SNOWED IN
Nan Bobbsey was glad her brother Bert was at home, helping her keep
house. Without Bert she felt that she never could look after things,
see to Flossie and Freddie and nurse the sick Mrs. Pry. And when Nan
heard her small brother and sister squealing this way, which always
meant mischief of some sort or other, she was more than glad that she
also heard Bert’s voice calling to the small twins.
Nan got to the foot of the stairs in time to see Bert running out of a
side door after Flossie and Freddie who, bare-headed and with no wraps
on, had run out into the storm.
“Oh, you mustn’t do that!” exclaimed Nan. “Bring them in, Bert!”
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” he answered, but he could not help
laughing, so jolly and full of fun were Flossie and Freddie, though
they were also full of mischief.
“Now, I have you!” cried Bert as he caught Flossie before she had time
to get very far away from the bottom of the steps.
“But you haven’t got me!” shouted Freddie, making a dash through the
piles of snow on the ground and also through the cloud of swirling
flakes falling from the sky. “You haven’t got me!”
“But I will get you!” shouted Bert. “Here, Nan,” he called to his older
sister, “you hold this little tyke while I chase after this Freddie
boy!”
Nan, with a sigh and yet with a little laugh, held Flossie, who, truth
to tell, was herself laughing and giggling so hard at the trick she and
Freddie had played on Bert that she could not have run much farther, no
matter how much she wanted to.
Freddie had counted on Bert having to drag Flossie along with him on
the second part of the chase. But when Bert turned Flossie over to Nan,
that left him free to run, and he caught his small brother before the
latter had taken more than half a dozen steps.
“Prisoner number two!” cried Bert, picking Freddie up in his arms and
carrying him back to the house. “Lock ’em up, Nan!”
“I shall have to, if they aren’t better,” Nan said, with a shake of her
head as she put Flossie down in the hall while Bert did the same with
Freddie.
“No, you don’t!” suddenly cried Bert, as he locked the door out of
which the mischievous ones had darted. He saw Freddie making a sly
attempt to open it again.
“What happened?” asked Nan. “I was coming down to get the flatiron for
Aunt Sallie and I heard the children scream.”
“They were only yelling for fun and because they played a trick on me,”
laughed Bert. “They wanted to go out and get some snow, but I wouldn’t
let them.”
“Of course not!” agreed Nan. “The idea!”
“But we got out, anyhow, didn’t we, Flossie?” laughed Freddie.
“Yes, we did!” she giggled.
“I went to the front door to see if the man had left the milk,”
explained Bert, “for he leaves it on the front steps when it storms
too much to come around to the back. And when I opened the door these
two prisoners,” and laughingly he shook a finger at them, “wanted to go
out and get some snow to bring in the house.
“I said they couldn’t, and I only had time to get the door shut to keep
them in. Then I went to the side door, leaving them trying to unlock
the front door, which they couldn’t do, because I took the key out,”
and with another laugh Bert held up the key. “But all of a sudden they
crawled past me while I was looking on the side porch for the milk, and
that’s how they got out. I had to run after them.”
“I was wondering what happened,” said Nan. “Did you bring the milk in,
Bert?”
“No, I didn’t Nan. There isn’t any milk.”
“Oh, didn’t the milkman come?”
“Guess he didn’t,” Bert answered. “It isn’t the first time he’s missed
us in a storm.”
“Well, I think we have enough left for to-day,” said Nan. “I’m pretty
sure there is a bottle in the pantry. But if he doesn’t leave any
to-morrow, Bert, you’ll have to go after some. But I guess the storm
will stop by then.”
“I don’t know,” said Bert, while again he shook his finger at Flossie
and Freddie who were laughing together in a corner, plotting more
tricks, it is likely. “It looks as if it’s going to snow for a week,
Nan.”
“Oh, I hope it doesn’t do that!” she cried. “Mother and father would
never get home and we’ll never have any word from them.”
“I guess there’d be some way out,” answered Bert. “But I don’t
believe there’ll be any mail delivered to-day. I could go down to the
post-office after it, though.”
“No, I don’t want you to go out in the storm!” objected Nan. “I don’t
want to be left here all alone, with Mrs. Pry sick. Maybe you couldn’t
get back.”
“I’ll stay with you,” promised her brother good-naturedly. “But is Aunt
Sallie very sick?”
“Well, she has lots of pain in her back,” explained Nan. “That’s why
I’m going to take her the hot flatiron. Then I must wash the dishes
and see about getting lunch.”
“Could we play picnic and make believe take our lunch to the woods to
eat?” asked Flossie.
“Oh, that would be lots of fun!” cried Freddie. “We could make believe
up in the attic was woods. Let’s do that!”
“I’ll see about it,” answered Nan. “Now you look after them a little
while, Bert, and I’ll take this iron to Aunt Sallie. And don’t you two
little tykes dare to run out in the snow again!”
