AUNT SALLIE IS WORSE
While Nan Bobbsey was putting breakfast on the table for Flossie and
Freddie, and also for herself and Bert, the smaller twins were amusing
themselves by running to and fro in the house. They ran into the front
room, up to the windows, out of which they looked at the storm, and
then they ran back into the dining room.
“Don’t make so much noise!” begged Nan, while she wondered how Bert was
getting along with cutting off the tree branch.
“We’re playing horse,” explained Freddie. “Horses have to make noise.”
“He’s the horse and I’m the driver,” said Flossie.
“Come on!” cried her twin brother. “We have to go to a fire now!”
Into the front room the smaller twins raced again, and as they reached
the windows they saw Bert fall off the roof. They knew it was their
brother.
“Oh! Oh!” screamed Flossie. “Look at Bert!”
Freddie gazed for a moment. Then he rushed back to the dining room
where Nan was putting the oatmeal on the table and cried:
“Bert jumped off the roof! Bert jumped off the roof into a snowdrift in
the front yard! Oh, Nan, you ought to see him!”
Nan gazed wide-eyed at her small brother. Why should Bert jump off the
roof, especially when he had a sharp hatchet? Perhaps something worse
than this had happened.
Nan hurried into the front room, followed by Freddie. Flossie was still
at the window looking out.
“Bert’s stuck in a snowdrift,” she reported. “Look, he can hardly get
out!”
And this was true. So deep was the snow in front of the house, and so
far down in the drift had Bert plunged when he toppled off the roof,
that it was all the boy could do to scramble out. Still he was making
headway, floundering about to reach the front steps.
Nan ran to the door and opened it.
“Bert Bobbsey!” she cried. “What did you want to jump off the roof for?”
“I didn’t jump,” Bert said, somewhat out of breath as at last he
managed to free his legs and reach the porch.
“Freddie says you jumped,” went on Nan.
“No I didn’t! I fell,” panted Bert. “I cut the tree branch--and--then
I slipped--off the box. I was standing on a box. I rolled--off--the
roof--but I’m not hurt because I--fell in a snow bank.”
“Oh, I’m glad of that!” exclaimed Nan.
“You are?” cried Bert, with a laugh. “Well, you wouldn’t be glad if you
had as much snow down your back as I’ve got down mine!”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that!” Nan exclaimed. “I mean I’m glad you didn’t
get hurt.”
“So’m I,” said Bert. “Falling in the snowdrift, even off the porch
roof, was like landing in a feather bed.”
“The hatchet might have cut you,” went on his sister.
“I dropped that up on the roof when I fell, I guess,” stated Bert.
“Well, anyhow, I cut the branch loose, and it won’t bang any more. Now
we’ve got to nail a blanket over the window so the wind and snow won’t
blow in.”
“You better have your breakfast first,” Nan suggested.
“No, I’m all snow now and I might as well finish,” decided Bert. “But I
guess you’ll have to help me put the blanket on, Nan. I can’t hold both
sides up at once.”
“I’ll do that,” his sister agreed.
“We’ll help, too!” cried Freddie, speaking for himself and his twin
sister.
“No, you two get your breakfast,” decided Nan. “It’s all on the table
ready for you. And be good children, now.”
“We will,” promised Flossie. “I’ll let Freddie eat out of my oatmeal
dish if he wants to.”
“Each of you has a dish,” laughed Nan. “There’s no need of sharing
them. Now come on, Bert, and we’ll fix that window.”
Nan knew where her mother kept the extra bed clothes, and from the
closet she took a heavy woolen blanket. Bert got some big tacks from
his father’s tool box down in the cellar, and then the two older
Bobbsey twins began work to keep out the wintry blast which seemed to
howl with glee as it rushed through the broken window.
Bert found where he had dropped the hatchet in the snow on the roof
before he rolled off.
“I’ll bring that in to hammer with, and we can stand on the box,” he
told Nan.
“Oh, what a lot of snow on the carpet! And broken glass, too!”
exclaimed the girl. “Mother would feel badly if she saw this.”
“I’ll clean it up as soon as we get the blanket tacked on,” said Bert.
It was not easy for him and Nan to put up the heavy blanket and tack it
fast to the sides of the window. For the wind would blow hard every now
and then, spreading the blanket out like a sail of a boat. But at last
they managed to get it in place, and then the wind could no longer
enter, nor did any more snow sift in.
“We’ll have to get a glass man to fix the window,” said Nan.
“Can’t get anybody until after this storm is over,” was Bert’s opinion.
“A glass man might fall off the roof and break the new pane he brought.
I guess this will be all right for a while. Nobody sleeps in here,
anyhow.”
“Yes,” agreed Nan, “it will be all right. It doesn’t matter if this
room is cold.”
Bert got broom and dustpan and cleaned up the snow before it should
melt on the carpet. He also picked up the broken pieces of glass,
taking care not to cut his fingers, and put them in an ash can in the
cellar.
“And now I guess it’s time I had my breakfast,” he decided, when
everything had been made as nearly right as possible.
“I’ll eat with you,” said Nan.
“Haven’t you had your breakfast, either?” asked Bert, in surprise.
“I haven’t had time,” explained Nan. “I had to look after Aunt Sallie
and the twins.”
