I’m not sick,” sobbed Flossie. “But I—I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of what?” Nan wanted to know. “There is nothing to be afraid of. It’s morning. We’re late, and maybe we’ll be tardy at school, but that isn’t anything to cry about.”

“I’m not—now—I’m not crying about school!” Flossie sobbed. “I’m scared about Aunt Sallie!”

In her bedroom across the hall the old lady heard.

“Don’t be afraid about me, my dear,” called Aunt Sallie. “I’m not as badly off as all that, though I don’t believe I’m able to get around. The lumbago has me by the back.”

“There! That’s what I’m scared of!” cried Flossie. “I don’t want the lumbago to get me! Shut the door, Nan!”

Then Nan understood, and so did Mrs. Pry.

“The little dear,” sighed the old lady. “You won’t catch the lumbago, Flossie. Little girls don’t catch the lumbago.”

“No, but maybe the lumbago will catch me!” and Flossie still sobbed. “Shut the door, Nan, and keep the lumbago out!”

Then Nan laughed and said:

“Why, I do believe she thinks the lumbago is a sort of animal! Do you, Flossie?”

“Ye-ye-yes,” was the halting answer. “Isn’t the lumbago like the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood?”

“Bless your heart, no!” chuckled Mrs. Pry, in as jolly a manner as she could, though it hurt her to laugh. “The lumbago is something like rheumatism. It catches one in the back and keeps them in bed. I’ve had it before. I’ll be better in a few days. Bless you! the lumbago isn’t a wolf, though it pains a lot. Don’t be afraid. Though I don’t know what you are going to do, Nan. I’m not able to get out of bed, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll manage all right,” Nan said, though her heart was sinking with all the troubles that seemed flocking around. “I’ll make you some coffee, as I do when mother has a headache.”

“Do you think you can, my dear?” asked Aunt Sallie. “I’m so sorry I’m laid up with this lumbago!”

“I can manage,” replied Nan bravely, while she hurried with her dressing. “We children will just have to keep house by ourselves in real earnest,” she said to herself.

Nan was helping Flossie dress, and then she intended to hurry down to the kitchen to make coffee. Nan could get up a simple breakfast, her mother and Dinah having taught her this. But as Nan fastened Flossie’s buttons she heard Bert moving around in his room.

“Whoop-ee!” yelled the boy as he danced around his apartment. “Oh, look, Freddie! It’s snowing like anything! It’s a regular blizzard!”

“Oh, let me see!” begged the small Bobbsey lad.

“Don’t run around barefooted!” warned Nan from her room. “I don’t want you catching cold, Freddie, for then I’ll have some one else sick to nurse.”

“Oh, is Flossie sick?” called Bert who, having looked from the window to see that it was snowing hard, had now begun to dress. “Is Flossie sick?” he called again.

“No. It’s Mrs. Pry,” Nan answered. “She has the lumbago in her back, and I’ll have to stay home from school and nurse her. You and Flossie and Freddie can go, Bert—that is, if the storm isn’t too bad. But you’ll have to hurry. We’re late!”

“Late! I should say we were late!” cried Bert as he looked at a clock on his bureau. “It’s after half past eight and——”

Just then, above the noise of the swirling snowflakes hitting against the windows and the sound of the howling, cold wind, another noise came to the ears of the Bobbsey twins.

A bell rang out in the distance. Five strokes were sounded, then a pause and five strokes more. Another pause, then another five strokes.

“It’s the storm signal on the school bell!” cried Bert. “The three fives! Hurray, no school to-day!”

He danced around the room, half dressed.

“Are you sure?” asked careful Nan.

“Sure!” answered Bert. “There it goes again!”

There was no doubt of it this time. Fifteen strokes rang out, five strokes at a time. It was the signal Mr. Tarton had told the children to listen for in case of a storm. And this surely was a storm! The wind blew harder and the swirling, white flakes came down more thickly.

“No school! No school!” sang Freddie as he began to dress.

“No school! No school!” echoed Flossie, as she followed Nan to the kitchen.

“Hush, my dears, not so much racket!” begged Nan in a low voice. “Mrs. Pry is sick, and she may not like noise.”

“Oh, I’m not fussy that way,” said the old lady who, in spite of her deafness, seemed to have heard what Nan said. “Don’t keep the children quiet on my account. And you’ll have to hurry, Nan, or they’ll be late for school.”

“There isn’t any school,” Nan said.

“What’s that—some one fell over a stool?” cried Mrs. Pry. “Oh, dear! And me flat on my back with lumbago! Who fell over the stool, Nan?”

