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.