She and Bert were on their way to the dining room, when suddenly they
heard the voices of Flossie and Freddie.
“Stop! Now you stop, Freddie Bobbsey! Quit, I’ll tell Dinah on you!”
Flossie wailed.
“Dinah isn’t here!” retorted Freddie.
“Guess those two need more looking after,” laughed Bert to Nan.
“Oh, they’re always up to something!” she sighed, as she hurried into
the dining room.
Nan and Bert saw Freddie trying to pull away from Flossie the oatmeal
dish the little girl had been using. Flossie was clinging to one side
of it, and at the same time shouting:
“Stop! Stop! Now you stop, Freddie Bobbsey!”
“Give me the dish! Let me have it!” insisted the little boy.
“Stop, Freddie!” called Nan. “Why are you trying to take away Flossie’s
dish?”
“She’s through with it. She’s eaten up all her oatmeal,” Freddie said.
“I’m going to take the dish out in the kitchen and wash it.”
“No, you mustn’t do that,” said Nan.
“I want to help you wash the dishes!”
“Thank you, dear, but I don’t need any help this morning,” Nan said.
“And he sha’n’t have my dish! I haven’t eaten all my oatmeal!” wailed
Flossie.
“Oh, you did so eat it all up! There isn’t any left!” exclaimed Freddie.
“There is so!” retorted Flossie, trying hard to pull the dish away from
her brother. “There’s sugar and milk in my dish and I want it, Freddie
Bobbsey.”
Bert had a look in the dish over which there was such a dispute. There
was only a very little milk on the bottom--hardly a spoonful. But
sometimes Flossie could be very fussy over little things, and this was
one of those occasions.
“Her dish is empty and it ought to be washed,” Freddie said, and he
would not let go his hold until Bert took his fingers off, saying:
“Come on, Freddie, I’ll let you help me make the water wheel as soon as
I’ve had something to eat. Let the girls do the dishes.”
“Oh, all right,” agreed the little boy. Then to Flossie he cried:
“Girls are cry babies and they have to wash dishes! Boys make things,
and I’m going to make a water wheel!”
“I am not a cry baby, am I, Nan?” appealed Flossie.
“No, dear, you aren’t, of course,” Nan answered. “You mustn’t call
names, Freddie.”
“Well, then why didn’t she let me take her dish out when it was empty?”
the little boy wanted to know.
“’Tisn’t empty! I’m going to eat the rest of my oatmeal,” said Flossie,
and she began to scrape up with her spoon what little milk remained.
There was hardly enough to show, but Flossie made as much work over it
as though the dish were half full.
“You can help me with the dishes, Flossie, as soon as Bert and I have
our breakfast,” Nan said, and this pleased the little girl. And Freddie
forgot about his dispute with Flossie when he thought of helping Bert
with the water wheel.
The storm kept up all that morning, and it was so severe that though
Bert wanted to go to the post-office to inquire if any mail had come
in, Nan would not let him.
“You might get stuck in a drift and never get back,” she said.
“Pooh! I guess I could get out of a drift!” laughed Bert. “Didn’t I get
out of the one I fell into off the roof?”
But Nan was so worried over the storm and about being left alone that
Bert said he would stay at home.
It was still snowing at noon when Nan served lunch. Though as she
looked in the pantry she said to herself:
“Somebody will have to go to the store to-morrow or we’ll not have much
to eat. I don’t believe the stores will deliver anything. But maybe
Bert can get out in the morning if the snow stops.”
After Nan had seen to it that things were put on the table for Bert,
Flossie and Freddie, she carried something up to Aunt Sallie, without
waiting to get anything for herself.
As Nan entered the old lady’s room she saw Mrs. Pry tossing from side
to side in the bed, just as Nan had once seen Flossie toss in a fever.
“Who--who is that?” murmured Mrs. Pry in a faint voice, as Nan set the
tray of food down on a table near the bed. “Is that the doctor?”
“No. This is Nan Bobbsey,” said the little girl. “Don’t you know me,
Aunt Sallie?” She feared the old lady was out of her head with fever.
“Oh, yes, I know you, Nan,” was the low answer. “But I thought you were
the doctor. When is the doctor coming?”
“Why, I don’t know,” and Nan was puzzled. “Did you want me to send for
the doctor?”
“Yes, dearie, I wish you would. I called down to you to send for him,
but I guess you didn’t hear me.”
“Flossie and Freddie were making so much noise, I guess I didn’t hear
you,” said Nan. “But I’ll get the doctor right away, if you think you
want him.”
“I’d better have him, Nan. I’m much worse, I fear. I’m very sick and
the lumbago is worse. That liniment doesn’t seem to help me any. Send
for the doctor. Dr. Martin is the best one, and he doesn’t live far
from here.”
“I’ll have Bert telephone for him right away,” promised Nan. “And see,
I have brought you up something to eat.”
“I’m too sick to eat, dearie,” moaned Aunt Sallie. “Get the doctor as
soon as you can.”
Nan hurried downstairs and told Bert. He went to the telephone, but
after waiting some time he heard no voice of the operator asking what
number he wanted.
“I guess the telephone wires are broken, Nan,” he said. “I’ll have to
go over to Dr. Martin’s house to tell him to come.”
“Oh, dear!” sighed Nan, and she looked out of the window at the storm
which was still raging fiercely.