RIDDLE CHAP
Of course it wasn’t the right thing to do--to go through Carrie’s
desk. Margy herself had the feeling that she was in the wrong, but she
certainly didn’t mean to let Carrie keep Polly’s pin if she had it.
Neither did Margy like the idea of telling the teacher and asking her
to have Carrie search her desk.
“I’m the one to get that pin back, and I’m going to do it,” thought
Margy, as she marched upstairs, leaving five sober-faced children to
wait for her.
Luckily, there was no one in the classroom when Margy entered it. She
supposed a burglar must feel as she did when she thrust her right
hand into Carrie’s desk. Two pencils, a box of candy cough drops, a
handkerchief with a gingham border--Margy’s fingers touched the back of
the desk. There, far up in one corner, she felt something that pricked
her.
“Ouch!” she said, and drew out the pin.
Waiting only to return the things she had taken out, Margy flew down
the stairs and presented the pin to an astonished and delighted Polly.
“And don’t lose it again,” she lectured her. “I might not be able to
find it so easily a second time.”
“I’ll be careful,” promised Polly.
“Did Carrie really have it in her desk?” asked Jess, round-eyed.
“She certainly did!” replied Margy, as they started to walk home. “I
was almost sure she’d keep it there.”
“Say, what will she say when she can’t find it to-morrow morning?” said
Artie. “And if she sees Polly wearing it, what will she think?”
“I don’t care what she thinks,” broke in Fred. “The point is, she can’t
say anything. She won’t dare go around saying some one went through her
desk, because she’d sound nice saying that some one took a Riddle Club
pin she found on the stairs, wouldn’t she?”
“Perhaps she wasn’t sure it _was_ my pin,” suggested Polly.
But the others laughed at this idea. The new pins Mr. Kirby had sent
them were quite unlike any other pins in the town of River Bend and
certainly Carrie knew them as well as the pins of her own Conundrum
Club. Besides, wasn’t Polly’s name on the back?
“Let’s take our pins off before we begin to build the snowman,” said
Polly, when they came in sight of their homes. “We might easily lose
one in the snow.”
This was hailed as a wise precaution, and they ran in to put their
individual pins in safe places.
Fred stopped short in surprise when he saw his room. The rug had been
taken up, the bed was rolled in one corner, and his closet door was
wide open. A row of his shoes stood on a newspaper spread on the window
sill and in the center of his rocking chair sat the precious bank. A
strange woman was down on her hands and knees, mopping the floor with
hot water.
“I guess you’re Fred,” she said, smilingly. “Your ma set me to cleaning
this room this afternoon. I’ll put things back just the way you had
them.”
Fred put his pin on the cushion on his bureau--which was covered with a
white towel to protect it from dust--and then glanced at his bank. He
didn’t like to leave it there.
“I’ll take it over to the clubroom and leave it there, I guess,” he
said to himself. “It won’t hurt to leave it there all night.”
It had been decided to build the gigantic snowman between the Marley
and the Williamson house, because they had the advantage of two large
yards filled with snow. Fred found that Ward and Artie had already
started to roll a ball for the body of the snowman.
“I’ve been thinking,” said Fred, joining them: “What shall we make the
letters R.C. of? If we do them in snow they won’t show up very well.”
“We can get red flannel or something,” said the resourceful Polly.
“I think red and white would be pretty, because Christmas is coming.”
“Maybe we can give him a little Christmas tree to hold,” said Jess.
“That would look fine, wouldn’t it? A great, big snowman, holding a
Christmas tree.”
“There--this is a good place to stand him,” declared Fred. “Don’t roll
the ball any larger. We can begin to build now.”
They had a fair sized ball of snow rolled, and Fred had chosen a spot
near the walk to have him stand.
“Get all the snow you can and plaster it against this ball,” directed
Fred. “We’ll have a fat snowman while we’re about it.”
River Bend was a happy town in which to live, if you happened to be
fond of playing in the snow. There was no limit to the quantities you
could collect, if you were willing to work and the storm had been a
heavy one. Jess and Ward got out the wheel-barrow and trundled loads
of the white stuff from their own lawn. As Ward said, it was a pity to
“let it waste.”
“Wait a minute,” said Fred, suddenly. “We’re forgetting his legs. If we
build him sitting down, he won’t be nearly tall enough. We must start
two columns, and use them for legs, and then put the ball of snow on
top of them.”
So they set to work and soon had two large, squatty columns of snow
that looked like the piling in Ward’s father’s wharf.
“The snow packs fine, doesn’t it?” said Polly to Margy.
The girls were as busy as the boys, hauling snow and packing it down
firmly, and never a word did Margy say about cold feet. She was far too
interested to pay attention to her feet.
“Now we’ll have to lift that ball somehow,” said Fred, when the legs
were pronounced finished. “You and Polly get on one side, Margy, and
Ward and Artie get over here. Jess and I’ll take this side.”
The snow was not very heavy to lift, but it was hard to handle, and so
cold that they felt it through their gloves. With some difficulty,
they finally had it in place, and the statue already looked like a
snowman, Artie declared, stepping back to view their handiwork.
“Well, we’ve come to the place where we’ll have to have a stepladder,”
said Fred.
“Why don’t we use the loft ladder?” asked Jess. “That’s light and easy
to carry.”
“We can’t lean it against the snowman--he’d topple over,” replied Fred.
“We have a stepladder, but I noticed it up in our hall. The cleaning
woman was probably using it.”
“I’ll get ours,” offered Polly. “I know where it is--on the back porch.
I can bring it.”
Fred and Artie went with her and brought the ladder back. Then it had
to be set up with care, for every one knows that a stepladder takes
delight in falling over just as you reach the top step. Fred opened it
and fastened the bars and ran lightly up to the top to test it.
“That’s all right,” he said. “Say, this is fun. We can pretend we’re
brick-layers and bring up hods filled with snow.”
“We haven’t any hods,” Ward reminded him.
“That flat board will do,” said Fred. “Here, give it to me; I’ll show
you.”
He took a flat light board that happened to be on the ground and
scooped two handfuls of snow on it. Then he mounted the ladder,
carrying the board and the snow, and deposited them on the square
little shelf that was under the top step.
“Here you are, Riddle Chap,” he addressed the snowman’s body. “We are
going to make you the best looking chap for miles around.”
“Riddle Chap!” cried Artie. “That’s fine, Fred. We’ll call him that.
His initials stand for Riddle Chap, don’t they?”
“Well, of course, he has to have a name,” Fred chuckled. “If we’re
going to make him as large as life, he’ll need a name so we can
introduce him to our friends.”
Each of the boys and girls took turns going up and down the ladder
and each added some new beauty to the snowman. He had buttons on his
waistcoat, and arms that crooked at the elbows--that was Polly’s idea.
She had taken two pieces of old rubber hose and bent them to look like
arms. The snow had been carefully packed around and over these.
Ward and Artie made the neck, and they all shaped the head with its
peaked cap. Margy insisted that the initials were not to go on till the
head was in place, and this proved a wise plan, for they dropped the
head three times and had to do it over before Fred and Artie finally
succeeded in putting it on the neck.
“Oh, for pity’s sake!” cried Polly, watching from the ground. “You have
it turned all the way around! The poor snowman is looking backward.”
Slowly and carefully, Fred turned the head till it faced in the right
direction. Then Margy handed up the letters cut from strips of red
flannel, and Fred put them on the visor of the cap. The snowman had
coal black eyes, a mouth like a red pepper, and ears that bore a
resemblance to orange peel. He was very tall indeed--far taller than
any of those who had made him--and when his makers looked at him they
were agreed that he was quite the largest statue they had ever tried to
build.
“If it’s cold to-night, we can throw water over it and let it freeze,”
said Fred, standing off a little to admire his handiwork.
“There’s Carrie,” said Jess, in a low tone. “See her coming out? I
guess she is going to the post-office.”
“What are you doing?” Carrie called, from across the street. “What’s
that funny thing?”
Before they could answer her, she had crossed over and was staring at
the snowman.
“Well, of all the queer things to do!” said Carrie. “Regular child
play, I call it, building a snowman.”
“That’s some snowman you have there!” called a hearty voice, and Harry
Worden crossed from the other side of the street. “I’ll take a picture
of him to-morrow for you, when the sun is out. I don’t think I ever saw
as large a one as that.”
“Is it as large as the one they had in Stockton last year?” asked
Artie, hopefully.
“Much taller,” replied Harry. “I’d like to get a snapshot of this one.
Don’t let anything happen to him, and I’ll be around in the afternoon
as soon as school is out.”
Carrie went on to the post-office. It was nearly dark, and in a few
minutes the five o’clock whistle would sound.
“Gee, it will be nice to have a picture of our snowman,” said Artie.
“We can frame it and have it in our clubroom.”
Fred looked a little startled.
“Speaking of the clubroom reminds me of something,” he said hurriedly.
“Mind if I go over to your house, Artie?”
“Sure, come on,” replied Artie, hospitably. “Want that book I said I’d
lend you?”
“I want to go up to the clubroom a minute,” explained Fred.
But when he went upstairs with Artie, the clubroom door was locked.
Ward had the key as usual.
“I started to bring the bank over here this afternoon,” said Fred, a
little worried frown between his eyes. “I thought I did it. But if I
didn’t, what _did_ I do with the bank?”
“Maybe you left it in your own room,” said Artie, comfortably.
“I’m sure I didn’t,” Fred answered. “But it won’t hurt to go and look.
I might have put it down again without thinking.”
“Lots of times I think I’ve done a thing and haven’t,” observed Artie,
trotting beside Fred, as he went back to the Williamson house. “And
sometimes I think I didn’t do a thing and it turns out that I did.”
But neither of these “thinks” proved of much help to Fred. The bank was
not in his room, now in perfect, shining order with his things in their
accustomed places. It was not on the hall table where he had once left
it. In fact, the sad fact dawned on Fred, slowly and unhappily, that he
had lost the bank and its precious contents.