DIGGING A TUNNEL
Even seeing their father and uncle so tired out from shoveling snow and
from struggling with the storm did not make the Curlytops think how bad
it was to be snowed in. They still thought it was going to be fun. And
so, in a way, it was, I suppose. At any rate they had a warm house in
which to stay and plenty of good things to eat.
"Well, what are you going to do?" asked Mrs. Martin of her husband as,
standing in the entry, he brushed some of the snow off his boots with
the broom.
"We'll have to try again," said Uncle Frank.
"Is it like your out-West blizzards, Uncle Frank?" asked Teddy.
"Yes, this is almost as bad as the ones we have out there," he said.
"Only this isn't quite so cold."
"It's cold enough for me!" exclaimed Mr. Martin. "Here, Jan," he called
to his little girl. "Just take hold of my nose, will you, my dear?"
"What for, Daddy?" asked the little girl.
"I want to see if it is still fast to my face," answered her father. "It
got so cold when I was shoveling snow that I thought maybe it had frozen
and dropped off."
Janet grasped her father's nose in her warm hands.
"Oh, it's awful cold!" she cried with a little shiver.
"I know it is!" laughed Mr. Martin. "That's what made me afraid it was
going to drop off. I'm glad I still have it."
"Are you cold, too, Uncle Frank?" asked Teddy.
"A little, yes. But I shoveled hard at the snow and I'm warmer now."
"Take some hot coffee," said Mrs. Martin. "Nora will pour it out for
you. No, Trouble! You mustn't do that!" she cried, as she saw Baby
William crumbling a slice of bread into the pitcher of milk.
"What's he doing?" asked Aunt Jo.
"Goin' make a cake," the little fellow answered. "Make cake an' have
p'ay party."
"Well, you can have a play party with something else," laughed his
mother. "We can't let you waste milk that way when we can't tell when
we'll get more if daddy can't get out to the barn to milk the cow."
She took the slice of bread away from William and set him down from the
table to which he had climbed up in a chair.
"'Member the time he made a cake when we were camping with grandpa on
Star Island?" asked Janet of Ted.
"I guess I do!" he laughed. "The dough was all over everything!"
"Well, let's try it again now," said Uncle Frank to Daddy Martin, when
they had had some hot coffee. "We've got to get out to the barn,
somehow."
"Yes," agreed the father of the Curlytops. "I don't want the horse and
cow to be hungry or thirsty. I hope the water in the barn isn't frozen.
If it is we'll have to carry some from the house."
"And that might freeze on the way out," said Uncle Frank.
"You could take a pail of hot water and that wouldn't freeze," Teddy
remarked.
"Our horse or cow couldn't drink hot water," objected Janet.
"Well, they could wait for it to cool just as we do for our hot milk
sometimes."
"Yes, they could do that," agreed Janet. "Oh, I wish we could go out in
our bungalow!"
"Don't dare try it!" cried Daddy Martin. "If you children went out in
the snow you might not get back until your ears and fingers were
frost-bitten, to say the least."
"What does frost-bitten mean?" Teddy asked.
"Well, it means almost frozen," explained his mother. "Now you and Janet
can take Trouble up to the playroom and have a good time, while I help
Nora with the work."
"We want to see daddy and Uncle Frank dig in the snow out to the barn,"
said Teddy.
"Well, you may watch them a little while, and then take care of Baby
William."
"You can't see very much," said Uncle Prank, "The snow is still coming
down hard and it blows so we can hardly see one another. So you won't
see much of us from the windows."
"Well, maybe we can see a little," remarked Janet, and she and Teddy,
with Trouble between them, perched on chairs with their faces close
against the snow covered glass. Of course the snow was on the outside,
but it made the inside of the window-pane quite cold, and in a little
while, Jan drew her face away and, feeling her nose, cried:
"Oh, Ted! It's frozen 'most, like daddy's was!"
"So's mine!" exclaimed Ted, feeling of his nose.
"Mine cold, too!" added Trouble, putting his chubby palm over his
"smeller" as he sometimes called his nose.
Indeed the noses of the children were cold from having been pressed so
long against the window, and when Aunt Jo heard what they had been doing
she said:
"I wouldn't stay near the window any longer if I were you. The wind
blows in a little, and it's drafty. You will get cold all over--not only
your little noses. Go up to the playroom and I'll come, too. We'll have
some fun."
"Just wait until we see if we can watch daddy and Uncle Frank a minute,"
pleaded Teddy.
They all looked out of the window again. Once in a while they had a
glimpse of their father or his uncle tossing the snow to one side. The
two men were trying to dig a path from the house to the barn, and they
were down in a deep trench, with white walls on either side.
"This is a terrible storm!" said Aunt Jo as she went up to the playroom
with the Curlytops and Trouble. "I hope no little boys or girls are out
in it."
"I hope not, either," echoed Jan with a little shiver, as she heard the
wind howl around the corner of the house and dash the hard flakes of
snow up against the windows.
"If any boys or girls were out in it they could stay in our bungalow,"
said Ted. "There's some blankets in there and a little to eat."
"And they could drink snow for water," said Jan. "I ate some snow once
and it tickled my throat."
"Snow isn't good to eat," said Aunt Jo. "Up near the North Pole, the
Eskimos and travelers never eat snow. It would make them ill. They melt
it and drink the water when they are thirsty. But I hope no little boy
or girl has to leave his or her warm house and live in your bungalow,
nice as it may be. I'm afraid they'd be pretty cold in it even with a
blanket and a piece of carpet."
"If daddy and Uncle Frank would dig a path we could go out to our
bungalow and see," observed Jan.
"Maybe there's a tramp in it, like we thought there was on Star Island,"
went on Ted.
And, though neither Ted nor Jan knew it, there was someone in their snow
bungalow.
Up in the playroom the Curlytops and Trouble had fun with Aunt Jo. She
told them stories and made up little games for them, while outside the
storm raged and the snow came down faster than ever.
"Come on!" cried Teddy after waiting a bit, "let's play that guessing
game some more."
"Oh, let's!" agreed Jan. "It's lots of fun!"
This was a game in which one of them would think of something in the
attic--the old spinning wheel, the steamboat chair or maybe a string of
sleigh bells. Then the one who had the turn of thinking would tell the
others the first letter of the name of the thing thought of, and perhaps
something about it. The others had to guess what it was, and whoever
guessed first was next in turn to think of something.
Teddy, Jan and Aunt Jo played this game for a while, but it was not much
fun for Trouble. He was too little to know how to spell the things he
thought of, though he could name almost everything in the attic, even if
he called some by nicknames he made up himself.
"Let's play something that will be fun for Trouble," said Aunt Jo after
a while.
"What?" asked Teddy.
"How would hide the bean bag be?" asked Aunt Jo.
"We haven't any bean bag," replied Teddy. "We had one, but Trouble threw
it in the hedge and we can't find it."
"Well, I can easily make one," said Aunt Jo, and this she quickly did,
getting beans from the kitchen, and sewing a bag from a piece of cloth
from the rag-bag.
"Now we'll let Trouble hide the bag first," said Aunt Jo, "as he hasn't
had much fun this last hour. You take the bag of beans, Trouble dear,
and hide it anywhere you like. Only you must remember where you put it,
so when we give up, if we can't find it, you can get it to hide again."
"All right!" laughed the little fellow, and then they told him all over
again so he would be sure and not forget.
"Maybe you look where I put it," said Trouble, when he was about to take
the bag and hide it.
"No, well blind our eyes so we can't see," promised Jan.
"And we won't look until you tell us you're ready," added Ted.
"And I promise I won't peep!" laughed Aunt Jo.
"Aw wight!" said Trouble, with a wise look on his chubby little face.
Then the others closed their eyes, and turned their backs, so they would
be sure to see nothing, and Trouble, with the bag of beans in his hand,
went wandering about the attic looking for a place to hide what he hoped
Aunt Jo and the others would have to look a long time for.
"Are you ready, Trouble?" asked Jan, after a bit.
"Have you hid it yet?" inquired Ted.
"Yes, I put it hid," answered Baby William, and when they looked they
saw him sitting on the floor near the chimney.
Then began the hunt for the bean bag. Aunt Jo and the two Curlytops
looked in all the places in which they thought Trouble might have hidden
it. They peered into boxes and old trunks, under boards, around the
ledges of rafters and beams and everywhere.
"I guess we can't find it!" said Aunt Jo at last. "You hid it too well,
Trouble. Tell us where you put it and then hide it in an easier place
next time. Where is the bean bag, dear?"
"I--I _sittin'_ on it!" laughed Trouble, and when he got up, there,
surely enough, was the bag under him on the attic floor.
How they both did laugh at him, and Trouble laughed, too, and they had
lots more fun, each one taking a turn to hide the bag.
Now and then the children would go to the window to look out, but they
could see little. All Cresco was snowed in. As far as the children could
see, no one was in the street.
Cresco, where the Curlytops lived, was a large town, and there was a
trolley line running through it, but not near the home of Janet and Ted.
"But I guess the trolley isn't running to-day," Teddy remarked, after a
game of bean-bag.
"I guess not," agreed Aunt Jo. "The cars would be snowed under."
Just then Mrs. Martin called Aunt Jo to help her with some work, and the
children were left to themselves. They ran to the window, hoping they
could see something, but the snow was either too high on the sill or the
glass was frosted with the frozen flakes so no one could look through.
"Let's open the window!" suddenly proposed Ted. "Then we can get a
little snow and make snowballs and play with 'em in here."
"Oh, let's!" cried Janet.
"Me want snowball, too!"
"We'll give you a little one," promised his sister.
By standing on a chair Teddy managed to shove back the catch of the
window, but to raise the sash was not so easy. It was frozen down, and
held fast by the drift of snow on the sill.
"I know how to raise it," said Jan.
"How?" asked her brother.
"Get daddy's cane and push it up. I saw Aunt Jo do it the other day."
Mr. Martin's cane was down in the hall, and Ted soon brought it
upstairs. He put one end of it under the upper edge of the lower window
sash and then he and Jan pushed with all their might. But the window did
not go up.
"Push harder!" cried Teddy.
"I am!" answered Janet.
They both shoved as hard as they could on the cane and then it suddenly
slipped. There was a crash and a tinkle of glass, and the children
toppled over on the floor while the room was filled with a swirl of
snowflakes blown in through the broken window.
"Oh, it's busted!" cried Teddy. "You did it, Janet Martin!"
"Oh, The-o-dore Baradale Martin! I did not! You pushed it yourself!"
"I didn't!"
"You did so!"
"Well, who got the cane, anyhow?"
"Well, who told me to get it?"
"I got some snow! I got some snow!" cried Trouble, and he tossed
handfuls at his brother and sister, who had risen to their feet and were
looking at the broken glass. The end of the cane had gone through it and
the wind and snow were blowing into the room. On the carpet was a white
drift that had fallen from the window sill.
"Oh, children! what _are_ you doing?" cried Mrs. Martin, when she saw
what had happened.
"The window broke," said Teddy slowly.
"Yes, I see it did," answered his mother. "Who did it?"
Then Teddy proved himself a little hero, for he said:
"I--I guess I did. I got the cane and it slipped."
"I--I helped," bravely confessed Janet. "I told him to get the cane and
I pushed on it, too."
"Well, I guess you didn't mean to," said Mrs. Martin kindly. "But it's
too bad. We can't get the window fixed in this storm, and daddy will
have to nail a board or something over the hole. Trouble, come away from
that snow!"
Trouble was having fun with the snow that came in through the hole, and
did not want to stop. But his mother caught him up in her arms and took
him out of the room, sending in Nora to sweep up the pile of white
flakes on the carpet.
Then Daddy Martin nailed a heavy blanket over the window to keep out
the cold wind, though a little did come in, and snow also.
"Did you and Uncle Frank dig a path out to the barn?" asked Teddy, when
the excitement over the broken window had died down.
"Not yet," answered his father. "I guess we'll have to make a tunnel."
"Oh, a real tunnel, like railroad trains go through?" cried Ted.
"Yes, only made of snow instead of earth and rocks. We're going to make
a snow tunnel."
"Oh, that'll be fun!" exclaimed Jan.