“We won’t,” promised Flossie.
Nan found the old lady moving restlessly about in bed with the pain of
the lumbago in her back.
“Do you think I ought to get the doctor for you?” asked the girl.
“Oh, no, dearie, I’ll be all right in a day or so,” answered Mrs. Pry.
“This hot iron will help a lot. Then if I had some of my liniment to
rub on my back, I’d feel better.”
“Shall I get Bert to go to the drug store after the liniment?” asked
Nan.
“You won’t need to do that, dearie,” answered Mrs. Pry. “I have some of
the stuff in a bottle in my valise. If you’ll hand it to me I’ll rub it
on my back, and then I’ll go to sleep awhile. I didn’t sleep much all
night. But I fell asleep toward morning, and I slept so hard I didn’t
wake up in time to call you to go to school.”
“Well, there isn’t any school, so that didn’t matter,” Nan said.
She found the bottle of queer-smelling liniment in the old lady’s
valise, and gave it to her. Then Nan said:
“Well, I’ll go down now and wash the dishes.”
“What’s that?” exclaimed Mrs. Pry. “You say Bert is going out and try
to catch some fishes? Land sakes, child! he never can catch any fishes
in this snow storm! Don’t let him go! Besides, I don’t like fish,
anyhow!”
“I didn’t say anything about fishes!” replied Nan in louder tones. “I
said I was going to wash the _dishes_!”
“Oh! Dishes!” murmured Mrs. Pry. “Well, my hearing isn’t what it once
was. But I surely thought you said fishes.”
Holding back her merriment, Nan went downstairs. Flossie and Freddie
were so filled with joy over their plan of going up in the attic and
playing they were on a picnic in the woods that they had become very
good and quiet indeed, making no trouble for Bert, who had “picked up”
the dishes, ready for washing.
“I’ll dry them for you,” he told Nan, and he added: “We might as well
give Flossie and Freddie some crackers and cookies, and let them play
up in the attic where they won’t bother Aunt Sallie. They’ve got to do
something to keep out of trouble, and they can’t go out in the storm.”
“Yes, we’ll do that,” decided Nan.
Accordingly, she put some odds and ends of cookies, cakes and crackers
in two boxes and gave them to the smaller twins. Then Flossie got one
of her dolls and Freddie took a little iron fire-engine, one of his
favorite toys, and the small twins went up to the attic. Nan went up
with them and remained a little while, to be sure it was warm enough
for them.
“I’ll keep up a good fire,” Bert had promised, and he was as good as
his word, for the attic was as “warm as toast.” Bert knew how to put
coal on the furnace, and though he could not toss on quite as big
shovelfuls as could Sam, who always looked after the heater, Bert did
very well.
With the small twins thus out of the way for a while and with Mrs. Pry
feeling better because of the hot flatiron and the liniment, Nan and
Bert had a chance to do some of the housework.
“How do you like keeping house, Nan?” asked Bert, as he dried the cups
and saucers.
“Well, it’s fun, but it’s a little bit lonesome,” she answered.
“I feel that way, too,” Bert said. “If Dinah and Sam were here it
wouldn’t be so lonesome. But with them gone, and daddy and mother away,
it isn’t so nice. But we’ve got to stick it out, Nan.”
“Of course we have,” she said. “I wonder what I had better cook for
lunch?”
“Bacon,” quickly answered Bert.
“Ho! Ho!” laughed his sister. “You’d have bacon three times a day, I
guess.”
“Well, it’s what fellows always have in camp, and this is like camp,”
Bert explained.
“It is, a little,” agreed Nan. “My, how the snow keeps up!”
“And the wind, too!” added Bert as a sudden gust howled around the
corner of the house, sending the hard snowflakes rattling against the
windows.
With Bert to help her, Nan tidied the rooms and set the house to
rights. Then she looked in the pantry and saw that they had enough food
for another day. She caught sight of a package of prepared flour, out
of which she had often seen Dinah make griddle cakes.
“We’ll have griddle cakes and maple syrup for lunch,” decided Nan.
“Hurray!” cried Bert. “That’s better than bacon. But can you bake
griddle cakes, Nan?”
“Of course,” she answered.
“Let me turn them for you,” begged Bert.
“I’ll see,” was all Nan would promise.
It was shortly before noon that Nan went to the side door to look out
and see if, by any chance, the belated milkman had been along. But the
door would not open, though Nan tugged at it. Then, looking from a side
window, she saw that a big drift of snow had piled up on the steps
against the door, to which, as well as to the door jambs, the snow had
frozen.
“Oh, Bert, we’re snowed-in!” cried Nan. “We’re snowed-in, Bert!”
Bert came running from the kitchen at the sound of his sister’s voice.
At the same time, up in the attic sounded loud shouts from Flossie and
Freddie.
“Oh, what else has happened?” wailed poor Nan.