“Nobody,” answered the Bobbsey girl. “I said there was no school!”

“Oh! No school! You mustn’t mumble your words, my dear. I can hear every time if you speak out. No school, eh? I’m glad of that, for if there was, you’d be late and on account of me. Oh, dear, I wish I could be around to help with the work!”

“We’ll do the work, Aunt Sallie,” said Nan kindly. “Don’t you worry or fuss. Just stay in bed and keep warm, and I’ll bring you up some breakfast. Would you like a hot flatiron for your back?”

“Well, it would help the misery a lot,” the old lady answered. “But I don’t like to be such a bother.”

“It isn’t any bother at all,” said Nan kindly. “Bert will help me get breakfast, won’t you, Bert?”

“Sure,” he answered, sliding down the banister rail. “But I’ve got to shovel the walks of snow.”

“They can wait,” said Nan. “There’s no use shoveling walks until it stops snowing.”

“I guess maybe that’s right,” agreed her brother. “Say, it’s a big storm,” he cried, as he saw how much snow had fallen in the night. “I hope father and mother are all right—and Sam and Dinah, too.”

“Yes, so do I,” agreed Nan. “And I hope some mail comes in to-day. I’d love to have a letter from mother.”

Flossie and Freddie crowded eagerly to the windows to look out at the storm. The house was snug and warm, but outside it was cold and blowy, and though the small twins did not mind snow or cold weather they were just as glad, this morning, that they did not have to tramp out to school.

Nan had often watched her mother and Dinah get breakfast, and so had Bert, so together the two older Bobbsey twins soon had coffee boiling on the stove, and the oatmeal which had been made ready the night before was being warmed.

“I’m going to fry me some bacon!” declared Bert.

“Do you know how?” asked Nan.

“Sure I do,” he declared. “Once Charlie Mason and I made a fire in the woods and fried bacon. It was good, too.”

“Well, first I wish you’d get some oranges out of the pantry for Flossie and Freddie,” said Nan. “Do that while I’m taking Mrs. Pry up this hot coffee,” she added, as she filled a cup with the steaming drink and put some slices of bread and butter on a tray.

“All right—the oranges will be ready in a minute,” laughed Bert. “First call for breakfast! First call for breakfast!” he shouted, as he had heard the waiters in the dining car announce as they came into the Pullman coaches on the railroad.

“It’s fun being snowed-in like this, isn’t it, Flossie?” asked Freddie, as he tried to see how flat he could make his nose by pressing it against the window.

“Lots of fun,” agreed the little girl. “But I’m hungry. I want my breakfast, Nan.”

“Bert will give you your oranges now,” Nan answered. “And I’ll dish out your oatmeal when I come down after I take Mrs. Pry her coffee.”

This satisfied the smaller twins, and they laughed at the funny faces Bert made as he went about, pretending he was a Pullman waiter. In fact Freddie laughed so hard that some of his orange went down the “wrong throat” and Bert had to pat his small brother on the back to stop the choking.

Nan carried the coffee into Aunt Sallie’s room. Mrs. Pry had not gotten out of bed and the shades were drawn down over the windows.

“Shall I make it lighter for you?” asked Nan. “It’s snowing again.”

“What’s that? You say the pig is out of the pen? Land sakes, child, I didn’t know you kept a pig! Dear me, and Sam isn’t here to chase him back into the pen! Oh, the misery in my back! If it wasn’t for the lumbago I’d get after the pig!”

“I didn’t say anything about a pig or a pen,” answered Nan, trying not to laugh. “I said it was snowing again!”

“Oh, snowing again,” Mrs. Pry remarked. “Well, why didn’t you say so at first, my dear? Dear me! We’re having a lot of snow this winter, and early, too. That’s right; raise the curtains so I can see out. And thank you for the coffee. Ah, it makes me feel better,” she said, as she sipped it.

“Is it all right and strong enough?” asked Nan.

“Plenty strong, and very good, my dear. You’re quite a little housekeeper.”

Nan thought that she would need to be, and so would Bert, if they were to be left alone with a sick woman to look after. But Nan said nothing about this.

She helped Mrs. Pry sit up in bed, for the old lady could hardly raise herself on account of the pain in her back. Nan propped the pillows up against her, and then started downstairs to get the hot flatiron, leaving Mrs. Pry sipping the coffee and eating the bread and butter.

As Nan started down she heard the shrill voices of Flossie and Freddie, and she heard Bert calling: