NAN’S BISCUITS
Bert Bobbsey at first thought something had happened to Nan when he
heard her call out. But as he came in from the kitchen and saw her
standing safely by the door, he asked:
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing is the matter with me,” answered Nan. “But the door is snowed
fast. We can’t get out.”
“We can go to another door then,” said Bert, not much excited. “Once
last winter we couldn’t get the back door open because a lot of snow
had drifted against it, and we had to use the front door. That’s
nothing.”
“Well, maybe it isn’t,” Nan agreed. “But listen to that!”
She pointed upward, and Bert heard Flossie and Freddie in the attic
screaming and shouting.
“Those tykes again!” Bert cried with a laugh as he started for the
stairs. “I’ll fix ’em!”
“Oh, Bert, you’ll have to be kind to them!” pleaded Nan. “If you’re
cross and they start crying, they’ll want daddy and mother and then we
can’t do a thing with them! And there’s so much trouble now, with Aunt
Sallie in bed. Oh, dear!”
“Don’t worry,” replied Bert. “I’ll be kind to ’em, all right. I guess
Freddie is just teasing Flossie. She always yells when he teases her.
Don’t worry, Nan. Everything will be all right.”
“I hope so,” sighed Nan.
“And I’ll get a shovel and clear that snow away from the door when
I see what’s the matter with those two tykes,” went on Bert, as he
hastened upstairs. He liked to call his small brother and sister by the
funny name of “tykes,” which means a mischievous little person.
Hurrying up to the attic, Bert found the cause of the trouble. Flossie
and Freddie, tired of playing picnic in the “woods,” had started a
circus game, each one pretending to be an animal. When Bert got up
there he saw Flossie lying on the floor with one foot and leg thrust
through the lower part of a chair. Freddie was pulling his sister by
the arms, and as her leg was caught between the chair rounds, she could
not get loose. The chair was being dragged along with Flossie. She was
crying and Freddie was shouting.
“What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” called Bert. “Stop this kind of
play!”
“This isn’t play,” Freddie explained. “We were playing, but Flossie got
her foot caught and she couldn’t get it out and I can’t pull it out!”
“And it hurts me!” sobbed Flossie. “Oh, Bert, have I got to stay here
forever?”
“Of course not,” answered Bert. “I’ll soon have you loose. Stop
pulling, Freddie. You’ll only jam her foot in tighter. Let go!”
Freddie let go of Flossie’s arms and then, as she lay on the floor,
Bert turned her foot a little way around, so that it was crossways
with the chair rounds, instead of up and down against them, and a
moment later Flossie was free.
“Goodness!” laughed Bert, when he saw that his sister was not hurt,
though she still sobbed, “it sounded like a den of wild animals up
here!”
“I was a wild lion,” explained Freddie.
“And I was an elephant,” said Flossie. “Freddie said I must be a bad
elephant and kick the old chair over. So I kicked and my foot went in
and I couldn’t get it out again.”
“I pulled her and pulled her, but it didn’t do any good,” explained
Freddie.
“I should say not--the way you were pulling!” laughed Bert. “But I
guess you’ve had enough of playing up here. Come on downstairs. You
must have frightened Aunt Sallie out of her wits, banging around the
way you did and yelling.”
“Could we see Aunt Sallie?” asked Flossie, as she and her brother
followed Bert down the attic stairs.
“I guess so, if she isn’t asleep,” said Bert. “I’ll look in her room.”
When he did so he found the old lady sitting up in bed. She smiled at
Bert and said:
“Are there any birds up in the attic? Seems to me, Bert, I heard birds
fluttering around up there.”
The noise made by Flossie and Freddie had been very loud, so loud that
Nan had heard it away downstairs. But the deaf old lady had thought it
was only the twittering of birds. Bert wanted to laugh, but he did not.
He just said:
“No, there weren’t any birds, Aunt Sallie. It was just Flossie and
Freddie playing with a chair.”
“Oh, you say Flossie cut Freddie’s hair? She shouldn’t do that! She
might cut him or herself with the scissors. Besides, she is such a
little girl she can’t cut his hair straight. Flossie shouldn’t cut
hair. Moreover, I never knew that hair-cutting made so much noise.”
“No, no!” explained Bert. “Nobody was cutting _hair_. I said Flossie
and Freddie were playing with a _chair_!”
“Oh! Chair!” repeated Mrs. Pry. “You should speak a little more
plainly, Bert, my dear. Don’t mumble your words. But how are Flossie
and Freddie, anyhow? I haven’t seen them all day.”
“They’re out in the hall now,” explained Bert. “They’d like to see you
if you’re not too sick.”
“Bring them in, Bert. I’m feeling a little better now. Nan is a good
nurse. The hot flatiron she brought me helped the lumbago in my back.
Bring the children in.”
Flossie and Freddie looked curiously at Aunt Sallie. They had never
before seen her in bed, and as she sat up, propped against the pillows
with a blanket around her and a cap on her head, Flossie exclaimed:
“Oh, you look just like the pictures of little Red Riding Hood’s
grandmother!”
“Do I, my dear?” asked the old lady. “Well, if I’m the grandmother, the
lumbago in my back must be the wolf. Not a real wolf,” she added. “Just
make believe, you know.”
“I know,” said Freddie. “I was playing I was a lion up in the attic.”
“And I was an elephant,” explained Flossie. “And I got my foot caught
in a chair and I couldn’t get it out!”
“Well, you’re all right now,” said the old lady, with a smile. “Be good
children now, for you’ll have to help Nan and Bert keep house until I
get better. It’s a sad time.”
“Oh, we like it,” laughed Freddie. “We can stay at home and don’t have
to go to school.”
“You say somebody lost his mule?” asked Mrs. Pry. “That’s too bad! The
mule was lost in the storm, I expect.”
Flossie and Freddie looked at each other wonderingly, and then at Bert.
They were not quite so used to the misunderstandings of the old lady as
were Bert and Nan. So Bert, before his brother and sister should laugh
at Mrs. Pry, made haste to say:
“They didn’t say anything about a mule, Aunt Sallie. Freddie said he
was glad there wasn’t any school!”
“Oh, school! Yes! Well, there’s no sense in going to school when its
such a bad storm. But I guess it will soon stop!”
However, it did not soon stop. The small Bobbsey twins went downstairs
from Mrs. Pry’s room, and the snow was still falling and the wind was
still blowing. Not that the little twins minded this--they liked it all
the more, snug and warm as they were in the house.
But Nan, getting the lunch and putting another flatiron on to heat for
Mrs. Pry’s back, shook her head more than once as she looked out of the
window.
“What’s the matter?” asked Bert as he noticed how serious his twin
sister seemed.
“I’m beginning to get worried about mother and daddy,” answered Nan. “I
don’t see why we haven’t had some word from them--a letter or a post
card.”
“I guess the mails are late on account of the storm,” Bert remarked.
“If we don’t get any to-day, and I guess we won’t, for I haven’t heard
the postman’s whistle, to-morrow I’ll go down to the post-office and
ask if there are any letters for us.”
“You can’t go if it storms this way,” Nan said.
“It will stop by to-morrow,” declared Bert.
With her brother’s help Nan managed to get up a nice little lunch for
the family, consisting of some baked potatoes, an omelet, and some
bread and preserves. She made toast for Mrs. Pry and took it up to her
with a cup of hot tea. Flossie and Freddie begged to be allowed to
help, so Nan let them carry the toast--each one had a slice wrapped in
a napkin.
“They can’t hurt the toast, even if they drop it,” Nan whispered to
Bert. But the small twins were very careful, and the toast arrived
safely in the invalid’s room.
“You are very good to me, Nan,” sighed Aunt Sallie. “I think I will try
and get around to-morrow.”
“No, you must stay in bed until your lumbago is all gone,” insisted
Nan. “I’ll bring you up another hot iron as soon as you take your toast
and tea.”
“Yes, heat is the best thing for lumbago,” said Mrs. Pry. “That and my
liniment will cure me, I expect. But my liniment is nearly gone. And
how to get more I don’t know.”
“Bert will get it for you,” offered Nan kindly.
The afternoon passed. Bert got out on the porch in his big coat and
rubber boots and cleared away some of the snow. Flossie and Freddie
wanted to go out with him, but Nan would not allow this. She got the
smaller twins into a room where they could not see Bert at work with
the snow shovel, and told them stories.
“How is it outside, Bert?” asked Nan when her brother came in, having
cleared the side door against which the big drift had blown.
“Pretty bad,” he answered. “It seems to snow harder than ever, and the
wind is blowing and it’s getting colder. I’m glad we’re inside with a
warm fire and plenty to eat.”
“That’s just the trouble,” said Nan in a low voice. “We haven’t plenty
to eat, Bert.”
“Not enough to eat--what do you mean?”
“Well, I mean we haven’t any bread. I toasted the last of it for Mrs.
Pry. There’s no bread for supper.”
“I’ll go to the store and get a loaf,” Bert offered.
“No!” cried his sister quickly. “I don’t want you to go out in the
storm. You might get lost!”
“But what’ll we do for supper?” asked Bert. “I’ve got to have bread and
butter.”
“We have plenty of butter,” explained Nan. “I’ll make a batch of
biscuits,” she added. “They’re as good as bread.”
“Better!” declared Bert. “But can you make biscuits, Nan?”
“I guess so. Mother’s told me how and I’ve watched Dinah make them lots
of times. You just mix up some flour, milk, baking powder, water and
lard and roll it out and then cut the biscuits into round shapes and
put them in a pan and bake them in the oven.”
“It sounds easy,” remarked Bert. “I’ll help you.”
When Flossie and Freddie heard what Nan was going to do, they, also,
wanted to help.
“We can’t all do it,” laughed Nan. “But you can come in the kitchen
and watch me.”
“Can I have some sugar on my bikset when it’s baked?” asked Flossie.
“Ho! Ho!” laughed Freddie. “Listen to what she called ’em! Bikset!
Bikset!”
“That’s their name,” insisted Flossie.
“’Tisn’t!” cried Freddie. “It’s buskit! Guess I know!”
“You’re both wrong!” laughed Bert. “But no matter how you call them,
they’re going to be good when Nan bakes them. Now you two sit down in
chairs where you’ll be out of the way.”
Nan told Bert what to bring her from the pantry so she could make the
biscuits, and then, putting on an apron and rolling up her sleeves, she
began.
As she had seen Dinah do, she mixed the flour and lard together first,
kneading it with her hands.
“It’s just like making mud pies,” said Freddie.
“’Cept it isn’t brown mud--it’s white,” said Flossie.
“I wish I could squeeze ’em like that,” went on Freddie, as he saw Nan
working up the dough.
“Well, you can’t, so just you sit still!” Nan told him, with a laugh.
Remembering what her mother had told her, and what she had seen Dinah
do, Nan soon had rolled the biscuit dough out on the floured board, and
then with a shiny tin thing, she cut out little round, flattened bits
of dough, which she put in a buttered pan, ready for the oven.
“I’ve got enough dough for two pans of biscuits,” said the little cook.
“So I’ll set this first pan down in a chair and get another pan ready
for the oven. Then they’ll both bake at the same time.”
“We’ll have lots of buskits!” said Freddie. “I’m glad, because I like
buskits!”
“And I’m going to have sugar on my bikset, ain’t I, Nan?” asked Flossie.
“We’ll see,” said the young cook, giving all her attention to cutting
out the second batch.
Flossie and Freddie both liked to watch this part of the work, so they
left their chairs to stand beside the table. They stood on their
tiptoes, so eager were they.
“Now I’ll put these in the pan, and pop them into the oven,” said Nan,
when the last of the biscuits had been cut out. “Sit down in your
chairs, Flossie and Freddie, so you won’t be in my way when I open the
oven door.”
Flossie and Freddie went back to where they had been sitting, and all
would have been well if Flossie had taken the same chair out of which
she had slid a little while before to watch Nan. But, instead, Flossie
backed up to the wrong chair.
It was the chair on which Nan had set the first pan of biscuits, and a
moment later Flossie “plopped” herself down right on top of the soft
bits of dough!
“Oh! Oh!” yelled Freddie, but too late. “Look! Look! Flossie sat on the
buskits! Flossie’s sitting on the buskits!”